BREAKING NEWS – Sternberg curator challenges misconceptions, seeks no-sale assurance as paleontology leaders urge transparency

Dr. Shimada a vertebra of Cretodus houghtonorum in FHSM VP-17575 (featured in “Example 1” of his Oct.27 followup leter to President Mason)  along with its teeth, among many other scientific specimens in the background.  Photo was taken in Dr. Shimadas Chicago lab in Chicago when the Sternberg specimen was on loan to him for study.  According to Shimada, the cabinets and how the specimens are organized in his Chicago lab are just like typical natural history museums. [Courtesy of Dr. Kenshu Shimada]

By Gaille Pike

Special to the Hays Daily News

A current Sternberg Museum adjunct curator is challenging what he identified as two misconceptions in Fort Hays State University (FHSU) President Tisa Mason’s legislative testimony and urging Mason to publicly rule out specimen sales. National and international paleontology leaders are also calling for transparency and continued protection of the museum’s scientific and educational mission.

Dr. Kenshu Shimada’s Oct. 27 follow-up letter first addresses Sternberg’s role in attracting and educating FHSU students, then explains why its specimens are natural heritage and research evidence rather than art objects. Those distinctions underpin his request for an unequivocal assurance that selling any portion of the permanent collections is completely off the table.

As of 2:30 p.m. Friday, Oct. 30, Shimada had not received a response.

Shimada’s letter, the Society of Vertebrate Paleontology’s Oct. 29 statement and Paleontological Society President Dr. Mark Patzkowsky’s Oct. 29 interview welcomed Mason’s Monday reversal of the planned Dec. 18 closure. But Shimada, SVP and Patzkowsky emphasized unfinished work: Shimada sought collections assurances and staff involvement; SVP demanded clearer communication; and Patzkowsky, speaking personally, urged continued attention. The Paleontological Society’s earlier statement separately called for preserving FHSU’s Sternberg partnership.

The reversal followed gifts, commitments and matching support surpassing the initial $1 million fundraising goal. Mason announced work toward a sustainable business plan, leaving staffing, research access, collections care and future university funding unresolved.

As of approximately 2:41 p.m. Friday, the FHSU Foundation’s Save Sternberg page had not been updated to reflect the announcement that the museum would remain open. The page still said $1 million must be raised by Dec. 31 to “sustain Sternberg’s future” and displayed $923,455 in donations—92.3% of the goal—based on an update timestamped Oct. 30, 2026, at 2:41 p.m.

Shimada challenges the separation of Sternberg from FHSU’s educational mission

Shimada wrote as an FHSU geology alumnus, educator, researcher and current adjunct curator. He earned his bachelor’s degree in 1993 and master’s degree in 1994 at FHSU.

During Monday’s Legislative Budget Committee hearing, Mason said she evaluated activities by whether they directly benefit students’ enrollment, persistence, graduation or employment. She distinguished Sternberg from academic programs generating credit hours, tuition revenue and degrees.

“That doesn’t diminish its cultural or its community value,” Mason said, but the museum “sits outside the metrics the university is funded and evaluated on.”

Shimada’s first stated misconception was that Sternberg does not bring students to the university.

“Contrary to your doubts, the Sternberg Museum does bring students to FHSU from both inside and outside the state,” he wrote, including international students. “Case in point, I chose FHSU for college and my master’s program because of the Sternberg Museum!”

He credited Sternberg with supporting fellow graduates’ paleontology careers and FHSU’s international scientific identity. He also described hosting a Sternberg science camp satellite site in Chicago in 2025, where high school students encountered museum specimens under active study.

Shimada explains why scientific specimens are not art objects

His second stated misconception concerns how specimens are understood. Shimada’s letter said he heard Mason describe them as “cultural arts,” qualifying that recollection with “if I heard correctly.” The transcript of Monday’s Legislative Budget Committee hearing records Mason discussing cultural and community value, but not explicitly calling specimens “cultural arts.”

Shimada argues that specimens preserve scientific evidence whose importance is not determined by appearance.

“Most people only know natural history museums from general exhibits that are primarily for educational purposes,” he explained Friday. “However, almost all public-trust natural history museums are much more than that.”

Museums also function as “‘specimen repositories’” responsible for caring for scientific material “in perpetuity” for research and preservation of the public’s natural heritage, he said.

His letter illustrates that responsibility through two specimens. FHSM VP-17575, a partial skeleton of the fossil shark Cretodus houghtonorum, was studied by Shimada and fellow adjunct curator Mike Everhart. Shimada and Everhart named the species for the Houghton family of Tipton, who donated the specimen and supported its excavation. Research took nearly a decade. As a holotype, it anchors the species’ scientific identity. Continued access allows researchers to check, correct or expand the published findings.

