Joseph GerthLouisville Courier Journal
If I didn’t know any better, I’d say the powers that be are quietly moving toward a decision to never reopen the University of Louisville’s Gheens Science Hall & Rauch Planetarium.
I hope I'm wrong, but I don't think I am.
U of L officials will likely say the cause of death is the pandemic, which largely closed the building to the public in 2020. But make no mistake about it — if the planetarium closes, it will be because of U of L’s neglect.
This isn’t the first time this has happened.
U of L has long wanted to get rid of the planetarium because the revenue it generates hasn’t for years approached the cost of operating it. From July 1, 2018, through June 30, 2019 — the last full year the planetarium was open before the pandemic — it brought in $152, 734 and it cost $347, 744 to operate.
Additionally, the planetarium’s projection system is 20 years old and needs a costly replacement.
If you’re looking at it from the “bottom line” perspective, closing the planetarium is a no-brainer.
But should the bottom line be the only thing we look at? Or should we look at the benefit to the astronomy students at U of L and a large share of the school children enrolled in private and public schools here?
The school did do away with the old Rauch Planetarium in 1998 to make room for a parking garage.
But a few years later, it built a new one after outcry from Louisville’s Jewish Community and Jefferson County Schools, both of which complained they weren’t consulted about the closure. Funding came in the form of a $1.5 million grant from the Gheens Foundation and money from the city of Louisville and Jefferson County government.
It is really the community’s planetarium.
The Jewish community was upset because the Rauch Planetarium was named after Rabbi Joseph Rauch, the longtime leader of Congregation Adath Israel, and whose death in 1957 was deemed important enough that the New York Times ran his obituary.
Matt Golden, the director of the Jewish Community Relations Council, said he hadn’t been contacted by U of L about the planetarium and he didn’t know of anyone else who had.
"The planetarium has been the destination for countless school children from our community for the past 60 years. In many cases, it was the first opportunity for Louisville elementary kids to see a college campus or to be exposed to the stars," Golden said.
"While the loss of the honor to Rabbi Rauch's memory is great, the loss to our community's kids would be far greater," he said.
The schools were upset because, as Golden said, for years, they had sent students there to learn about the stars and the planets and all things cosmic.
If you were born in Louisville any time after the early 1950s, there is a pretty good chance you went on more than one field trip to the planetarium. I know I did.
And when I was in college, there occasionally were weekends when we sat around — low on money and nothing to do — and decided to grab a 12-pack of Old Milwaukee and sneak it into the planetarium, where we watched the stars and listened to Pink Floyd, or the Who, or whoever the planetarium staff decided they’d play.
During the 2018-2019 year, U of L says there were 29, 248 paid admissions to the planetarium, and of that, 23, 868 were K-12 students.
Mark Hebert, a spokesman for JCPS, said the school system hasn’t been contacted about the upcoming decision about what to do with the planetarium.
John Karman, a spokesman for U of L, said university provost Gerry Bradley has been tasked to determine the planetarium’s future.
“The provost is working with the academic units to determine its future. A decision is expected this summer,” Karman said.
Unfortunately, the “academic units” don’t feel like they’re being listened too — so much so that Benne Holwerda, an astronomy and astrophysics professor, felt his only option left was to create a change.org petition to convince U of L to keep it open.
It has nearly 3,900 signatures.
Holwerda said there was a donor who was willing to pay for a new projection system that would make it easier to operate the planetarium. That and the use of graduate students to staff the facility would bring its annual operating costs down to about $200,000.
"The Planetarium is a really valuable educational space. It has been used for classes, school trips, teacher training, and public events. A dedicated space like this is key to attracting students to STEM and for everyone to appreciate the natural world," Holwerda said in an email.
"With light pollution and the massive increase of artificial satellites, a Planetarium is one of the few places where anyone can see the universe," he added.But getting a straight answer out of U of L has proved problematic.
Bradley declined a request of an interview.
In fact, I can’t find anything he has said publicly about the planetarium at all.
Which seems odd.
If I was tasked with deciding what to do about the planetarium, and truly wanted to keep it open, I’d be talking about it nonstop, in hopes that it would catch the ear of some big-monied donor who saw the benefit of protecting it for generations to come.
But what do I know?
Joseph Gerth can be reached at 502-582-4702 or by email at jgerth@courierjournal.com.
