Drexel and Academy Weigh a Split as Museum Stays Shut

More than a week after the Academy of Natural Sciences of Drexel University closed its public museum for what could be the last time, its future is now being negotiated between the university and the institution itself — with a formal separation on the table and no deal yet in sight.

The museum shut its doors at 5 p.m. on Sunday, Sept. 27, ending nearly two centuries of public operation just short of the institution’s 200th anniversary. But the story has since shifted from the closing itself to the hard bargaining over what comes next: whether Drexel and the Academy will disaffiliate, how a stalled philanthropic lifeline might be revived, and what a City Council investigation will force into the open.

A Split in the Offing

Drexel and the Academy met on Friday, Oct. 2, to continue discussing a path forward, and a source familiar with the talks told The Philadelphia Inquirer that a split was “certainly a [potential] outcome.”

Drexel spokesperson Niki Gianakaris said the university “has been, and remains, open” to disaffiliation. “We continue to engage in good-faith discussions with the Academy about its future,” she said.

The two organizations have been renegotiating their relationship since April, when, according to the Inquirer, Drexel told the Academy to either fully merge — handing over its building, endowment, and collections — or face disaffiliation. The Academy affiliated with Drexel in 2011, becoming a subsidiary while keeping its own board and 501c3 status.

The Funding Offer That Hasn’t Landed

Less than a week before the closing date, the William Penn Foundation offered to underwrite the museum’s operating costs for at least a year, buying time for a permanent solution. Academy leadership said it was open to the reprieve.

But as of Oct. 5, Drexel confirmed it had not received a formal funding proposal, according to Philadelphia Newsroom. A source familiar with the talks told the Inquirer that “what William Penn has put forward is not enough.”

William Penn said its goal was to “provide time to test the interest of other funders and supporters who have not been engaged so far,” the Inquirer reported.

Council Pressure Builds

Elected officials have kept the closure in the spotlight. Philadelphia City Council passed a unanimous resolution authorizing the Committee on Legislative Oversight to hold hearings and issue subpoenas regarding the closure. Councilmember Jeffery Young Jr., who represents the museum’s district, proposed legislation to restrict redevelopment on the site. Hearings are expected to begin this week.

“We need to know how this came to be. What were the levers that created this decision, and how do we undo that decision?” Councilmember Nina Ahmad told NPR. “There was no campaign in the recent past that we can find to encourage or to tell the city of Philadelphia, ‘We’re in danger of closing if you don’t come and use our museum.’ None of that.”

Gov. Josh Shapiro, Mayor Cherelle Parker, and State Sen. Nikil Saval have also backed preservation efforts.

How the Museum Got Here

Drexel, which took over financial responsibility for the Academy in 2011, explained on its website that post-pandemic costs had risen and attendance had declined, describing “fundamental changes in the economics of the Academy’s operational model.” Continuing to operate the museum, the university said, would “place increasing pressure on the resources required to safeguard the collections and sustain the research enterprise.”

In FY2025, the museum drew 126,000 visitors, down from 208,000 in 2014, according to the Academy’s tax return from that year. In 2025, it laid off staff and cut its hours to weekends only, and it canceled its 2026 summer camp.

Even as leadership cited lagging interest, the museum’s final weeks drew crowds. Attendance skyrocketed and revenue in its last month was more than 20 times higher than the previous September, according to NPR.

“Maybe if they had announced this last year, they could have gotten the crowds they have now,” visitor Zoe Abrams told NPR. “This is busier than Grand Central. Could have saved things.”

Former staff members say the decline was years in the making and partly self-inflicted, pointing to a strategic pivot away from families toward adult audiences, including a $3 million art gallery opened in March 2020, that eroded the museum’s core membership base.

“There was a big push to not be known as the dinosaur museum in Philadelphia,” Jacquie Genovesi, who worked at the Academy for 34 years before being laid off in October 2025, told WHYY. “It was a poor decision, and it didn’t need to be an ‘either or’; it should have been an ‘and.’”

The closure also reflects broader pressures on cultural institutions. A 2025 survey by the American Alliance of Museums found that a third of its members had government grants and contracts canceled, and more than two-thirds were affected by executive orders in some way.

The Collections and What’s Next

The Academy’s collections remain its most valuable asset. They include roughly 19 million specimens, more than 73,000 type specimens used as global reference points for naming species, Thomas Jefferson’s fossil collection, plant samples from the Lewis and Clark expedition, and a library of more than 75,000 titles, with rare volumes dating to 1529.

Drexel has said it will preserve access to the collection for students and researchers, but what that means for the general public is unclear. No final decision has been announced about the future of the 150-year-old building at 19th Street and the Benjamin Franklin Parkway, and officials have not confirmed plans to sell it.

Philadelphia has a track record of rescuing struggling cultural institutions — the Barnes Foundation and the Please Touch Children’s Museum among them — but those campaigns succeeded before closure, not after. Other local institutions, including the University of the Arts, the Philadelphia Art Alliance, and the Neon Museum of Philadelphia, have closed permanently in the last four years.

For now, the museum remains closed, its future the subject of ongoing negotiations, a pending Council investigation, and an unresolved philanthropic offer. Organizers say they are not finished.

“It’s hard to imagine them not changing course on this because we have philanthropy behind us, we have the city, the people behind us, and we have many elected leaders behind us,” Save the Academy organizer Sarah McAnulty told Billy Penn. Isa Betancourt, who helped lead the “Save the Academy” campaign, put it more bluntly: “It’s not over.”