Historic Preservation Program at Mississippi College (Podcast 51)

05/28/14 • 9 min

Preservation Technology Podcast

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Historic Preservation Program at Mississippi College (Episode 51)

Today we join NCPTT's Jason Church as he speaks with Tricia Nelson, Director of the Mississippi College Historic Preservation Program.

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TRANSCRIPT:

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Ammons: Welcome to the preservation technology podcast, the show that brings you the people and projects that are advancing the future of America’s heritage. I’m Kevin Ammons with the National Park Services’ National Center for Preservation Technology and Training. Today we join NCPTT’s Jason Church as he speaks with Tricia Nelson, Director of the Mississippi College Historic Preservation Program.

SAM_0643Church: And hello, this is Jason Church, Materials Conservator for the National Park Services’ National Center for Preservation Technology and Training, and I’m here today talking to Tricia Nelson, the Director of the Mississippi College Historic Preservation Program and we just finished up the International Cemetery Preservation Summit here in Niagara Falls where you had a poster about the school’s program. Tell us a little bit about the degree and the program and what your students are doing.

Nelson: Okay. Well in the fall of 2010, Mississippi College began offering a minor in Historic Preservation. It’s taught within the history and political science department. We do offer introductory classes such as Architectural History, Conservation, and Research and Documentation and then about a year ago we did offer a Historic Cemeteries course.

Church: Okay and you teach in this program and you had a lot to do with the cemetery course. Tell us a little bit about that.

Nelson: The cemetery course was unique in that we were able to use a local cemetery, Clinton Cemetery, to do a lot of our work. We were able to document stones, study materials, and successfully conserve parts of the cemetery. Some of these projects included repair of the iron fencing and we were also able to use the D2 to clean biological growth and so the students were able to see before and after and it was very successful. We were also able to partner with historic Greenwood Cemetery in Jackson, Mississippi, established in 1823. It’s the final resting place for six Confederate generals, seven governors, fourteen mayors and a host of other prominent citizens such as famous writer Eudora Welty. The students were able to help with Greenwood. There had been a recent vandalism of the cemetery and so many of the urns were removed from their grave markers, so the students were able to help walk around and locate those urns and try to match those with their markers, flagging various areas that needed special attention because of advanced vandalism. We were able to help with a couple of cemeteries there and the students really did learn a lot.

Church: Now how much do the students juggle the actual in-the-field work versus their classroom work when they’re in the program?

Nelson: Well we do a combination of lecture and fieldwork. In lecturing, I taught them about various historic cemeteries. The types of cemeteries we did study iconography and various things like that. We then went into conservation and then once we talked about those areas, we then went out to the cemetery and did some fieldwork.

Church: Now the cemetery class, is this is something you’re going to repeat on a regular basis?

Nelson: It was successful but it was a limited number of students so it just depends on how much marketing we can do and because it’s an elective course, it’s not required. It really does take more marketing but again, it was successful for the cemeteries and it was a way for us to help those entities so I would like to offer it again in the future.

Church: How many students typically are in one of the classes?

Nelson: We do have small classes at Mississippi College. We are a private, Christian institution so that is how we market ourselves. So that particular class had about eight or nine students in it, and I think that’s a wonderful course size because you can really work with the students and really get that one on one with them. So it’s not too large and a wonderful opportunity.

Church: Now you mentioned this is an elective. For the corps people doing this program, what are their backgrounds?SAM_0678

Nelson: These are usually history majors. Again, we do have some minoring in historic preservation program. I do hope to develop a master’s program and some of the art students have been interested in our courses as well. So we do get some of those type students.

Church: Now the program is fairly young, what are the students who are coming through this program hoping to do professionally once they leave?

Nelson: That’s questionable. I don’t know and I don’t know that they really know sometimes but what I try to do is give them a good background in preservation. I try to educate them in a lot of the different opportunities for a history degree that may be in preservation, a lo...

