On September 1st, 2026, Drexel University and the Board of the Academy of Natural Sciences announced the closure of the public museum on the Parkway. While the doors closed on September 27th, we do not accept this closure. The story is not over yet. You can help change the ending. Read our statement on the October 26 City Council hearing.
If Philadelphia can move the Barnes, we can save the Academy.
The Academy of Natural Sciences has been a fixture of Philadelphia civic and scientific life for over 200 years, and holds a priceless and irreplaceable collection of 19 million specimens that continue to teach us today about our natural world. To lose the collection, and the ongoing science related to the collection, would be a tragedy.
To lose the public-facing museum, however, would also be a tragedy. How many Philadelphians remember being awed by first seeing the dinosaur skeletons, either on a school trip or on a visit with family? How many young people grew up to be scientists because they regularly spent time at the Academy?
Moreover, although the building needs to be renovated, the Academy belongs with the other museums on the Parkway. Do you want to see another high-end hotel, luxury apartments, or worse, an empty building next to the Franklin Institute? We already have the Family Court building across Logan Circle sitting empty for years.
Most importantly, we need to make our political leaders aware of what we want to see happen, and dial up the pressure for them to play a leadership, coordinating, and possibly a financial role in crafting the solution we want to see.
The actions below take a few minutes each. Volunteering is the next step. We can indeed save the Academy, but it will take resources, organization, people power, and pressure to make this happen. Whether it is with time, money, skills, connections, or something else, please step up and let us know.
You don’t have to do all of these, but please aim to commit to at least five. When you contact people, be sure to include your own connection to the Academy and why it is important to you. Check them off as you go; this page remembers on your device only.
We are calling on Drexel University and the Academy’s Board to keep the Academy’s public-facing museum open and to work with the Philadelphia community to find a sustainable path forward.
Ask the Mayor to direct the City’s Law Department to seek an injunction against Drexel finalizing any deal with the Academy’s Board unless and until there is a full and transparent process, with public participation, to decide what comes next. Ask her to take a stronger role in finding a solution that keeps the Academy fiscally sound, on the Parkway, and open to city schoolchildren.
Call (215) 686-2181 · Submit a written comment · @phillymayor on social media
You can also call the at-large Council members, who represent all Philadelphia residents. Ask all of them to keep pressing for the hearings and to pressure the Mayor for a solution. In particular, we are asking for calls to Council members Bass, Squilla and Young. For what to say to each of them, see who to call on City Council.
They can bring pressure on the Governor to intervene, and could introduce legislation to help fund our underfunded arts and culture institutions, including the Academy.
Ask the Governor to play a stronger and more public leadership role in finding a sustainable funding solution. Other states, including North Carolina, fund their natural history museums. Why don’t we?
Call 717-787-2500 · Text 717-788-8990 · Mail: Governor Josh Shapiro, 501 North 3rd Street, 508 Main Capitol Building, Harrisburg, PA 17120
Express your deep disappointment with Drexel’s decision to close the Academy, request that they take the bridge funding from the William Penn Foundation, and ask that Drexel help find solutions for the Academy to prosper. In 2011, Drexel entered an affiliation with the Academy. Let Drexel’s final act of stewardship of the Academy be ensuring successful and sustainable independence.
Be polite. If you are a Drexel grad, student, or prospective student, say so.
Call 215-895-2100 · president@drexel.edu
Sign up to hang Save the Academy posters around the city.
Suggest they write a short letter or draw a picture of what the Academy means to them, and send it to the Mayor or the Governor, or both. A teacher can have the whole class do it. Mayor Parker was a teacher, and the Governor is an Academy member who brought his own kids.
There has been a lot of mobilization and local news about the closure of the Academy’s museum since the September 1 announcement. But many people may think that, since the museum is closed, the fight is over. Make sure people know the fight continues, tell them what you have done, and pass along this page and the @savetheacademy Instagram page.
Print the flyers below and put them up where your neighbors will see them: a coffee shop board, a library, a school pickup line, your building’s lobby, a lamppost on your block. Ask before you tape one to a shop window; most owners say yes.
Professional associations, teacher and school groups, unions, alumni clubs, congregations, neighborhood associations: if you belong to one, ask it to issue a short statement of support for keeping the Academy’s museum open, and for the institution as a whole. Institutions listen to institutions. When it is done, let us know through the contact page, and send the statement to the leaders named in the actions above as well.
Tell people what the Academy means to you and why this matters, in your own words. Post it on social media with #SaveTheAcademy and tag @savetheacademy, and add it to the stories wall, where reporters, officials and neighbors can read it. Personal stories are what move the people still on the fence. Not sure where to start? Read our two-page story guide (PDF).
Want this as a printable sheet? Download “Academy of Natural Sciences Closing – What Can I Do?” (Word document).
Three flyers you can print at home and hand out, pin up, or leave at a coffee shop, and three pumpkin-carving stencils for Halloween. The flyers point people to this site and the campaign’s Instagram. For a clean print with no browser header or footer, use the PDFs: full-page flyer (PDF) · half-page flyers (PDF) · quarter-page flyers (PDF) · pumpkin stencils (PDF).
The museum is closed, and the decision can still change. Ask Drexel to take the William Penn Foundation’s bridge funding and help the Academy find a long-term solution. If you are a Drexel grad, student or prospective student, say so.
On October 26, Council’s Committee on Legislative Oversight put the closure on the public record for three and a half hours; the Mayor’s office and Drexel’s president stayed away, so the chair recessed the hearing to Monday, November 16, at 10 a.m. and Council is issuing subpoenas. Watch the recording, and read what happened and what comes next.
