Dr. Kelly J. Zúñiga, Houston Holocaust Museum
10 Sep 2015 |
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Dr. Kelly J. ZúñigaDr. Kelly J. Zúñiga, Executive Director, Holocaust Museum Houston
September 10, 2015
We are pleased to welcome Dr. Zúñiga to our podium to speak about the Holocaust Museum. Our club secretary, Debbye Crofoot-Morley, is Director of Campaign Advancement at the museum and is responsible for this program – our thanks to Debbye.
We are sure you will appreciate the significance and importance of this program.
Bill Lee, 2015-2016 Program Chair
Rotary Club of Houston
Charged with educating students and the public about the dangers of prejudice and hatred in society, Holocaust Museum Houston opened its doors in March 1996. Since that time, impassioned notes, poems, artwork and other gifts, from school children and adults alike, attest to the life-changing thoughts generated by just one visit to this unique facility.
The Museum is one of only four museums in the Houston area to earn accreditation by the American Alliance of Museums. Join us Sept. 10 to hear Dr. Zúñiga discuss how the Museum accomplishes its mission of remembering the 6 million Jews and other innocent victims, honoring the survivors’ legacy, and teaching the dangers of hatred, prejudice and apathy using the lessons of the Holocaust and other genocides.
Since the Museum opened its 27,000-square-foot facility, more than 2 million people of all ages, races and religions have visited, and more than 862,325 school children have been to the Museum or been directly affected through the Museum’s teacher training programs, curriculum trunk outreach student forums, and diversity workshops.
The Museum’s Permanent Exhibition, “Bearing Witness: A Community Remembers,” tells the story of the Holocaust by focusing on the lives and experiences of survivors who later made the Houston area their home. Two changing exhibit galleries often focus on contemporary genocides or on other Holocaust-related themes.
The Museum’s collection also includes a 1942 Holocaust-era railcar of the same type that carried Jews to the concentration camps and a Holocaust-era Danish rescue boat of the same time used to ferry Danish Jews to safety in Sweden.
The Museum bears witness to the horrors of the Holocaust, but it also tells the stories of heroes who took action and serves as a reminder to all that we must never forget what happened to prevent it from happening again.
Dr. Zúñiga earned her Ed.D. in administration and supervision from the University of Houston, where her doctoral research focused on online donor giving behavior. In addition, she earned her Master of Business Administration from the University of San Diego and a Bachelor of Science degree in Finance from San Diego State University.
Dr. Zúñiga is an adjunct lecturer at Texas A&M University’s Bush School of Government and Public Service and as an adjunct lecturer at Rice University’s Center for Philanthropy and Nonprofit Leadership at the Susanne M. Glasscock School of Continuing Studies. She is an emeritus trustee at large on the Council for Advancement and Support of Education (CASE) Board of Trustees. She is also a member of the Greater Houston Partnership’s Executive Women’s Partnership, Houston Museum District Association Board of Directors and is a Senior Fellow in the American Leadership Forum Class on XXXIV. She was named in 2013 by Houston Woman Magazine as one of “Houston’s Most Influential Women of 2012.”