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Partnerships with Public Universities

  • 1.  Partnerships with Public Universities

    Posted 02-27-2019 13:59
    Greetings,
    Does anyone know of a public university that is working to preserve adjacent historic neighborhoods?  This could be through down payment assistance so faculty and staff can afford a home in that area, helping to obtain homes for a preservation organization or an affordable housing organization, help to rehabilitate historic homes, or any method that is being used by a public university to keep historic neighborhoods from being redeveloped?
    Thanks for any and all leads you can provide,
    Duffie Westheimer
    Flagstaff, AZ

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    Duffie Westheimer
    Flagstaff Townsite Historic Properties Community Land Trust (Townsite CLT/TCLT)
    Board Member/Director
    Flagstaff, AZ
    www.townsiteclt.org
    townsiteclt@gmail.com
    ------------------------------


  • 2.  RE: Partnerships with Public Universities

    Ambassador
    Posted 02-28-2019 09:17
    As of about 10 years ago, Wayne State University and Detroit Medical Center did offer financial benefits for employees who lived nearby (it might have been the full Detroit city limits).

    University of Oregon has been known to do survey projects that historic district proposals that would otherwise be financially infeasible for property owners to fund.

    UW Milwaukee and UW Madison have the Buildings-Landscapes-Cultures program which focuses on community engagement and preservation in low income Milwaukee neighborhoods. The neighborhoods involved usually aren't adjacent, but within 5 miles (for UW-Milwaukee at least) https://uwm.edu/sarup/make/blc/    http://thefieldschool.weebly.com/

    And while not a university, the City of Milwaukee has a modest pay incentive for employees who are city residents and resident preference points in a lot of its hiring.


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    Tim Askin
    Milwaukee Historic Preservation Commission
    Milwaukee WI
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    Original Message


  • 3.  RE: Partnerships with Public Universities

    Posted 02-28-2019 09:21
    @Duffie Westheimer you may want to poke around NCPE (National Council for Preservation Education), too.

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    Colleen Danz
    Forum Marketing Manager
    National Trust for Historic Preservation
    Washington DC
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    Original Message


  • 4.  RE: Partnerships with Public Universities

    Posted 03-01-2019 10:13
    I can confirm Tim's comment on the University of Oregon. I'm in the survey course currently, and we are working with a consultant and the city to do a small survey of a commercial district on the east side of the city that has traditionally been underserved. The last time Portland has done any survey work in the city was 1984 and our course is a pilot for a hopeful regeneration of the survey in coming years. This project is especially exciting because the neighborhood was almost completely overlooked in the 1980s survey.

    Our program director, Jim Buckley, also recently received a grant from the university to do some work in the gentrifying Albina neighborhood of the city. The project will focus on conservation districts, design guidelines, and planning policies that may help preserve the historic character of the neighborhood, interpretive materials including signage to illustrate the history of black culture in Albina, arts activities and events to activate the space and engage the community, and the possibility of a historic designation. (https://artdesign.uoregon.edu/winners-inaugural-tinker-hatfield-award-innovation-announced)

    That said, these examples are really more efforts of the preservation program than the wider university, and I have to believe preservation programs around the country are involved in similar efforts.

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    Jeremy Ebersole
    M.S. candidate, University of Oregon
    Co-Vice President, Society for Commercial Archeology
    Portland, OR
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    Original Message


  • 5.  RE: Partnerships with Public Universities

    Posted 03-04-2019 13:13
    Thanks all for the information and suggestions of where to find public universities that are working to preserve the adjacent (or relatively  close) historic neighborhoods.
    --Duffie

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    Duffie Westheimer
    Flagstaff Townsite Historic Properties Community Land Trust (Townsite CLT/TCLT)
    Board Member/Director
    Flagstaff, AZ
    www.townsiteclt.org
    townsiteclt@gmail.com
    ------------------------------

    Original Message


  • 6.  RE: Partnerships with Public Universities

    Posted 03-04-2019 15:11
    Hello!

