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About Our Museum

First opened as a natural history museum in 1874, the University Museum at Southern Illinois University Carbondale has evolved into a teaching museum that represents the humanities, the sciences and the arts. While our focus is on southern Illinois, our humanities collection includes ethnographic materials that allow us to share the world with a diverse campus and a region that is isolated from urban centers. With roughly 70,000 objects in our care, the University Museum captures and illuminates the human story, opening a window on who we are and where we came from. 

Museum Hours

Summer Hours (July 6 - July 31, 2021)

Free and open to all.

Tuesday - Friday: Noon - 4pm
Saturday, Sunday, Monday, and University Holidays: Closed

Visitors must follow COVID-19 response measures.

  • Masks are required at all times.
  • Attendance is limited to 25 persons per hall.
  • Guests must maintain social distancing (6 feet) from other visitors.

Public metered parking available across from the Student Center and beside Woody Hall.

Animal figure

Schedule of Events

North Hall

  • All Galleries, including the Mitchell Gallery:
    Double Whammy (January 19 - May 8)

South Hall

  • Hall of Art:
    The Art of Darkness (January 19 - March 27)

  • Study Gallery:
    NOURISHing (January 19 - May 1)

  • International Gallery:
    Midwestern (January 25 - May 8)

  • West Gallery: 
    International Treasures (February 9 - March 27)
    MFA Thesis Exhibitions (April 5 - May 8)

  • South Gallery:
    Land That I Love (January 25 - July 24)

Digital Exhibitions & Artist Talks

  • The Land That I Love
    Farming in Southern Illinois is rooted in the lives of the farmers who care for the land. The farms are more than crops and soil; they are Southern Illinois' heritage and its future.

  • Midwestern
    Drawn from his time intentionally lost on the backroads of the states he knows best, Justin Hamm’s work, visual and verbal, is equal parts inspection of the American mythos and testament against the worn-out adage that the Midwest is merely "flyover country".

  • The Art of Darkness
    Tim Atseff engaged in dual careers as an artist and as a journalist. Now, he has returned to his creative roots painting with an urgency that matches our times and time itself.

  • William H. Thielen
    An interview with the artist about his current exhibit "Double Whammy" and about his life in art

  • Conversation 2.0
    African art from the Reginald Petty African Art Collection and works of Edna Patterson-Petty

selected images from the digital exhibitions and artist talks videos