Upheaval Continues at Smithsonian Institution

Disappointed at being passed over for the interim top job at the Smithsonian Institution, after the resignation of secretary Lawrence M. Small, the organization’s undersecretary for science resigned yesterday to pursue other projects, reports The Washington Post.

With David Evans’s departure, talk now centers on who the organization’s next top executive will be, the paper reports. Cristián Samper, a biologist and the director of the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History, was named acting secretary on Monday.

Mr. Small’s departure, while overdue, according to one observer, is an opportunity to fix “longstanding problems” at the Smithsonian, including its governance structure and basis of operations, writes Eric Gibson, The Wall Street Journal’s Leisure and Arts features editor, in his column.

Mr. Gibson suggests it is an unrealistic expectation that some of the high-ranking public officials on the Board of Regents would exercise meaningful oversight.

“Oh, to have seen Chief Justice Roberts’s expression when he learned that, besides running an entire branch of government, he was responsible for 18 museums and research facilities, plus a zoo,” Mr. Gibson writes.

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