Transcript
Jennifer Berglund 00:04
Welcome to HMSC Connects!, where we go behind the scenes of four Harvard museums to explore the connections between us, our big, beautiful world, and even what lies beyond. My name is Jennifer Berglund, part of the Exhibits Team here at the Harvard Museums of Science and Culture, and I’ll be your host. Today, I’m speaking with Elizabeth Solinga, our new Administrative Director of the Harvard Museums of Science and Culture. As HMSC has been searching for a new Executive Director, Elizabeth, along with the senior leadership team, has been keeping the museums humming along. Excitingly, we have now found a new executive director – more on that soon! – but I wanted to speak with Elizabeth about her new role, and the things that brought her to the museum world in the first place. Here she is. Elizabeth Solinga, welcome to the show.
Elizabeth Solinga 01:13
Thank you so much for having me.
Jennifer Berglund 01:19
You grew up in an academic environment in Arizona. Both of your parents worked in the university, and so you basically grew up on campus. What was that like, and how do you think it influenced where you are today?
Elizabeth Solinga 01:31
It’s really funny, so even in just preparing to have these conversations, just really start thinking back on what my childhood was like, I’m really struck by how comfortable I am in academic settings, and I’m quite sure that that’s because I grew up really hanging out in my dad’s lab, and as a little kid rollerskating down the halls of a Biology Department and delivering mail for the staff in the office, and it was extremely formative. I always felt welcome. I felt like it was a great, safe place to ask questions and be curious, and it was just a phenomenal gift I think to grow up that way. As a kid, I got to see firsthand work that was happening in labs with amphibians, and hold the frogs, and watch experiments on how quickly they could catch fruit flies, and just all these things that I recognize are not an unquote and quote “normal part” of most people’s childhoods but were very much part of mine. My dad’s a physiologist and he did cardiac research, and my mom actually went back to school when I was – I think – in second or third grade, and finished her undergrad and then went on to do graduate studies in history, so she was really in the history department when I was closer to my teen years so on campus a little bit less, but I was in my dad’s lab quite a bit as a little kid.
Jennifer Berglund 02:45
That must have been fun.
Elizabeth Solinga 02:47
Yeah, it was super cool, and it didn’t hurt that my best friend’s father was also a physiologist, and so it was sort of the two of us raising a ruckus through the Biology Department, so apologies to the biologists in Northern Arizona University for that.
Jennifer Berglund 03:01
Growing up in a university environment, your parents often took you to museums, and they like to spark your intellectual curiosity, and so you describe museums as feeling like safe and comfortable spaces for you. Why do you think that is?
Elizabeth Solinga 03:18
I think it’s sort of an extension of the university setting for me. So my parents, as you said – they’re really invested in sparking curiosity and continuing sort of a spirit of learning in most aspects of my life, and so they’re both extremely curious people themselves. And so almost all of our vacations involved spending time in museums and getting to see firsthand things that I’ve been looking at in books or hearing about in school, and it was just very important to them, I think, that that was the way that we spent our time as a family and as a consequence, I’ve always felt comfortable going into museums, kind of figuring out the wayfinding, checking out what the flow of the crowd looks like. Cafes are always a hit, although that can be kind of hit and miss, but it was a great way to grow up and I ended up going to high school from 10th grade on in a Charter School that focused on sort of arts and creative arts, and happened to be on the grounds of the Museum of Northern Arizona, so my high school experience was really proximate to museum spaces, and to arts and culture so an extremely fortunate way of growing up.
Jennifer Berglund 04:21
Did you have like a particular kind of museum that you preferred or where did you feel most comfortable?
Elizabeth Solinga 04:28
We visited mostly art museums. That was the bulk of it growing up and we had several trips to DC and all of the museums associated with the Smithsonian, and it’s interesting because even though my dad is a physiologist, he doesn’t tend to gravitate toward Natural History Museums, which is kind of interesting.
Jennifer Berglund 04:44
Oh, that’s very interesting.
Elizabeth Solinga 04:46
Yeah, I think it’s just he has so many outlets for that side of his curiosity through work, and so when it’s time to do something that’s a leisure activity or part of a vacation or part of family time… maybe it was actually me and my mom driving that? I don’t know, but he never raised an objection, so…
Jennifer Berglund 05:04
Yeah.
Elizabeth Solinga 05:05
He just kind of goes with the flow.
Jennifer Berglund 05:07
You grew up a curious kid in a house full of intellectuals. When you finally got to your undergrad, you were very interested in anthropology and in religious studies. What was it that sparked your curiosity during your undergrad?
