University officials say they cannot afford to maintain one of the largest herbariums in the United States. Researchers are urging Duke to reconsider.

University officials say they cannot afford to maintain one of the largest herbariums in the United States. Researchers are urging Duke to reconsider.

Duke University has decided to close its herbarium, a collection of 825,000 specimens of plants, fungi and algae that was established more than a century ago. The collection, one of the largest and most diverse in the country, has helped scientists map the diversity of plant life and chronicle the impact of humans on the environment.

The university’s decision has left researchers reeling. “This is such a devastating blow for biodiversity science,” said Erika Edwards, the curator of the Yale Herbarium. “The entire community is simultaneously shocked and outraged.”

Scientific societies have also protested the move. “Duke’s decision to forgo responsibility of their herbarium specimens sets a terrible precedent,” the Natural Science Collections Alliance wrote in a letter to the university last Friday.

The alliance, along with six other scientific societies, endorsed a petition asking Duke to reconsider closing the herbarium. As of Wednesday, it had gained over 11,000 signatures.

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  • @FigMcLargeHugeEnglish
    126•4 months ago

    I bet their football team doesn’t have any budget issues…

    • @[email protected]
      50•4 months ago

      I knew an athlete a few years ago who was told by Stanford that she had to get a 23 on the ACT to be accepted. Her GPA was mediocre. I don’t even remember if she had AP classes. To be clear, this person was barely literate. She was a nice person, but to put things in perspective, a 23 means getting almost half the questions wrong (in a multiple choice test where 1/4 of random answers are automatically correct). It means, again, illiterate.

      She struggled for a whole year to get to 23 and was accepted to Stanford where she played sports. The one interesting part is that the only major they’d let her have is a business degree, since it requires so little effort.

      • @[email protected]
        5•4 months ago

        And Stanford hates that they have to accept her too. I’m amazed they haven’t gone the way of the ivies and just stopped scholarship sports outside of the Olympic ones

    • @[email protected]
      24•4 months ago

      Their basketball coach that retired was the highest paid basketball coach in history. I am not 100% certain due to new contracts but I believe that includes NBA coaches. Someone can correct me if I’m wrong.