President Sheldon Hackney has asked Robert H. Dyson, Jr., Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences and Curator of the Near East Section, to combine the Acting Directorship of the Museum with the Deanship during the coming months while a search committee for a permanent Director carries out its task. William R. Coe, Curator of the American Section, will serve as Acting Associate Director during the period and Gregory Possehl will act as Assistant to the Acting Director for Museological Services. This interim team will make every effort to maintain the important initiatives started by Martin Biddle in the areas of Museological Services relating to the preservation, storage and inventorying of the collections and in the further development of an active publications program—all of which are essential elements to the future success of the Museum, It is also anticipated that the case statement under consideration for a development drive will be further refined with the aim of initiating it at the earliest appropriate time. In these ways it is the hope of everyone concerned that the forward momentum of the Museum can be sustained during the interim period.
Gorman Memorial Fund
To help continue the work to which Dr. Chester Gorman devoted his life, the University Museum announces establishment of the Gorman Memorial Fund for Archaeology in Southeast Asia. The fund will be used to support prehistoric archaeology, primarily in Thailand and secondarily in Southeast Asia generally. It will also be used for the publication of the results of this work. Contributions should be made to “Gorman Memorial Fund” and mailed to The University Museum, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA 19104.
Drexel Medal Award
Gordon Randolph Willey was awarded the Lucy Wharton Drexel Medal at the University Museum’s annual Fellows’ Dinner on May 28th. Dr. Willey, a distinguished anthropologist and archaeologist who is the Bowditch Professor of Archaeology at Harvard University, received the medal “for his contributions to knowledge of the Pre-Columbian civilizations of the Americas and especially of the ancient Maya.”
His interest and expertise in New World archaeology and in the study of settlement patterns have taken Dr. Willey to the south and southeast United States, Peru, Panama, British Honduras, Guatemala, and Honduras. He has published widely, his scholarly publications including Excavations in the Chancay Valley (Peru), 1943; Prehistoric Settlement Patterns in the Vim Valley, Peru, 1953; An Introduction to American Archaeology, 1966-71; The Altar de Sacrificios Excavations (Guatemala), 1973. He is co-author of Prehistoric Maya Settlements in the Belize Valley, 1965; A History of American Archaeology, 1973; and The Origins of Maya Civilization, 1977. Dr. Willey has been the recipient of numerous awards, among them The Order of the Quetzal of Guatemala in 1968; the Gold Medal for Distinguished Archaeological Achievement from the Archaeological Institute of America in 1973; the Huxley Medal, Royal Anthropological Institute in 1979; and most recently, the Walker Prize from the Boston Museum of Science in May of this year.
The University Museum periodically awards the Lucy Wharton Drexel Medal to an eminent English-speaking scholar “for recognition of the most outstanding archaeological excavation or the best publication based upon archaeological excavation.” Gordon Willey is the twenty-first scholar to receive the Medal since it was first given in 1903.