Beneath the Ivory Tower: The Archaeology of Academia

Appendix: Heritage Resources Management in the College and University Environment

Appendix Heritage Resources Management in the College and University Environment I. Preamble: Associated Colleges of the South, Environmental Program , Heritage Resource Management in the College and University Environment, Sewanee, November 11–14, 1999 We are 33 presidents, provosts, deans, student conference interns, students, business managers, faculty members, physical plant managers, campus operations managers, archivists, librarians, and staff of the Associated Colleges of the South (ACS), representing Centenary College, Centre College, Furman University, Millsaps College, The University of Richmond, The University of the South, and Washington and Lee University. We invited and urged presidents, administrators, faculty, and students of all ACS member institutions to participate. Also participating at our invitation were President Scott Colley and Dean of Mathematics and Natural Sciences Bruce Conn of Berry College, which has a land base of 44 square miles; Richard Waldbauer of the National Park Service, Office of Departmental Consulting Archaeologist ; and Russell Skowronek, University Archaeologist at Santa Clara University . In what may have been the first effort of its kind in the nation, we met in 40 hours of intensive work sessions between Thursday evening, November 11, and Sunday morning, November 14, to consider the place of heritage (archaeological and historical) resources in the environmental stewardship, educational, and operational programs of our ACS institutions. We engaged in five progressive policy discussions and debates; presentations of case studies from ACS schools, other universities, and the National Park Service; intensive field sessions; and an excellent series of exhibits, GIS demonstrations, and poster sessions. We also benefited from an extensive topical web site and suite of electronic pre-conference homework that was prepared by the University of the South, and we recommend this to your attention. We completed our work convinced of the value of uniform, special stewardship efforts by our institutions, which are uniquely positioned, and re- 290 Appendix sponsible, to identify, evaluate, protect, preserve, educate, and share with regard to heritage resources. These resources exist on each of our campuses; they contribute to the distinctive character of each institution; like books in our libraries, they contain unique information on the human past and our interaction with the natural environment; they are fragile and non-renewable ; and they can vastly enrich our educational programs with experiential learning. In a college or university, perhaps better than anywhere else, a commitment and action toward preservation of the institution’s resources by directors , administrators, faculty, and a core of students can have significant, long term, and broad positive effects. Such an institution, committed to the understanding and preservation of its heritage resources, can: —serve as a permanent steward of important samples of the record of the past, —teach by example the value of such preservation efforts, —influence in this way an entire student body, not just the students specialized in a single discipline or enrolled in the courses in this field, —extend these positive effects over generations of students through sustained commitment, and —disseminate the effects widely in the persons of environmentally sensitive graduates in all walks of life in communities throughout the country —people who can make a real difference in their own communities on issues of identifying, understanding, preserving, and interpreting important samples of the record of human adaptation to the environment since time immemorial. We participated in a remarkable learning and sharing experience, and we came away energized to learn what evidence of the human legacy lies beneath our feet and before our eyes at each ACS school, how each of us can make a contribution that will last, and how the immense human journey can be made more meaningful for all. It appears that as one important outcome of the conference, Berry College (Rome, GA), one of the largest and most diverse campuses in the U.S., will rapidly embark on a heritage resource inventory and management program. The inspiration for our conference came from Major McCollough, David Michaels, and the Joseph Johnson Preservation Archaeology Program at the University of the South (Sewanee), where heritage resource inventory, evaluation, research, preservation, experiential learning, and policy making Appendix 291 efforts are being built in a model program on the 15 square mile Cumberland Plateau campus. Among institutions of higher learning in the U.S., Sewanee is clearly one of the most richly endowed with comprehensive evidence of the human past. And in sharing its resources and its vision, Sewanee has inspired us all. In the conference, Richard Waldbauer of the National Park Service provided us...