PUPDATES

MORELIA, MICHOACÁN

Congress co-organizers PUP Global Heritage Consortium and the Colegio de Michoacán of Mexico are pleased to announce keynote speakers Drs. Sam Ham and Manuel Gandara Vazquez to speak at the First Latin American Congress for Heritage Interpretation 23-25 October 2018.

Dr. Gándara, full-time professor of museology and interpretation at the National School for Conservation, Restauration, and Museography, part of the National Institute of Anthropology and History in Mexico City has long been regarded as one of the leading experts and promoters of heritage interpretation in Mexico. He holds two doctorates in anthropology and design and new technologies from the Escuela Nacional de Antropología e Historia and Universidad Autónoma Metropolitana-Azcapotzalco, respectively. He currently serves at the Graduate Program in Museum Studies and specializes in the application of new technology and communication strategies in museums. Dr. Gándara is a technical service member of the PUP Consortium.

Dr. Sam Ham is widely regarded as one of the principal promoters of thematic interpretation, having earned his doctorate in Forestry, Wildlife, and Range Sciences from the University of Idaho. For many years he served as a professor of communication psychology, sustinable tourism, and international conservation at the University of Idaho’s College of Natural Resources. During that time, he developed a process to conduct heritage interpretation captured in over 400 publications and two widely acclaimed books on the topic. He has worked extensively throughout Latin America during his years of service. Today he is a professor emeritus as well as advisor for the PUP Consortium.

Dr. Gándara will give the inaugural address and Dr. Ham will offer the final words about interpretation in Latin America during the conference that will take place the third week of October. The congress will be transmitted from seven locations in five countries through the Internet: National School of Conservation, Restauration, and Museography (Mexico City), National School of Higher Studies at the National Autonomous University of Mexico (Morelia); University of Costa Rica in Grecia, Tropical Science Center in San José, Costa Rica; University del Valle in Guatemala City; Scientific University of the South in Lima, Perú; and National Learning Service training centers in Bogotá and Medellin, Colombia.

Dr. Antonieta Jiménez, professor of archeology and interpretation at the Colegio de Michoacán and M.Sc. Jon Kohl, executive director of the PUP Consortium are coordinating an organizing committee to realize this first Congress.

For more information visit

www.colmich.edu.mx/congresointerpretacion www.facebook.com/events/1821818771236611

Fort Collins, Colorado

PUP Director Jon Kohl signed a contract with the National Association for Interpretation’s executive director Margo Carlock on 28 June to publish InterpPress’s next book. The book is tentatively titled The Interpretive Theme Writer’s Field Guide: Pocket Companion to Sam Ham’s Interpretation — Making A Difference on Purpose: Crafting Strong Themes from Big Idea to Presentation.

The theme-writing book will carry a special recognition to the PUP Global Heritage Consortium because of PUP’s many material contributions to the book as well as contributions from several PUP members including Kohl (author), PUP advisor Sam Ham (authorized the use of his name as the Field Guide builds on his legacy of thematic interpretation; Ham also reviewed the text and wrote an introductory note), PUP Treasurer Clark Hancock wrote an introductory note and reviewed the text, as well as PUP general member Dr. Ted Cable who wrote the Last Word. Also, the Field Guide’s foreword is written by the well-known National Park Service Yosemite interpretive ranger and author Shelton Johnson.

About the Theme Writing Field Guide

The purpose of the Field Guide is to be a user-friendly how-to theme-writing guide that complements the theoretical and practical foundation laid down by Ham in his two books on interpretation. It will be the first book in the interpretation literature dedicated solely to the most central skill of thematic interpretation. Another first, according to Kohl, is that the book not only describes how individuals write themes (which is the level where most other interpretive literature focuses) but how groups and communities can also develop themes about their heritage.

PUP and NAI plan to launch the theme-writing book in time for the next NAI national conference in New Orleans at the end of November when Kohl will offer a conference presentation on the book.

