When first walking in the Suter Science Center through the upper entrance, everyone is 

welcomed by the D. Ralph Hostter museum. According to an article written by Lauren Jefferson, D. Ralph Hostetter was a professor of Biology who taught biology, botany, ornithology, and geology courses from 1924-66 here at EMU. He also served as the first director of Eastern Mennonite High School from 1938-57 while teaching at the college. Hostetter continued teaching part-time until 1974. He is recognized as both the founder and curator of the museum that continues to honor him and his legacy today. Over the years since the start of the museum, the museum has gone through many transformations. The current curator is professor and Program Director of Biology, Chemistry, and Environmental Science, Jim Yoder. According to Yoder, the museum first started off by focusing on geology and consisted of cases containing rocks and minerals. Currently, the collection has roughly 2,500 specimens that include birds, insects, large mammals, skeletons, etc. Most of the specimens have been collected and found through Mennonite mission trips or through individuals donating them to EMU. Yoder shared that, “Many individuals who have come through the museum over the years seem to always remember the two-headed calf specimen we have that was born right here in Rockingham County.” The current building the museum is in was built in 1968 and has housed the museum ever since. The museum has been open to the public since the 1980s and ran an educational program from the early 1980s to 2016. An estimated 5,000-6,000 students would come and participate in hands-on activities and guided tours. The pause in the education program occurred because of renovations and construction that were done to the Sutter Science Center starting in 2016. The educational program transitioned to a few individuals involved in the museum taking specimens and displays out to local schools but then was halted in 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic. There are future plans to bring back the educational program in the near future, but currently, the focus is on revising, organizing, and labeling the collections that had to be packed up during the renovations. The current work-study student for the museum, First Year Nate Lehman, is currently working on “labeling and tagging the insect display” and shared “the museum is super cool, and we only have a small fraction of what we have in storage on display. Hopefully, we can continue to put out new and interesting stuff.”  The discovery room, the main room in the museum,  is still open to the public and can be reserved for receptions, meetings, etc. There is the potential to host classes in the discovery room, but due to the dome-shaped ceiling in the discovery room, the acoustics make it rather difficult. The discovery room was formerly a planetarium up until 2006, so that is the reason for the dome-shaped ceiling. In 2006 when the planetarium’s projector needed to be replaced, that was not financially viable so the room transitioned to the discovery room. According to Yoder, one idea to transition it to a future space to host classes is “to hang sound panels to combat the unique acoustics”. Yoder also notes, the “big future goal of the museum will include rotating the different collections we have, Marine, Egyptian, and many others.