Center for Historic Preservation 1301 College Ave Fredericksburg, VA 22401

Historic Preservation  N E W S L E T T E R  

Fall 2018

University of Mary Washington Center for Historic Preservation

Diversity in Preservation/ 2-3 Ghost Walk 2018/ 4-5 Where in Fred?/ 6-7 Students Abroad/ 8-9 Graduate School Fair/ 10 We Asked You!/ 11-12

Diversity in Preservation

Recently launched by the University ofMary Washington, the ASPIRE Statementof Community Values places at its centerstudents’ participation in the communitythrough responsible leadership and service.However, such experiences have longbeen a hallmark of the curriculum offered inthe Department of Historic Preservation.Since the early days of the program, facultyconducted work in the community with theunderstanding that preservation could notexist in isolation from the people it served.Historic preservation (HISP) professorsalways look for ways to integrate real-worldexperiences in the classroom and connectstudents with members of the largerFredericksburg area through projectsserving the goals of preservationorganizations, city entities, and propertyowners.

Through the joint effort of Prof.Christine Henry and Prof. LaurenMcMillan, a series of courses taughtunder the generic title Preservation inthe Community has been recentlyadded to the HISP offerings. As ofnow, these courses meet the SpecialTopics designation and each of themwill cover a different subject andproject each semester. Through thesecourses, HISP students and facultyrespond in a timely manner to theneeds of the community. As Prof.McMillan explained, Preservation in theCommunity classes are not designedto dictate local community projects, butrather help community members withtheir existing initiatives, by providingthe assistance of faculty and students.“What can we do to help?” is the mainquestion driving these projects. Withthis in mind, Prof. McMillan and Prof.Henry have reached out to communitygroups to learn about their agenda,accomplishments, challenges, andneed for help in areas related tohistoric preservation. A primary focusof this approach has also been thediversity of both community groups andtheir projects so that HISP studentslearn first-hand about diversity-relatedchallenges in historic preservation.

Jervis Hairston gave a walking tour ofdowntown Fredericksburg to students in

the African Diaspora course

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In the spring of 2018, Prof. McMillan taughtan African Diaspora Archaeology course thatembraced a holistic approach to historicpreservation. She wanted students to learnabout African diaspora through activities suchas museum visits, walking tours, meetingswith local community leaders, and classdiscussions. These activities exposedstudents to a variety of viewpoints andchallenges that preservationists face on adaily basis. For instance, students looked atthe ways in which local historical sites arecurrently interpreting African-American historyas well as the factors that shape theseinterpretations. This class format alsoencouraged students to understand historicpreservation as a multi-disciplinary fieldentailing varied approaches to thepreservation of cultural heritage. To prepare students for various types of real-world challenges, this fall Prof. Henry isteaching Diversity in Historic Preservation, acourse that gives students the uniqueopportunity to learn about currentpreservation issues in the Fredericksburgcommunity. Class activities encouragestudents to consider the preservation ofspaces related to specific groups of people,including sites that elicit emotionally chargedresponses. Prof. Henry encourages herstudents to think beyond the cut-and-drypractice of placing signs along roads andinstead develop new types of formats topreserve and share the stories of diversegroups of people that otherwise may gounnoticed. Students who take Prof. Henry’sDiversity class are assigned the developmentof a tour, event, or other unique way topreserve the narrative of anunderrepresented local group. The work onthis project required students to answer thequestion, “how and why do we preservesites?” and gave them an active, participatoryrole in preserving history.

In the spring semester of 2019, Prof. Henryis slated to teach an oral history courseunder the broad designation ofPreservation in the Community. The classwill provide students with the opportunity tolearn professional oral history methods andalso to help the community with a specificproject that is time sensitive and recordsthe stories of an underrepresented group ofpeople. Prof. McMillan will be teachingWorlds Collide: Virginia 1619, which willexplore the development of Virginia frominitial contact between Native Virginians,Enslaved Africans, and English colonists inthe early 17th century to the present. Aspart of this course, students will bepartnering with the Patawomeck IndianTribe of Virginia to explore pre-contact andearly colonial-era archaeological siteswithin the tribes’ ancestral lands in StaffordCounty, Virginia. In general, Special Topics courses are verypopular among HISP majors because theyallow hands-on, out-of-classroom, practicalexperiences that immerse students in thelocal community and allows them tobecome engaged citizens who serve theneeds of the community.