InterpPress is NAI’s own press and has published other interpretation-related books such as Interpretation by Design, Interpretive Writing, Management of Interpretive Sites, Personal Interpretation, among others.

Kohl has published over 35 articles in all of NAI’s various publications including an article on applying the interpretive principle of TORE (developed by Ham) to resume writing in the most recent issue of NAI’s flagship publication, Legacy magazine.

MORELIA, MICHOACÁN

Seven institutions in five countries are organizing the First Latin American Congress for Heritage Interpretation which will take place 23–25 October 2018. The Congress will be a virtual teleconference for which each country will provide one or two transmitting locations.

Speakers will give live presentations at these locations which will be retransmitted simultaneously to all across the Congress’s Internet hub at the El Colegio de Michoacán in Morelia, Mexico. Each site will have a live audience that can interact with speakers while anyone in the world can follow the Congress from a web interface on their own devices. Inscription is mandatory, but free starting on 15 June.

The participating institutions include the principal co-organizers El Colegio de Michoacán (Mexico) and the PUP Global Heritage Consortium (global) as well as the Servicio Nacional de Aprendizaje (Colombia), Universidad de Costa Rica in Grecia and Paraíso, Centro Científico Tropical (Costa Rica), Universidad del Valle de Guatemala, Escuela Nacional de Conservación, Restauración y Museografía (Mexico), and the Universidad Científica del Sur (Peru).

While the National Association for Interpretation of the United States has organized three of its annual international conferences in Latin America in recent years in Mexico, Panama, and Puerto Rico, the Congress’s principal organizer Dr. Antonieta Jimenez from the Colegio de Michoacán, a postgraduate social science institution, says, “This is the first time that Latin America organizes a conference by Latin Americans for Latin Americans. Further, the event will motivate the region to organize itself to promote interpretation as a professional discipline and earn a chair at the global table with other associations in North America, Europe, Australia, and other countries.”

The Congress aims not only to organize interpretation in the region but also inform practitioners and academics who is currently doing what along three principal threads: Practical experiences, professionalization, and research and methodologies. It will accomplish this through a format that intersperses live speakers, a live interactive poster session from the Congress website, roundtable discussions, keynotes, and extended lunch breaks that will both accommodate varying lunch times in different countries as well as allow for countries to discuss the development of national interpretation associations in the hope of eventually aligning them in a Latin American interpretation association.

Those participants who attend the majority of the Congress at one or more of the transmitting locations will earn an official Congress certificate of participation.

The PUP Global Heritage Consortium, a non-profit international network that aspires to transform the global paradigm in natural and cultural heritage management, has among its objectives the professionalization of heritage interpretation in Latin America. Congress co-organizer and executive director Jon Kohl says, “The use of heritage interpretation as a heritage management tool that involves visitors in conservation represents another way to integrate a relatively new dimension into the management toolbox, which we consider another important step toward a more holistic approach to heritage management.” PUP has done most of its interpretation work in Latin America including the Spanish-speaking world’s only regular Spanish interpretation webinar series offered in association with America’s National Association for Interpretation. It also will co-publish the first Latin American textbook on heritage interpretation with Costa Rica’s National Distance Learning University (UNED) in 2019. This Congress, asserts Kohl, is another mechanism to widen understanding of the value of interpretation in heritage management.

Aside from Kohl, Dr. Jimenez (board of directors), Dr. Manuel Gandara of the Escuela Nacional para Conservation, Restauración y Museografía (technical service member), and Marisol Mayorga, doctoral student at Kansas State University (technical service member) are all PUP members and co-organizers of this event.

For more information visit www.colmich.edu.mx/congresointerpretacion or send correspondence to . Those interested in submitting proposals may do so by sending a 250-word summary to the above email address by 5 July. Inscription online begins on 15 June at the above web address. See the Call for Proposals for more details at that site or the Congress Facebook event page.