The second example is a jar containing approximately 32,850 isolated fish teeth from a fossil-rich slab collected near Monument Rocks in the mid-1950s. Shimada encountered the preserved slab as an undergraduate; a graduate student completed subsequent research in 2022. Its significance emerged through decades of preservation and study.

“Hence, again, there are no ‘dispensable specimens’ in the permanent collections at the Sternberg Museum,” Shimada wrote.

Shimada asks Mason to permanently rule out specimen sales

Shimada then asked whether possible specimen sales remain on “‘pause’” or are “off the table completely,” requesting a formal public statement confirming the latter.

FHSU previously said no consultant was contracted and no sale was authorized. Shimada seeks a broader commitment about future decisions.

He also questioned rapid cataloging expectations amid what he described as inadequate collections-management staffing. He urged collaborative funding planning that excludes commercializing or relocating permanent collections as options, and encouraged Mason to visit staff, students and volunteers directly.

SVP renews transparency concerns after offering FHSU expert assistance

The Society of Vertebrate Paleontology, or SVP, is an international scientific organization representing approximately 2,000 researchers, educators, students and enthusiasts dedicated to studying, preserving and protecting vertebrate fossils and their geological contexts. Its involvement in Sternberg’s future predates the closure reversal.

In an Oct. 9 letter, SVP urged FHSU to protect the collections and offered scientific, legal and technical expertise. During an Oct. 14 interview with the Hays Daily News, President Dr. Stuart Sumida explained that the organization could connect FHSU with museum professionals, federal agency partners and qualified members, including university alumni.

“We have professionals who work in paleontology and at museums who have the expertise, both with federal law and museum policy,” Sumida said. “We could help advise how to do this in a scientifically ethical manner.”

During the Oct. 14 interview, Sumida said another FHSU administrator had acknowledged receiving SVP’s letter, but Mason had not responded directly to the offer of assistance. As of the SVP Oct. 29 statement, no further response has been received. The SVP’s initial letter also opposed involving commercial fossil dealers in collections decisions after FHSU identified London gallery director Salomon Aaron as its outside museum adviser.

SVP’s Oct. 29 statement continued that involvement, welcoming the reversal as “a hopeful step” generated by “profound community unity,” while urging Mason to “avoid ambiguity and adopt transparency.”

The organization emphasized that the reprieve extends through FHSU’s current fiscal year, not a full year from Monday’s announcement.

“Such distinctions must be articulated clearly in the public-facing statements regarding the Sternberg,” SVP said. Monday’s Hays Daily News reporting likewise distinguished temporary funding from guaranteed continuation of the operating model.

The SVP’s earlier letter cited Sternberg’s collections policy requiring preservation “in perpetuity for the common good” and restricting transfers from public to private ownership. SVP warned that removing specimens could disrupt students’ research and undermine verification of published science — concerns central to Shimada’s letter.

The SVP Oct. 29 statement also connected Hays’ response with efforts to reopen Drexel University’s Academy of Natural Sciences in Philadelphia.

“The events in Hays are no longer restricted to the state of Kansas, but are having national ripple effects,” it said. Inside Higher Ed similarly reported encouragement among Philadelphia advocates.

The SVP Oct. 29 statement’s warning against abandoning museums or “clandestine attempts to monetize their resources” expresses the organization’s position, not evidence of an unauthorized Sternberg sale.

Paleontological Society urges FHSU to maintain Sternberg’s educational partnership

The Paleontological Society, or PS, is a separate international nonprofit organization founded in 1908. According to President Mark Patzkowsky, there are approximately 1,500 PS members and the global organization’s scientific scope encompasses vertebrates, invertebrates, plants and other fossil material.

The Paleontological Society’s Sternberg policy statement preceded Monday’s reversal.

Patzkowsky clarified the policy statement’s release during an interview yesterday, citing an Oct. 24 email reporting that the statement had been distributed to university leadership, regents and legislators prior to the Oct .26 KS Legislative Budget Committee meeting. The statement then appeared and was discussed on social media Oct. 27. It urged FHSU not to abandon its museum partnership and highlighted collections, museum studies certification and camps.

Patzkowsky’s Oct. 29 interview also supplied his subsequent personal reaction. A Topeka native and Kansas State University graduate, Patzkowsky recalled Sternberg’s memorable “fish within a fish” and described museum studies certification as “a rather unique offering and something that people seek out.”

He characterized specimens as “scientific objects” revealing life’s evolution and past worlds. While welcoming fundraising and planning, he remained concerned enough to keep watching.

“It’s not like I could go to sleep at night and go, okay, we’re done,” he said.

For Shimada, protecting that future requires recognizing Sternberg’s academic role, preserving its scientific evidence and publicly removing specimen sales from consideration.

For copies of the letter email contact Gaile Pike at [email protected]