    I'm a student at the University of Arizona. I'm in the MS Architecture - Heritage Conservation program and my curriculum has been focused on project based work with historic neighborhoods in Tucson. I'm currently creating a HALS short format document and a neighborhood preservation plan with classmates this semester. I know previous groups have worked on National Register nominations for historic districts and similar projects. While this is within our relatively small program at U of A, there are a lot of community partners that assist. Groups like the local governments to the Tucson Historic Preservation Foundation and other non profits all provide helpful insight and community connections.

    Erica LeClaire
    MS Architecture - Heritage Conservation
    University of Arizona

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    Erica LeClaire
    Tucson AZ
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    Original Message


  • 7.  RE: Partnerships with Public Universities

    Posted 03-06-2019 15:20
    I like your question. I do not know of a public university that has done this process. In our area Union College (a private college) has rehabbed a  street full of late Victorian and other houses for the purpose of providing housing for students.

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    Paul Stewart
    Co-Founder
    Underground Railroad History Project
    Albany NY
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    Original Message


  • 8.  RE: Partnerships with Public Universities

    Posted 03-06-2019 17:45
    Hi folks,
    It seems clear that private universities and colleges are approaching their communities differently from tax funded schools.

    Here in Arizona, our three state universities have been pretty aggressive about growth over the past few decades.  Lately here in little Flagstaff, Northern Arizona University is being pushed to grow to a size like their large siblings which happen to be located in big cities.  NAU students are already 1/3 of our total population, and the school is mandated to grow more.  Our history and legacy family homes adjacent to our state schools are being redeveloped with off-campus dormitories and other out of character development.  As we all know, once gone, that's it, these buildings, landscapes, etc. and the history they represent is permanently gone.

    Documentation is great but I think we, as people who value history need to find ways to do more to actually save our historic places.

    I'm looking for examples of a different way Northern Arizona University could interact with Flagstaff than to eat us for breakfast, lunch, and dinner too, if anything is left.
    Please continue to send info.
    Thanks,
    Duffie

    ------------------------------
    Duffie Westheimer
    Flagstaff Townsite Historic Properties Community Land Trust (Townsite CLT/TCLT)
    Board Member/Director
    Flagstaff, AZ
    www.townsiteclt.org
    townsiteclt@gmail.com
    ------------------------------

    Original Message


  • 9.  RE: Partnerships with Public Universities

    Ambassador
    Posted 03-07-2019 14:53
    Hi Duffie,

    Lumberjack here (NAU '10), one thing that I think the university NEEDS to do is to offer historic preservation elective courses for history and parks and recreation management students. As a parks&rec grad, it is very disconcerting that historic preservation was not a part of the curriculum. Luckily, I had the opportunity to intern at Riordan Mansion State Historic Park and that greatly impacted my professional trajectory. If you would like to have that conversation with the parks and recreation management program, I would be more than happy to be a part of it. With the National Parks Service being the "mothership" of historic preservation, it is imperative for universities that have parks&rec programs to be mindful of historic preservation and ensure the next generation of culture resource caretakers are property educated.

    When attending the Michigan Historic Preservation Network conference in 2018, there was an engaging session on the East Lansing Historic District Commission and how the historic district works to preserve neighborhoods around the university. I would recommend reaching out to them. Another Michigan example is in Ypsilanti, which is home to Eastern Michigan University; EMU has a program to assist faculty buying property in the city.


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    Sarah Marsom
    Heritage Resource Consultant
    Tiny Activist Project
    me@sarahmarsom.com
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    Original Message


  • 10.  RE: Partnerships with Public Universities

    Ambassador
    Posted 03-11-2019 15:44
    Great idea Sarah! It's not just Parks & Rec that needs to add preservation to its curriculum. It needs to be mandatory in planning and architecture programs. I won't name names, but I can think of a graduate program in planning where even the preservation elective class disappeared after a change in departmental leadership and philosophy.

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    Tim Askin
    Milwaukee Historic Preservation Commission
    Milwaukee WI
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    Original Message