Preserving Our Past While Working Toward the Future
By Barbara Rasmussen
With all the new construction under way on WVU’s campus these days, it’s easy to miss some of the other initiatives going on concerning the University’s buildings. However, in keeping with the growing public interest in cultural resources, the Historic Preservation Committee here at WVU has launched an ambitious plan to preserve the old buildings that give our campus the unique character that all of us treasure. At the same time, the committee is also devoted to making sure that students and faculty have the best possible facilities for learning and study.
The committee, chaired by Rob Moyer, director of facilities and planning Manager of Planning Services, has identified 25 historic buildings that should be listed on the National Register of Historic Places. This is in addition to the ten buildings already listed on the register. Work has commenced on venerable old Oglebay Hall, which is now in the beginning stages of a $19 million restoration and adaptive conversion. Soon to be the home of the University’s forensic sciences program, Oglebay will undergo an exterior face-lift and freshening that will preserve its classic facade. The interior of the building will be reconfigured to meet the needs of the high-tech field of forensic science. However, nothing is planned that will detract from the role Oglebay plays as a major anchor to the Downtown campus.
Whether you took classes in agriculture, home economics, or psychology, it’s a sure bet that you and almost everyone else who attended WVU after 1928 took at least one class in the dignified structure. For me, Oglebay was the place I took a single psychology course, but for my father, and other “aggies” it was the home of the School of Agriculture until the 1960 construction boom on the Evansdale campus.
For all of us, Oglebay’s Plaza and the mast of the U.S.S. West Virginia, summon many memories. We are never more of a community than when we come together there to acknowledge important events, times of loss, and times of celebration. Oglebay Plaza ties us to our alma mater regardless of whether we graduated in 1942, 1970, or 2005. So it is with these old buildings—they have become a part of our memories of campus days. Their charms tie each generation to the experiences they shared while they were students.
This vision is what prompted Moyer’s committee to begin the process of identifying and acknowledging the important cultural resources that are part and parcel of the University’s stewardship. It will take several years to accomplish this study, and our students in the cultural resource management (CRM) graduate certificate program will be playing a major role in this work; CRM and the master’s degree program in public history will assist this project while honing student skills at preserving cultural resources. These abilities are increasingly in demand, and offer promising careers for our graduates.
Across West Virginia and the nation, communities are ever more aware that cultural resources are a key ingredient in revitalized downtowns, exciting new tourism venues, and economic development. Training young preservationists and future leaders in the ways of responsible management of these resources is the focus of CRM. Although the graduate program is housed in the Department of History, it includes faculty and students from the Davis College of Agriculture, Forestry, and Consumer Sciences, the Eberly College of Arts and Sciences, and the Creative Arts Center.
So far, some 40 students have enrolled or graduated from the program.
This summer, our students went to Monroe County to study a farmstead near Greenville. Working with local historians and the Monroe County Historical Society, students began the process of nominating the property to the National Register. Owned by WVU alumnus H.M. Rigg, the farm will be documented for its very important role in providing a school for African American children in the years after the Civil War. Our students are planning a second trip to Union to work with the Historical Society records there. It’s a nice arrangemnt—the society will get a boost in organizing their records and our students will learn some necessary things about how to properly archive important historic records.
These students are wonderful to work with. They work hard, and they play hard. Students are what we’re about at WVU. Our crew of eight graduate students and two faculty accomplished a great deal of research into an important aspect of West Virginia’s history. What could be more fun than that? I love my job!
Barbara Rasmussen is a clinical assistant professor of history and coordinator of the public history MA and the cultural resource management graduate certificate programs.