Progress

keep up with the work underway on

the sewanee praises Monument Project

summer 2023

DISCOVERING SEWANEE AND FIRST COMMUNITY GATHERING

Architecture professors Ronald Kloster from Hampton University and Kevin Jones of Virginia Tech visited Sewanee in late June for a close up inspection of all parts of the town and a crash course on the work of the Roberson Project. They also got a chance to meet a lot of people from the community in a potluck barbecue dinner at the renovated St. Mark's Community Center. The airlines foiled the travel plans of our colleague from Virginia Commonwealth University, Laura Battaglia, who joined us for her own version of this community encounter several weeks later. The Roberson Project staff and our architect friends also spent a Zoom hour talking with Frank Dukes of the University of Virginia, a specialist in mediation and facilitation of community justice projects, like UVA's Memorial to Enslaved Laborers. Frank's "work involves equitable collaboration - work that emphasizes relationship and that is trauma-informed, inclusive, responsive, truth-seeking, deliberative, and adaptive to organizational and community needs and circumstances." (An image of Kevin's notes from our meeting with Frank Dukes above.)

Fall 2023

THREE-DIMENSIONAL SITE MODEL

Students working with Laura Battaglia, Assistant Professor of Interior Design in the School of the Arts at Virginia Commonwealth University, are developing a three-dimensional site model of Sewanee's historic Black St. Mark's neighborhood. When finished at the end of the fall term, the 3x5 foot model will help community members and design students working on the project to imagine it in the context of the neighborhood as a whole.

SPRING 2024

PARTICIPATORY RESEARCH & DESIGN WORK: VIRGINIA TECH, VCU, AND HAMPTON STUDENTS

Introduction to Interior Design Studio II, Laura Battaglia, Virginia Commonwealth University

This course is structured around the SEWANEE PRAISES Monument Project. The first of two major will focus on research and interpretive mapping, and the second project will be a concept design for the memorial. Students will meet with community members by Zoom and present projects in late February, followed by student visit to Sewanee in early March, including a design charrette. Additional conversations with community members by Zoom in late March and mid-April, and final design review by Zoom in late April.

Details on courses and independent studies at Virginia Tech and Hampton TO BE ANNOUNCED

COLLABORATING COURSES (UNIVERSITY OF THE SOUTH)

ARTH 365 Modern and Postmodern Architecture (Dr. Shelley MacLaren)

DETAILS TBA: Course description: This survey of architecture and urban planning begins with the revivalist architecture of the nineteenth century and concludes with global contemporary practice, exploring along the way efforts to formulate a "modern" architecture and subsequent postmodern critiques. Students are introduced to significant figures like Frank Lloyd Wright, Le Corbusier, Jane Jacobs, Frank Gehry, Michael Graves, and Zaha Hadid, and to significant themes in modern and postmodern architectural practice, like the archetype of architect as hero, architecture as social engineering, and architecture as spectacle. Students thus learn of essential reference points for understanding our built environment and its discourse.

ARTH 336 Earth Art and Eco-Action (Dr. Jeffrey Thompson)

DETAILS TBA: Course description: This course will examine the international movements grouped under the names Earth Art and Environmental Art. We will trace the historical development of these movements from the 1968 exhibition “Earthworks” up to the present day. The course tracks the changing aesthetic, political, biological, economic, technological, and climatic forces that influence such art, from the participatory approaches of the 1960s to the activist engagement with environmentalism today. The class seeks to understand the historical conditions that have given rise to such art and demonstrate ways in which artists have sought to intervene in and affect a changing environment.

HISTORY 328: SLAVERY, Race, & the University (Dr. Woody Register)

An exploration of the importance of slavery to the development of higher education in the United States through a close study of the history of the University of the South, its antebellum roots in the slaveholding South, and the continuing impact of the legacies of slavery and racial injustice on its development. The course also examines campus monuments and memorials that shape collective memories and identities at Sewanee and considers the ethical questions of how universities may seek justice and reconciliation in light of their historic and long-unaddressed connections to slavery. For this semester's major assignment , we will collaborate with students in Dr. Tiffany Momon's Historic Preservation class and with architectural design students at Virginia Commonwealth, Virginia Tech, and Hampton universities in designing an "anti-monument" that tells the stories and experiences of Sewanee's historic Black communities.

History 333C - Topics in Historic Preservation (Dr. Tiffany Momon)

Students in this course will examine the SEWANEE PRAISES Monument Project as a model for grassroots historic preservation. Throughout the semester, students will complete a series of assignments in conjunction with community members leading to the creation of a Heritage Development Plan. The Heritage Development plan will include funding sources, public programming ideas, exhibition ideas, and interpretation suggestions such as themes, topics, stories and more.

summer 2024

TBA

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