Elizabeth Solinga 05:25
That’s a really interesting question, and it’s really digging back through the brain a bit because it’s been so long now, but when I had started school, I didn’t really have a great sense of what I wanted to do. I wasn’t a kid who went into college with a direct career path. So my dad advises pre-med students, and so it’s really clear, like when you’ve got to pre-med students that the course is super, super clear for what courses need to happen, what majors are, etc. I didn’t have a solid direction. I kind of was curious but not settled in any one path, and so going to Northern Arizona University, and having a real solid kind of liberal arts basis, I had exposure to lots of different things. And so when it came time to finally nail down a major, I really couldn’t choose between humanities and anthropology, and so I just decided to do both And I think it’s just this extension of my lifelong fascination with people and with the way that they use arts and culture to express themselves and to connect with one another, and the way it can lead to conflict. Obviously, we have that as well. But I think that that was really just where my natural curiosity landed, and so it felt like a really good fit. It’s funny, because even though my parents were both sort of academic, as we would say, I remember my dad sat me down really early on in college was just like, “Are you sure you want to do this? What is that actually going to look like for a career down the road?” And at least now, you know, 25-plus years later, I can say, “Ha! See!” There’s somewhere to go with it. It just took a long and winding path. So the very tail end of school, I think it was the last, either the last semester or the semester prior, I participated in a cultural field school that was run out of the University of Northern Illinois, and we went to Cambodia. And the focus of that field school at the time was the re-emergence of Buddhism in rural areas following the recovery period after the war, and the Khmer Rouge’s control of Cambodia. It was an incredible experience. I think I was there for three or four weeks, and really, really fascinating and just very valuable. As it was valuable to be there and to try something new, it was also valuable because it really showed me I’m here at the tail end of my degree, I’m like, “Okay, I don’t think that fieldwork is actually where I’m gonna take this.” So it was a really good experience for learning what might come next, which was not going to be hands-on, day-to-day cultural anthropology in the field.
Jennifer Berglund 06:54
What else did you learn about yourself? Like, what did you like about it?
Elizabeth Solinga 07:54
Oh, my gosh, it’s so eye-opening. I mean, I highly, highly encourage international travel, especially for young folks, if it’s possible to make it happen. I learned that I had had a much more comfortable existence up to that point, really seeing the way that folks live out in the middle of the jungle, we were based out of Phnom Penh, but we would take a series of boats and van trips to get to the religious centers where we were doing the fieldwork, an hour and 15 minutes, just way out deep into the jungle. And that was just a really new experience for me. Even though I grew up in northern Arizona, which is known for a very robust outdoor community of river rafters, hikers, rock climbers, all the things. I used to say that I got kicked out of Arizona because I wasn’t outdoorsy enough, so this sort of reinforced that I really do like my creature comforts, and it was really, really fascinating and really challenging, but definitely eye-opening that if it wasn’t going to be for me in the long term.
Jennifer Berglund 08:48
After that, you decided that your space was more in this museum space where you had always felt comfortable. It’s interesting that you’re only starting to work for HMSC now because – actually – the thing that brought you to Boston originally was that you wanted to find work in a museum.
Elizabeth Solinga 09:10
Right.
Jennifer Berglund 09:10
So first off, I’m curious, what is it about Boston that felt like museum central? And what did you hope to do in a museum when you arrived?
Elizabeth Solinga 09:19
that’s really funny, so Boston was just sort of not that I was throwing a dart at the map, my dad had done a sabbatical at BU when I was 12 and I had come out here to visit him and had some experience spending time in the city and just always kind of thought, “That was a really great place. I’d like to go back someday.” When I graduated school, I was really ready for a dramatic change in life, and one of my closest friends was accepted to a vocal performance master’s program at BU and so just sort of haphazardly decided, “You know what, I’m just gonna go. I’m going to move to Boston with this friend of mine and see how it goes.” And she ended up not sticking around, but I did. And I did, as you say, come here with this sort of broad, overarching goal of I want to work in museums, and I had absolutely no idea what that meant. What I was looking to do, I would hand deliver resumes at the MFA just hoping to do anything there, Museum of Science, the Gardener. I mean, it is museum central. I mean, I think that we know that the New England area, in general, but definitely Boston has so many amazing cultural institutions. And I just wanted to be part of it. I didn’t really know what that meant yet, or what I wanted to do specifically, but I just wanted to be there and in that space.
Jennifer Berglund 10:28
And it took you a while to get there, because, soon – after a while – you started working in Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Grants Administration.
Elizabeth Solinga 10:36
Right.
