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Home > News & Events > CLA Today Archive > Spring 2002 : Reflections on historic places

Reflections on historic places

by Pat Mack

Against the backdrop of the U's legislative request for funding to renovate historic campus buildings, we asked three people to reflect on the significance of campus buildings.

John Archer is associate professor of art history and cultural studies and comparative literature, and adjunct in American Studies. He is also the recipient of the Arthur “Red" Motley Exemplary Teaching Award, 1998-99, and the First Annual Award for Excellence in the Teaching of Writing, Center for Interdisciplinary Studies of Writing, 1998.

Patrick Nunnally is a Mississippi River specialist and a teacher, consultant, and historian whose work focuses on interpretation and planning for rivers, trails, and scenic byways and the adjacent historic communities. He teaches a freshman seminar on Twin Cities architectural and cultural history.

Ben Blair is a student in the School of Journalism and Mass Communication who survived the upheaval and celebrates the transformation occasioned by the renovation of Murphy Hall. A public relations major, he will graduate in the spring.

Intellectual engagement

The University of Minnesota is charged not only with the pursuit of intellectual inquiry and discovery, but also with maintaining an understanding of how the past has brought us to the present. Historic buildings such as Jones and Nicholson, especially in the way that they form an ensemble with such other historic structures as Folwell, Pillsbury, Eddy, and Burton Halls, help to accomplish these purposes doubly.

First, a campus that retains its historic structures is a campus that materially values the traditions of intellectual inquiry and discovery that have been the institution's hallmark for decades and generations. Universities are often proud to retain their older buildings as evidence of the historical continuity of their academic enterprise. Doing so is an indication that knowledge is not a throw-away commodity, but part of a continuous enterprise in which history and the present are deeply engaged with each other.

Beyond these considerations, the architectural features of Jones and Nicholson—the expansiveness of scale, the stylistic richness, and the detailed workmanship—all bespeak the high regard in which knowledge and its pursuit were held in the past. As long-lived material statements of esteem for higher learning, such buildings, residing at the core of campus, attest to the continuing centrality of knowledge production—and of the humanities in particular—to the enterprise of the modern University. —John Archer

Sense of place

The University of Minnesota, like all great universities, moves into the future from the stable foundation of its past. Perhaps nowhere is this past demonstrated more than in the universities buildings and grounds—which provide continuity between past greatness and future achievement. Our buildings speak to us of the achievements that have taken place within them. Learning is a dynamic process, though, and the buildings that house that learning must change to continue to meet the needs of students. The essential effort—and it is essential if the University is to retain the “sense of place" that links students to each other and to the past, that forms a true University community—is to rehabilitate the campus's buildings so that they can retain the ambiance of the past while remaining assets for the future.—Patrick Nunnally

Transforming undergraduate learning

I remember the old Murphy Hall as a place with history and tradition, but also pull chain toilets. I remember being crammed into the lecture hall for my first two journalism classes. I spent a lot of time in the basement coming and going from the Student Service office (now on the main floor). I remember the Public Relations Student Society of America office (also a place I spent hundreds of hours) tucked in a corner on the fourth floor, surrounded by brick.

I even remember the semester we spent as temporary residents of the West Bank as the J-school commandeered the second floor of Heller Hall.

There was a lot of history gutted from that old building on “IT row." But now it's as if all of the history was transferred into a tremendous energy. Murphy Hall is now more than just a school of journalism and mass communications. It's a community where there is life and energy and excitement about the next new thing that Murphy will be able to do. I often tease friends of mine at Syracuse University's Newhouse School that there were now two great places to get degrees in journalism and public relations. And I didn't even have to go to upstate N.Y. to find it.

I'll be very proud to be a graduate of this school this May. —Ben Blair