Next Episode

National Mall Plan Project Part 1 (Episode 52)

Today we join NCPTT's Paul Cady as he speaks with Susan Spain, the National Mall Plan Project Executive and a landscape architect with the National Park Service for more than twenty-four years. In the first of this three part series, they'll talk about the design of the National Mall turf renovation project.

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TRANSCRIPT:

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Susan Spain, NPS landscape architect and Project Executive for the National Mall Plan. Susan Spain, NPS landscape architect and Project Executive for the National Mall Plan.Photo Credit: http://www.olmsted.org/events/frederick-law-olmsted-jr-symposia/background-information

Kevin: Welcome to the Preservation Technology Podcast – the show that brings you the people and projects that are advancing the future of America’s heritage. I’m Kevin Ammons with the National Park Service’s National Center for Preservation Technology & Training. Today we join NCPTT’s Paul Cady as he speaks with Susan Spain, the National Mall Plan Project Executive and a landscape architect with the National Park Service for more than twenty-four years. In the first of this three part series, they’ll talk about the design of the National Mall turf renovation project.

Paul: Susan, could you describe your role in the design of the project and give a brief history of how it came about?

Susan: My role was to be the lead planner for the National Mall plan. This is an award winning, 800 page EIS [Environmental Impact Statement], that talked about how we’re going to manage the National Mall in the future. The Mall is the component part of the National Mall which contains also the Lincoln Memorial, the Washington Monument, the Vietnam Veterans Memorial, and so on. It’s about 750 acres overall. The Mall is a portion of that area and it’s the area directly west of the capitol and it’s surrounded on both the north and the south sides by the museums of the National Gallery of Art and the Smithsonian Institution as well as the headquarters for the USDA [United States Department of Agriculture].

Paul: What were the design goals the project?

Proposed plan for the National Mall, from the National Mall Plan: Summary, Fall 2010. Proposed plan for the National Mall, from the National Mall Plan: Summary, Fall 2010.

Susan: Well clearly sustainability. We wanted to make sure that we could have a sustainable space. The Mall, and the National Mall, were never designed for the types and levels of use that they receive. For example, the Mall area between the museums held about 800 days of special events annually. It was never designed for that type of use, it was never designed for the level of use, and when we started planning, at this point in time, we had conditions that were unacceptable to virtually everyone. The soil was incredibly compacted (a soil scientist from Penn State University broke his probe the first time he tried to stick it in the ground), our soil conditions were like a concrete block and we didn’t have anything that was sustainable. Our irrigation system was broken; basically we looked pretty bedraggled.

Paul: Since it is such a visible project, with all the museums and other things around, how much input did the public have in the design process?

Susan: We had about 30,000 public comments during the National Mall plan time. The most common comment in our first round of public comments was ‘this doesn’t look good enough for what it means to our nation.’ People would tell us this was our nation’s front yard, or our nation’s stage, and they wanted to be proud of the way it looked and they didn’t feel like they could be.

Paul: What was the process for receiving input from the public?

Susan: We had a dedicated website and we were using the Park Service’s link, cross link to the Park Service’s PEPC [Planning Environment and Public Comment] site which is a internet way to submit comments. We also had a number of public meetings and we had fax comments, we had email comments, that came in to us. But you know, our process was a four year process to complete planning.

Paul: Do you use other examples of historic landscapes to help you with the design process?

Susan: Before we even started planning we undertook two Best Practices Studies. One of the Best Practices Studies was about local historic designed landscapes in the Washington DC area (PDF, 4.3MB). We had identified 7 historic landscapes and how they were managed to maintain high levels of high quality conditions. These could be things like American University, Georgetown University, [The Washington] National Cathedral, Architect of the Capitol grounds, the capitol grounds, so to speak, the National Gallery of Art and so on. We were looking at what techniques could they use to make sure that their landscapes were in good condition. We learned a great deal from that; it’s always desirable, for example, if you can close off an area (that’s not an opt...