Students in the Diversity in Historic Preservationcourse participated in community meetings on theinterpretation of the slave auction block downtown

Fredericksburg

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Ghost Walk 2018

It has been over three decades since historicpreservation students at the University ofMary Washington (UMW) had the idea ofoffering a haunted tour of downtownFredericksburg every year aroundHalloween. As the event quickly caught onwith both organizers and the localcommunity, a tradition was born. Soon after the closing of the 34th annualGhost Walk this fall, Sasha Erpenbach(Class of 2020) shared with us more aboutthe behind-the-scenes aspects of this event.Sasha has been a member of the HistoricPreservation Club at UMW since herfreshman year and, in that capacity, sheparticipated in the Ghost Walk as aninterpreter. After gaining more experience,she became the chair of the event for the2018-2019 academic year. The work of the chair usually begins duringthe summer, takes off gradually in the fall,reaches out the peak during the pre-eventnight, and wraps up during the followingmonth. Within this short time, the chair planstasks such as volunteer recruitment, costumepreparation, partnerships with hosting sites,advertising, permits, script revision, interprettraining and many more. Obviously, thecomplex planning of the Ghost Walk couldserve as a great capstone course inmanagement.

Sasha Erpenbach

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As always, this year’s walk presentedopportunities and challenges. Sasha had theidea of starting a Ghost Walk website toimprove the event’s outreach and webanalytics as well as visitation figuresdemonstrated the positive impact of theevent’s online profile. She also learned a lotabout working with volunteers. The GhostWalk counts entirely on volunteers, thereforesecuring the interest of students in order toget them to volunteer is key in making theevent possible. Sasha recalled what made her becomeinvolved as a freshman and decided to reachout personally to all potential volunteers. Shepresented the Ghost Walk to them as a one-of-a-kind, not-to-be-missed, fun experiencethat the larger Fredericksburg community hascome to identify very closely with theDepartment of Historic Preservation andUMW. By and large she was successful inrecruiting volunteers although several last-minute cancelations still existed and requiredher to redistribute tasks and ask foradditional help. Sasha felt very honored to have served asthe Ghost Walk chair. Knowing thatcontinuing this long-standing tradition restedupon her work and effective coordination ofthe planning committee gave her strengthand determination. She thoroughly enjoyedmeeting new people and interacting withvolunteers and the local community. GhostWalk chairs certainly deserve a lot of creditfor keeping the tradition going. Photographs on these pages show studentparticipants at Ghost Walk 2018.

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Where in Fred?Because historic preservation cannot existwithout the material to be preserved (buildings,sites, artifacts, etc.), access to such resourcesand related documentary materials isparamount to teaching historic preservation inan effective manner. The Historic PreservationProgram at the University of Mary Washington(UMW) was established on the premise thatFredericksburg offers a wealth of resourcesthat could augment the practical component ofthe class curriculum. While upper-level coursesentail projects in support of museums, historicsites, government entities, and owners ofhistoric properties, most lower-level coursesinclude both faculty-directed and student-directed field trips that expose students to thebuilt heritage as well as preservationorganizations. The two courses ushering students to the HISPmajor (HISP100 - Introduction to HistoricPreservation and HISP105 - The AmericanBuilt Environment) incorporate assignmentsthat bring students in contact with the localcommunity. One of them requires students tosurvey blocks in the historic district ofFredericksburg, and compare the current citywith the respective Sanborn maps. Byengaging students in a thorough physicalexamination of individual structures, thisexercise increases their familiarity with theirsurroundings. Another assignment exposesstudents to the workings of the localArchitectural Review Board (ARB), a paneldesignated by the City Council to maintain thehistoric and architectural integrity ofFredericksburg’s historic area. By attending orwatching recordings of ARB meetings, studentsget first-hand knowledge of the localpreservation system, particularly its legislation,policies, and methodologies.

