UT Tyler and Discovery Science Place Announce Joint Initiative

TYLER — The Discovery Science Place and The University of Texas at Tyler have combined resources to enhance the educational programming available to the community. “We are excited to partner with the Discovery Science Place. Providing quality education is a mission that we share, so it’s natural that we would work together on this initiative,” said UT Tyler President Rodney H. Mabry.

While Discovery Science Place will remain a standalone museum with its own governing body, officials say the UT Tyler Ingenuity Center will strengthen the educational programming DSP offers. The Ingenuity Center will design programs based on its STEM outreach, which focuses on science, technology, engineering and mathematics. The Ingenuity Center also will serve in an advisory capacity for the museum.
The Discovery Science Place board will continue to maintain creative control over the museum’s permanent and traveling exhibit portfolio, branding and fundraising activities while serving in an advisory role in education and programming.

“Collaborations of the kind DSP and UT Tyler are implementing are quite common in the museum field,” explains Discovery Science Place CEO Phil Lindsey. “By doing so, a new stable and sustainable operating environment will allow DSP to refocus its significant community support toward immediate impacts to the museum in new exhibitions and content programming instead of underwriting operational needs.”

The UT Tyler Ingenuity Center has worked with DSP on educational and programming projects in the past. Officials say this initiative simply expands that relationship for the next three years. Under this initiative, DSP employees will become UT Tyler employees, and the ultimate goal will be to develop Discovery Science Place into a full standalone UT Tyler Center. UT Tyler and Discovery Science Place will immediately begin implementing joint programming and content planning in preparation for the spring and summer events.