NEWS from the Director's desk

The Redpath Museum’s position on Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion

Events over the past year have made it obvious that all institutions must address the necessity for change, and to acknowledge equity, diversity, and inclusion for all. As the oldest purpose-built museum in Canada, the Redpath Museum has been a cornerstone of research and preservation of the natural and cultural world, both for McGill University and for Canada. Since 1882, the museum has protected, displayed, and shared the valuable collections of McGill University and has played a central role in promoting research and education. We acknowledge the museum is rooted in McGill’s and its patrons’ colonial history, but we are committed to working towards Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion at the Redpath Museum.

We are taking proactive steps to make the museum more accessible, inclusive, and reflective of the cultural changes that are promoted within our society. Foremost, with the formation of an EDI committee, composed of museum staff, academics and students, we will work closely with other EDI committees at McGill, to develop policies and guidelines that will support our efforts towards equity, diversity and inclusion. The staff are actively training in community and McGill developed EDI courses and programs, and research on the museum holdings is ongoing, to better understand the history and nature of the collections, curated at the Redpath Museum.

We have been developing Redpath Museum Discovery Boxes, to promote greater accessibility and exposure to science and culture, that will provide education to a wider variety of schools in the community. Historically, school group visits were limited to those schools that had the means to displace to the museum. These Discovery Boxes are developed by professional educators and McGill research professors, to deliver quality programming that matches the competencies outlined by the Programme de formation de l'école québécoise / Québec Education Program. We are also working toward subsidizing these Discovery Box deliveries to underrepresented schools, to provide high quality programming for everyone, equally.

We welcome your feedback on how we can do better.

Give us some redpath.museum [at] mcgill.ca (subject: EDI%20Feedback) (Feedback)

Coming soon: EDI committee page

Coming soon: The Redpath Museum Discovery Boxes


IN MEMORIAM - Robert "Bob" Carroll

Robert "Bob" Carroll, 2017
Image by Hans Larsson.

It is with a heavy heart, that we announce to the community that Robert Lynn Carroll passed away on April 7th, 2020 at the age of 81. He is survived by his wife Anna Di Turi, son David Carroll and granddaughter Juliette.

Dr Carroll’s dedication to the Redpath Museum and McGill University commenced when he completed his postdoctoral studies in 1962-1963 as a NRC Postdoctoral Fellow. In the 1970s, he kept the Museum from being sacrificed during an economic crisis and sired most of the Canadian Vertebrate Palaeontology community. Carroll’s immeasurable contribution to the palaeontology community has resulted in a critical mass of support and the discipline’s own society and journal. 

To know more about Dr Carroll’s life and work, please see the following academic obituary written by Michael W. Caldwell (Department of Biological Sciences, University of Alberta) and Hans C.E Larsson (Redpath Museum, McGill University) which can also be found in the Vertebrate Anatomy Morphology Palaeontology 8:1-6.

PDF icon robert_carroll_obituary_2020.pdf

Additionally, visit the CTV News website for a video tribute. 

Land Acknowledgement

McGill University is on land which has long served as a site of meeting and exchange amongst Indigenous peoples, including the Haudenosaunee and Anishinabeg nations. We acknowledge and thank the diverse Indigenous peoples whose presence marks this territory on which peoples of the world now gather.

The Redpath Museum's director EDI statement.

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