Donna McCague introduced HISP205students to archival materials at the

Central Rappahannock Heritage Center

Curator Meghan Budinger gaveHISP200 students a tour of

Kenmore Plantation

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The Documentation and Field Work (HISP205) course relies on students’ access tolocal resources that help thedocumentation part of their class projects.In this context, field trips take students toseveral archival repositories. At theClerk’s Office, students learn how toidentify and analyze deeds and courtrecords to track the chain of title forproperties they research. Students alsovisit the Virginiana Room at the CentralRappahannock Regional Library, whichholds fire insurance policies for downtownproperties as well as city directories, andthe Historic Fredericksburg Foundation,where they mostly research markerrecords and property files. Consisting ofhistorical documents and photographspertaining to the history and people fromthe City of Fredericksburg and itsadjacent counties, the collections of theCentral Rappahannock Heritage Centeralso provide contextual material to classassignments and projects. Several museum visits are integrated intothe Introduction to Museum Studies(HISP200) course syllabus. The coursesection on museum interpretation isfollowed by a visit to Historic KenmorePlantation, where the curator explains thefurnishing-plan process. Material coveredin class lectures on collectionsmanagement is supported by a visit to theJames Monroe Museum’s storage area,where the collections manager discussesthe nature of his work. Finally, a visit toFredericksburg Area Museum bringsstudents in contact with education andmarketing staff, who provide examples forhow best practices explained in classlectures apply to their organization.

Follow-up written assignments and classdiscussions require students to reflectfurther on these visits and theirconnections to class material. Over 30 years of teaching historicpreservation at UMW have provedwithout a doubt that the program’svisionary founders were right inimagining the City of Fredericksburg asan extension of the classroom. In theirwork, faculty and students in theDepartment of Historic Preservation relyheavily on the wealth of resourcesavailable to them.

Curator Jarod Kearney shows James Monroe'sstorage area to HISP200 students

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Students AbroadQuite often, learning takes historic preservation students away from the University ofMary Washington (UMW) campus and Fredericksburg. In some cases, away means

Europe, where some our majors study abroad for a semester or an entire school year.We caught up with Caleigh Sullivan (Class of 2019) and Carolyn Roush (Class of 2020)

to learn about their recent experiences abroad.

Caleigh Sullivan, a double major in historic preservation andanthropology, studied at the University of College Cork in Cork,Ireland during the spring of 2018. Caleigh was drawn to Irelandbecause of her Irish background. Despite her relative familiaritywith the country, the difficult first couple of weeks in Cork remindedCaleigh of her beginnings at UMW, when she had to get adjustedto the new surroundings and make friends. However, the sameexcitement that carried her through her sophomore year andonward at home proved beneficial in Ireland as well.

In Cork, Caleigh took several classes, including a few (archaeology, archives, and Irishfolklore) related to historic preservation. In her free time, she traveled around the country,visiting historic sites everywhere she could and observing differences in preservationpractices between Irish and American organizations. None of the places she visited equaledEPIC The Irish Emigration Museum in Dublin, the world’s only fully digital museum. Caleighenjoyed the interactive nature of this museum that features 1500 years of Irish history andpresents stories of Irish emigrants.

With two other American students, Caleigh lived in an apartmentabout three miles away from the university she attended. Whenasked about her favorite part about her trip, Caleigh immediatelymentioned the connections and friendships she made in Ireland.She befriended several of her classmates and they becameCaleigh’s trusted trip partners and great guides through Irishculture. Caleigh recommends all students to study abroad. Shethinks that the challenges inherent in living and studying inunfamiliar places always lead to personal growth. Let alone thata location like Ireland can serve as the base for short (andaffordable) trips to other European countries.

Caleigh enjoyed spending timeon the picturesque campus ofthe University of College Cork

Caleigh took numerous tripsto the Irish seaside

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In the summer of 2018, Ireland was also thedestination for Carolyn Roush, a historicpreservation major and prospective minor inmuseum studies. While abroad, Carolynstudied at the University College of Dublinand interned at EPIC The Irish EmigrationMuseum in Dublin's famous Docklands touristdistrict (the same museum that CalleighSullivan loved!). A previous trip to Ireland placed the countryon Carolyn’s radar as a potential study-abroad destination. Furthermore, thepersonal connection stemming from her Irishfamily lineage contributed to her decision andalso led her on the path to look for aninternship with EPIC. Through her academicand work experiences, Carolyn learned moreabout the field of museum studies in Ireland,including the challenges and opportunitiesrelated to museum development and tourism.