Jennifer Berglund 10:37
But while you were doing that, you eventually started a continuing education program at the Harvard Extension School, which allowed you to pursue a degree in Museum Studies. Tell me about that program, and how did it influence your perspective on the role museums play for the public?
Elizabeth Solinga 10:57
Absolutely. So I’ll definitely put a plug in here for the Museum Studies program at Harvard. It was absolutely the right thing at the right time for me. As you mentioned, I came here with this goal of working in museums, had no idea what that meant. My work experience to that point, in addition to lots of restaurant support and bartending and all of these things, but my first job in sort of an academic setting was managing Bridges Program at Northern Arizona University that was NIH and NSF funded, and it was a partnership between the University and Diné College, which was the local community college on the Navajo reservation. And we would bridge students from the community college into four-year programs in biology and chemistry at NAU, and so I had, I think, two or three years of experience running that program and coordinating that program before coming to Boston. And so I have this really bizarre resume, right? So I’ve got an anthropology degree, it’s a humanities degree, and some cultural field school stuff, and some restaurant work, and then this thing right smack in the middle, which is running this NIH and NSF funded program. And that turned out to be sort of my ticket into gainful employment. The folks who hired me at Brigham were super happy to see that I had had some experience with these federal funding agencies, and that was just sort of my natural pathway into what came next. Turned out what came next was, you know, another 15 years of grants and finance work, and then more senior levels of administrative leadership through Children’s Hospital and HHMI, and then the School of Public Health. As I’ve said, my career is a very kind of strange, long, and winding road to get to this point. But I’m finally, finally where I’ve always wanted to be.
Jennifer Berglund 12:29
Tell me a little bit more about the program, the Extension School Museum Studies program. What really sort of ignited the spark for you, and what kinds of projects did you do?
Elizabeth Solinga 12:41
Yeah, so I think not having a solid grasp on what exactly I wanted to do in Museum Studies was what made this program the perfect fit, because a lot of it is very much what you make of it. There’s lots of different paths that you can take, and it’s been so long now and I really took my time as a student, because the benefit of doing something through continuing ed is it allows you to work and continue your education. But I really did have to take my time. I think it took five or six years when all was said and done to finish. So it’s tricky trying to remember back to that stage of my life when it’s still in my 20s and early 30s. I did this internship with the art program at Boston Children’s Hospital, where I was working at the time, and my master’s thesis and project ended up being a proposal for a virtual exhibit using the art objects in the hospital for patients who were bed bound, so the idea was to create this virtual experience that people could do on a tablet or on a computer and use Visual Thinking Strategies and have a chance to sort of escape the immediate surroundings of what they were going through by enjoying an experience in the art objects throughout the hospital from their bed.
Jennifer Berglund 13:46
You get your degree, you go back to life as normal, you’re working at the School of Public Health at this point, and how did that ultimately bring you to HMSC? It feels like something sort of fortuitous that happened there. So I was in a position in the School of Public Health working as the Admin Director for the Biostatistics Department, and I’d been there a good four and a half years. And I don’t think it’s any surprise that the pandemic and being in a leadership position like that through the pandemic was extremely challenging, also just rewarding beyond words to support a team and continue to support the mission of the department through such an emergent time. Like many, many, many folks, it was a really important time of reflection, as well, and I think many folks really kind of question, “Okay, well, what am I doing? How am I spending my time? How am I using my education? Is this where I want to be? Is this the way that I want to use whatever limited time we have?” So I was really doing a lot of evaluating and thinking, meanwhile, trying to keep pretty busy department on the tracks and I didn’t have an active job search but it was something I was actively thinking about. Like, is this really where I want to be in the long term? And what about all of those dreams and goals that I had, you know, 10-15 years ago? I kept seeing this post pop up on LinkedIn, and I looked at the position on the Harvard job site. I was like, “Wow, that seems like an absolutely amazing job. It’s a big job. And I kept talking myself out of it like, ‘Okay, now’s not the right time, you know, we’re just now coming out of this pandemic. And things are just starting to get back to semi-normal, and maybe at another time,'” and then it would just keep popping up. And it was really fortunate to have a friend who works over on this side of the river and would have a lot of connections and knowledge about the goings on at FAS, and so I reached out to him and said, “Hey, do you happen to know is this position real? Like, I know, it’s posted, but is someone already in mind for it, or are they already really deep into recruitment?” So you know, he says to me, he’s like, “Give me five minutes.” He makes phone calls, and he writes back to me. He says, “No, no, it’s absolutely real.” So from there, I just felt like if I didn’t at least put my hat into the ring, and really tried to pursue it, I would have hugely, hugely regretted it, because it really felt like the right thing at the right time. And the job description felt like it had been written for me. It’s really, really wild, and even just thinking back on it, it’s one of those things that maybe happens once or twice in life. How did your family feel about it?
