In an interview with Durango TV, Nana Naisbitt, the new executive director of the Powerhouse Science Center said, “I think frankly the Powerhouse lost sight of its mission; it lost sight of its origins. We’re going back to our roots; we’re going to focus on children ages 1 through 11.”
Our science center needs to stop attaching itself to its institutional past and instead look to the future and pursue it. Naisbitt’s vision anchors the Powerhouse in the part of its past it has tried so desperately to grow away from.
According to a report from the University of York’s Chemical Industry Education Centre, “Many existing studies ... indicate a decline in positive attitudes towards science as children progress through secondary school. Children at 14 years old see less relevance of science to the real world, find it less inspiring, enjoy less practical work and feel they have less opportunity to use their imagination in science than children at nine years old.”
One of the Powerhouse’s missions has been to inspire and to generate interest in science, technology, engineering and math, or STEM, in its visitors and in the community at large and is doing everyone a disservice by focusing exclusively on those who are already engaged. Our local science center needs to focus on middle and high school kids: This next generation of scientists, scholars and intellectuals is having their interests squandered and inspiration lost as they age, and our science center is planning to turn its back on these kids who need our help.
The largest impact of the science center’s closure is the crumbling and dissociation of the incredible community that grew around it. This community was built from people of all ages, backgrounds and levels of experience.
A portion of this community was made up of the fine young adults who interned at the science center. My colleagues were not notified of the closure, arriving at the Powerhouse eager to learn, only to find locked doors. They had arrived to see the fall of the gathering place of Durango’s scientific populace and the engaged community that revolved around it.
Naisbitt and the board of directors claim that they plan to build a better internship program, yet they fired 29 hardworking, passionate young adults – as well as their mentors.
Naisbitt and the board distanced themselves from the people who had epitomized scientific interest and. as a result, marginalized any potential future interns. The new leadership has only managed to alienate the people who poured their souls into the Powerhouse through blatant and obvious conflict of interest, disrespect and a general lack of civility. I will not step foot into the science-center-turned-tot-spot until our Powerhouse finds better leadership.
The new target audience of tourists – as demonstrated by Naisbitt’s goal of good Yelp ratings – and small children, will fail to generate the community that was an essential aspect of the former science center. In an interview with Durango TV, Naisbitt asserted, “I think we lost sight of the fact that we have a place.”
She may have a place, but she doesn’t have the people. She has lost the support of many who appreciated the science center, including a cohort of individuals over age 11. While it is true that the Powerhouse has a history of lacking financial stability, the new leadership has shown no improvement over its predecessors. How is the utter alienation of the community so intertwined with our science center anything but a mistake? The executive director of our science center needs to be someone who unites people to work for a common cause, not someone who tears the organization’s support asunder. We need someone who will focus on Durango first – and not the limited, intermittent and unreliable stream of out-of-town visitors. We need leadership that cares about more than ratings in a restaurant directory.
The idea of “returning to roots” is in the process of erasing millions of dollars and many years of work that countless people have invested into evolving the science center and helping it grow from the children’s play place located upstairs in the Durango Arts Center.
I interned at the Powerhouse starting when I was 12 and have supported it from day one. Three years and more than 400 volunteer hours later, I was as enthusiastic as ever; then the operation of the Powerhouse was terminated. Since the abrupt and inappropriate closure, the last refuge of my optimism for our science center that remained has been exterminated by Naisbitt’s and the board’s actions, judgement and goals. Until the Powerhouse makes some major changes, I will not step foot in the building again, nor will I support it in any way. I want my brick back. I do not want my name to be etched into the patio of an institution that has committed such injustice to our community. The Powerhouse’s leadership has driven a wedge between its organization and the Durango community. The fall of our Powerhouse has resulted in the disintegration of the scientific community in our town.
I have watched our beloved science center grow, mature and evolve. Now I have watched it die. Durango doesn’t need another day care.
Liam Foster, 15, began working as an unpaid intern at the Powerhouse Science Center when he was 12. He is the son of Pete and Nancy Foster of Durango.
