Meet Jose Rivera: New Director of the Coit Museum of Pharmacy & Health Sciences

How did you become interested in museums?

As a child I have always loved going to museums, especially when I saw exhibits related to my history and culture (American Indian & Latino/Chicano). My museum career started at the Gorman Museum of Native American Art, University of California at Davis. I knew Navajo artist Carl Gorman and worked with the renowned Seneca artist/professor George Longfish. For my M.A., at the University of California Riverside History Department, I majored in “Historical Resources Management” that encompassed both museum curatorship & archival management. Later, while doing my Ph.D. course work I worked at the Phoebe Hearst Museum of Anthropology, University of California at Berkeley.

What excites you about museum work?

Cultural preservation is what excites me the most. Each academic discipline is like a priesthood with its own esoteric language, traditions and history. Put in another way, each academic discipline is like a tribe, or its own culture. The history, tradition and culture of pharmacies and the origin of medicines also needs to be preserved and shared. Shared not only within the pharmacy/medical community, but with the community at large. On a more personal note, the two other things I love about museum work is, I greatly enjoy museum education, plus at the museum every work day is different.

How did your previous museum experience shape you?

In a word, “diversity.” Diversity on various levels. From cultural diversity for historical research, community outreach, exhibit development, to various educational approaches. I know how to professionally operate a museum having worked for California State Parks, the National Parks Service and private museums. I have worked in various museum genres from fine art, cultural/anthropological, natural history, to the U.S. Navy Seabee Museum (military history & vocational programs).

What interested you about the Coit Museum?

The most exciting part of joining the Coit Museum team is, even though it is a 50-year-old collection, with the new exhibit space it will be like starting a new museum from the ground up. I want to see this facility to get a good, healthy and productive start in order to realize its full potential.

What goals do you have for the Coit Museum?

Having decades of museum work under my belt, in various genres, I want to see the Coit Museum acknowledged in both the museum and pharmacy worlds as a professionally operated institution dedicated to pharmacy cultural preservation and academic excellence. Eventually I would like to develop a consortium of Pharmacy Museums both nationally and internationally, with the Coit Museum as the epic-center of the consortium. With many traditional pharmacies closing every day, the Coit Museum has been approached about adding to it collection from these closing pharmacies. I would like to develop a “Green Museum Storage Facility” as out lined in my “Strategic Plan Narrative.”

What is your vision for the visitor experience at the Museum?

I envision a museum with a robust educational program and extensive community outreach programs, reaching as many segments of the community as possible. When the community visits the museum there should be educational programs for all ages from elementary school to university and alumni. Most importantly to educate students; especially elementary, middle school, high school, and community colleges to hopefully inspire them into a pharmacy career. That is why in my “Strategic Plan Narrative” I included a proposal for a “Mobile Museum” so the Coit Museum could go to schools for “career day” and participate in community events.

What is one thing you want the people at the U of A to know about you?

I am not only a museum professional, but an “Ethno-Historian/Anthropologist” as well, with many years of ‘museum education’ and ‘community outreach’ experience (California State Parks, National Parks Service & various museums). I love how multi-ethnic Tucson is, mainly due to the University. I want to develop multi-cultural exhibits so anyone from around our nation, or from anywhere in the world would be able to see medicines and health practices that they can relate to. I have reached success when the Coit Museum is referred to in the community as “Our Museum.”