Elizabeth Solinga 16:20
Oh, they’re stoked. They’re so happy. My family and my friends all just are completely thrilled. I mean, it’s the dream, right? To be able to work in a space where – not that I didn’t value the mission of public health, particularly in a pandemic was important, it was rewarding to contribute to that, but it’s not my area of study, it’s not my area of focus. So my colleagues here will just probably want to throw something at me for saying this again, but I really do, truly do, pinch myself multiple times a week, if not multiple times a day, that we get to have the conversations that we have, and that I get to just be part of this incredible organization and bring the public mission of these museums to life with my wonderful colleagues. It’s such a gift. I never thought that that would actually happen. I got really skeptical about what was going to happen with the rest of my career. I’m like, “Okay, I guess I’m doing this forever.” But it turned out there was a path.
Jennifer Berglund 17:10
What excites you most about your role? What do you enjoy most?
Elizabeth Solinga 17:13
So the thing that’s really awesome about being an Administrative Director in any academic unit, in any space at Harvard, is I really have what I feel like is the 30,000-foot view. Whether we’re talking about our public programming, or educational initiatives, or the exhibit space, or pure marketing, I work so closely with my colleagues, but I get to see a little bit of all of it. And I get to do that every day. So rather than having a direct focus in one specific area of our operations, I really get to see a little bit of all of it and participate via support. So I really feel like it’s just an amazing space to be in because you get to really see the way that the museums operate and run from a little bit of a different vantage point. It’s really, really rewarding. And I have to say, we have spectacular people working here, and they really do an incredible job and they’re so dedicated.
Jennifer Berglund 18:03
Being at the helm of HMSC, right now, what are you excited about? I know a lot of things are going to be happening in the spring. What are you kind of most looking forward to?
Elizabeth Solinga 18:14
That’s a solid question, and the point of being sort of at the helm, I really would just want to be clear that this is very much a team effort that we’re operating in, you know in the absence during a search for our next executive director. But I will say we have an amazing partnership with all the members of our senior leadership team and with our spectacular Chief Campus Curator, Brenda Tindal, who has remained an invaluable resource for us in the absence of having an Executive Director. And of course, with Elena Kramer serving as our Faculty Advisor. So it’s a challenging time, but I guess I’m sort of in the pretty senior position, but it’s very much a team effort, and I don’t feel like I’m hanging out here alone and without, you know, overarching leadership. It’s very much an environment where all of our colleagues have really stepped up, and we really hold each other accountable – and ourselves accountable. So it’s amazing, and in terms of what we’re excited about, I mean, this place is incredible. It just keeps going, you know, everybody just knows exactly what their role is, and the curiosity of my colleagues is admirable, as well. And that really drives a lot of what we do, so whether it’s trying new things like the El Salvador dig program that we did in the fall, or some of the things that are coming up in the spring, they are really keeping this excitement and mission-driven focus moving forward. So things that we’re looking forward to – so of course, there’s signature events in the spring, I Heart Science, Amazing Archaeology, those are great. We’re really starting to find our footing, I think, with ArtsThursday and get a sense of what that can allow us to do in being open that last Thursday of every month from five to nine, and having the museum free and open to the public and allows us to do some special programming and maybe invite new audiences who haven’t visited before. So I’m just really excited to see that going. There are all kinds of exciting things but it’s great to just be part of the team. The thing that I’m thinking about as we go into the budget planning and budget process for FY25 is really taking a careful look at where HMSC is 11-12 years now into its formation and existence. It’s going to be a very, kind of formative time for me to be in this position because we know that many things kind of flow through the budget space so I’m happy now to have almost a year of experience. By the time we do this next budget, it will have been one year, and have just a different set of eyes now than I did when I started in February and came straight into the budget process. How do you begin to work on a budget for a place that you don’t really, fully understand yet? So, I think it’s going to be just a really cool experience to do that now, with new leadership, and with a new perspective.