Carolyn’s favorite memory from her timeabroad was meeting Prince Harry andMeghan Markle during their visit to EPIC.She was given the chance to talk to theroyal couple about the Department ofHistoric Preservation at UMW as well as herinterest in museum studies. A highlight ofCarolyn’s trip was also the time she spentwith her co-workers both at the museumand off the job. They were a great source forinsights to the Irish culture and life as wellas a vital support system. Carolyn is still incontact with her new friends and plans toreturn to Ireland very soon for another trip. In hindsight, the summer program thatCarolyn completed this year significantlyshaped her career plans because she wantsto pursue employment in the museum fieldin Europe after graduation. Carolynencourages all majors to consider becominginternational students as a unique chance tolearn a lot not only about different culturesbut also about themselves.

Carolyn (second from right) made manyfriends while abroad

The modern architecture of theTitanic Centre in Belfast is oneCarolyn's favorite buildings in

Ireland

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Every year the Center for HistoricPreservation organizes a graduate schoolinformational session to help currentstudents learn about graduate studies ingeneral as well as such options in thehistoric preservation field. This fall fourrecent graduates served as guest speakers:Sam Biggers (Class of 2015), ProjectEngineer with Kjellstrom and Lee inRichmond, Virginia; Susanna R. Finn (Classof 2013), Community Development Plannerwith the City of Fredericksburg, Virginia; andRobin Ramey (Class of 2015),Archaeological Crew Chief with FairfaxCounty Park Authority in Fairfax, Virginia. Aseach of them earned a graduate degree in apreservation-related field (historicpreservation, urban planning, andanthropology /archaeology), they used theirpersonal experiences to discuss subjectssuch as a graduate degree’s role in careeradvancement, applying to grad

Graduate School Fair  school, graduate school academic andprofessional work, as well as post-graduationemployment. The room was packed and the audienceincluded not only HISP seniors but alsomajors who are still in the early stages of theHISP program. The genuine connectionbetween the audience and the paneliststranslated into an extended Q & A session,whose topics ranged from the GRE test torecommendation letters and cost of graduatestudies. Organizers also provided currentpromotional materials from various graduateprograms in historic preservation.Participants’ overwhelmingly positivefeedback confirms this event’s merits and theCenter has already started planning its nextedition. Photographs on this page show participantsat the 2018 fair.

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We Asked You! This fall, we asked HISP alumni to share on Facebook their

favorite memory from college days! This is what we’ve got

thus far …

“Brick Day lives in my memory. BrownMorton told us at the beginning of classwe would tell our children about the daywe learned about bricks at Mary Wash. I

intend to do just that.” Laura Reid

“The HISP departmentcouch! It made for great

conversations, studysessions, and friends.”

Erin Clark

“Asking the professors to

leave the office suite open so

we could use the coffee

maker during all-nighters in

the drafting studio.”

Missie Plokin

“One time we were documenting abarn with Prof. Spencer and a red

fox trotted in. Of course, Prof.Spencer was very calm and just

said, "Nobody move. He'll leave usalone." Then the fox just turned

around and trotted right out. Scarybut a fun memory, nonetheless!”

Carol Vinatieri “HISP Center Secretary Mrs. Louise Holz

was so professional and so sweet to all of us,and patiently helped us type our resumes,

etc. while keeping everyone (staff andstudents) in line and on time.”

Jamie May

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Thank you for sharing your memories!  

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Upcoming Talks January 31, 2019: Caitlin DeSilvey, author of Curated Decay: HeritageBeyond Saving, winner of the Historic Preservation Book Prize 2018

Newsletter Edited by: Emily Whaley

2018-2019 School Year 

Congratulations to the New HISP Club Officers 

President: Gracie Hardy Vice-President: Kathleen Elliott & Renee Stemcovski

Treasurer: Carolyn Currin Secretary: Lily Eghtessad

Historian: Ilana Bleich Ghost Walk Committee: Sasha Erpenbach (Chair) & Tessa

Honeycutt

March 21, 2019: Elif Gokcidem, editor of the anthology Designing forEmpathy. Perspectives on the Museum Experience