Abigail Dunagan, Campus Carrier arts and living editor

From the eye-catching castle of the Ford buildings to the humble Roosevelt Cabin, the Berry campus is rich with architectural history for those who have an interest in the field. Some buildings, such as the Morgan Deerfield dorms or the Animal Science building are more recent editions to campus, while other buildings have been serving students since the founding of the school. 

This spring semester, Professor of Art History Virginia Troy has been teaching a course titled, ART 345: Historic Preservation. This course allows students to dive into the world of Berry’s unique history by analyzing the buildings of the college. According to Troy, she first started the class in the 2010s as a BCC 100 course. The class then became a special topics art course, and now it serves as part of the art and public history program. The class is currently taught every other year. Although open to all majors, students are often majoring in history, anthropology or art history.

 “Being at Berry, you start to realize how historic it is,” Troy said. “I learned as much as I could and developed a temporary class, and I have now taught it a few times.” 

Freshman Kara Cooper initially decided to enroll in ART 345 because she was interested in learning more about the field of historic preservation. Cooper is majoring in history with a minor in art, and she came across the course while looking through the list of art courses. She currently works at the Oak Hill and the Martha Berry Museum as a Historic Keeper, and she has found that this class has complemented her job by helping her learn more about Berry. 

“My favorite part has been learning more about the history of Berry and analyzing the evolution that the buildings have gone through,” Cooper said. “From the early days of the school you have log cabins and wooden structures. As Martha wanted a more academic feel to the school, she added more brick buildings, and then you have the Ford buildings that are very academic and collegiate.” 

While there are some lectures, the course is designed to take a “hands on” approach to the material. Students have been able to conduct their own research in the Berry Archives, and the class has taken several fieldtrips to historic sites both on and off campus. The class has also hosted a variety of guest speakers from people experienced in the profession, such as Berry Archivist Michael O’Malley and Oak Hill Museum curator Rachel McLucas.  

Junior Joey Kowalczewski is majoring in creative technologies with a minor in art, and he signed up for the course to fulfill a requirement in his minor. Kowalczewski said that he has always loved learning about historic buildings, and this class helped him learn more about professions in historic preservation. 

“Just to see some of the insides of the buildings that I haven’t seen, such as Roosevelt Cabin and the Hoge building was pretty fascinating,” Kowalczewski said. 

According to Kowalczewski, one of the biggest challenges in this class has been finding information of some buildings. The final project requires students to pick a building or collection of buildings and conduct their own research on it. Kowalczewski is doing his project on Lemley Hall and has been able to gather reports, photos, and letters about the building. While some buildings may have a lot of accessible information, other buildings may be difficult to cover if they do not have a lot of available evidence. 

ART 345 is a class that students can take to expand their knowledge about Berry College and the field of historic preservation. While there are challenges in finding information about some of the historic structures, this will give students interested in historic preservation a better understanding of what future careers in the field could entail.