Jennifer Berglund 20:10
All of these things are so important. I mean, these are not usually the things that you talk about when you talk about museums, but it’s really what keeps the engine going
Elizabeth Solinga 20:57
100%. 100%. And I had the privilege of attending NEMA (New England Museum Association) Conference up in Portland, Maine, a week before last, and it was spectacular. It was just the coolest, coolest place to be, but what really stood out for me in a lot of the sessions was how different we are. There’s not a lot of organizations like HMSC, right, because we’re not exactly a standalone museum. We’re under this overarching umbrella of a university, and we’re uniquely focused on the public-facing mission. So while we’re proximate to the collections, and worked very closely with collections managers, and curators, and faculty, directors, and all the folks in our partner museums, we just operate so differently from a lot of other institutions in the area. So it was a unique experience to learn and see what standalone institutions are doing, but also sort of have in the back of my mind “Okay, so we really are sort of square peg, round hole.” It’s just a very, very interesting organization, but all of the things that we’re always thinking about with audience and how to, as most units do, always thinking of how to do more with less, right, so we’re a very lean unit. And we still manage to serve 300,000 people a year, which just absolutely blows my mind. So yeah, yeah.
Jennifer Berglund 22:12
It blows my mind, too.
Elizabeth Solinga 22:13
It is a lot of people, and that really puts us up into a larger space, when we’re looking at other museums that were represented at NEMA. An incredible impact, and opportunity.
Jennifer Berglund 22:23
What about some of the exhibits that are coming out? Are you excited about any of those?
Elizabeth Solinga 22:28
Well, I’m talking to the biggest cheerleader for Ants and Termites, so that’ll be super, super fun. I should be asking you, are you excited for Ants and Termites?
Jennifer Berglund 22:37
Oh, come on. I’m so excited. How could I not be excited for Ants and Termites?
Elizabeth Solinga 22:41
Right? That will be fantastic and fun to do something new, and I think that’s one of the other things that’s just been so cool about working here is seeing something come from very early stages of just, you know, being like a glimmer in someone’s eye like, “Okay, what am I curious about now? What do I feel like I want to learn more about and what partners do we have around us to really kind of make that happen,” and just seems that they kind of go from an idea and follow the full process to implementation. And then you have this incredible program where you have this incredible exhibit at the end. It’s just, it’s very, very cool. It’s not often, I think, in the life of a senior administrator, that you get to be part of something like that, and I get to do it multiple times a month, and in all kinds of different iterations. So Ants and Termites is coming up. That’s going to be spectacular. There’s a sea monsters exhibit in the works in very early stage. That is super cool. Our friends and colleagues over at the Harvard Museum of the Ancient Near East have been working so hard over many years now on this augmented reality program that really is going to bring their third-floor galleries to life using a filter on Snapchat. It’s just going to be incredible. I don’t want to spoil too much. I know they’re going to talk with you as well when that’s ready to come out, but I think it’s just going to be super, super neat. I mean, really looking into next fall, I think the beginning of this series of exhibits on race and science is going to be phenomenal. And being part of those early conversations has been really cool. Yeah, there’s just there’s always something new and exciting going on. And then there’s the stuff that’s important, but you know, less flashy so the major exhibit maintenance projects that we’re doing early in the spring with the exhibits team. I think that’s going to be important work, although not so public and flashy.
Jennifer Berglund 24:24
We don’t talk about the behind-the-scenes stuff as much, but yeah, we’ve got to update the security on the cases and make sure that we have the right glass on things, and you know, even replacing light bulbs is a huge task and you would be surprised at how much time it takes to just go through all of the facilities and finding all of the spent light bulbs.
Elizabeth Solinga 24:46
It’s truly unbelievable, and I might have been surprised six months ago. I’m not at all surprised now. I mean, this is sort of the nature of working in our specific buildings. Our, we put air quotes “historic” – everything here is historic – and so it’s code for not easy to update and work with. Build for a specific environment.
Jennifer Berglund 25:05
That’s putting it mildly.
Elizabeth Solinga 25:06
So I think that’s been eye-opening as well.
Jennifer Berglund 25:09
Elizabeth, it’s so nice to have you in the institution. I mean, you’re just such a positive, lovely, smart, hardworking addition, and so it’s really nice to have you leading us into 2024.
Elizabeth Solinga 25:23
It’s gonna be an exciting year, and I really mean this. I’ve never been so professionally happy and satisfied, so I’m so happy to be here and to be part of the team. And, just, very kind sentiments that you shared there so thank you so much.
Jennifer Berglund 25:38
Elizabeth Solinga, thank you so much for being here today. This has been so fun.
Elizabeth Solinga 25:43
Oh my gosh. Thanks again for having me. What a lovely way to start the week.
Jennifer Berglund 25:48
Today’s HMSC Connects! podcast was edited by Eden Piacitelli and produced by me, Jennifer Berglund, and the Harvard Museums of Science and Culture. Special thanks to the Harvard Museums of Science and Culture and to Elizabeth Solinga for her wisdom and expertise. And thank you so much for listening. If you like today’s podcast, please subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Podbean, or wherever you get your podcasts. See you in a few weeks.