Physical Plant update: November 2009

If you read your copy of the Fall 2009 Heritage magazine then you may recall President James Gaertner saying that a new residence hall is on the horizon, as part of the Campus Master Plan. Specifically, “a new 300-bed residence hall located across from the University Health Center is in the plan. In addition, the Office of Residence Life will be housed on the first floor of the new building.” The Physical Plant released a rendering this month courtesy of Kirksey Architecture showing a new student residence building set to begin construction in April 2010 and to be completed around June 2011. 

President Gaertner to retire in 2010

News out of Huntsville from Today@Sam:

SHSU president James Gaertner announced during the annual faculty and staff picnic today Friday, October 30, his intention to retire effective Aug. 31, 2010. "Nancy and I have enjoyed this time of our lives more than I can describe. It has been an incredible honor to serve with the entire university community as president of this grand old university.”

Share your thoughts at the katfans forum.

CHSS Building Recognized For Design Innovation

Today@Sam reports that the College of Humanities and Social Sciences Building has received the "Award of Excellence" for its innovative design and contribution to the community and will be featured in the December issue of Texas Construction.

The constructors of the building, SpawGlass Construction Corporation, took part of the annual Texas Construction Best of 2009 competition held in September. Twenty-one projects, including the CHSS Building, were big winners in an "Award of Excellence" category. SpawGlass submitted photos of the CHSS Building under the subcategory of higher education/research project. SHSU’s building was the only higher education/research project to win in the "excellence" category. The competition, held by Texas Construction magazine, received 150 nominated projects. Each project was divided into categories including, "Best Of," "Excellence" and "Special." The judges reviewed each project based on safety, innovation, contribution to the community or industry; construction quality and craftsmanship; and function and aesthetic quality of design. Winners in each category also will be honored at an awards luncheon in Dallas on December 8.

Montgomery considers creation of historical park

The town that lays claim as the birthplace of the Texas flag is considering creation of a historical park to enhance its niche in Lone Star lore, reports the Montgomery County Courier.

Montgomery officials will review options related to the creation of the Fernland Historical Park – a collaborative effort between the city, Sam Houston State University and Buffalo Springs....

The 1.75-acre site adjacent to the Charles B. Stewart Library and Memory Park would feature historical buildings representative of early Texas architecture – including four structures donated by SHSU from Fernland, a 40-acre historical site off Honea-Egypt Road owned by the university.

Plans call for the Crane Cabin, Jordan House, Tharp House, and a blacksmith shed to be moved from Fernland to the proposed site as part of a historical park. Fernland’s Bear Bend, the hunting lodge frequented by Texas statesman and military leader Sam Houston, is not part of the donation offered by SHSU, said [Brant Gary, city administrator].

In the News: Jabez Curry

A statue of Helen Keller was unveiled Wednesday, October 7 in the United States Capitol’s National Statuary Hall Collection. Each state is allowed two statues honoring persons notable in their history in this collection, and there is little surprise that Texas is represented by Sam Houston and Stephen F. Austin. But in recent years the Capitol has allowed states to replace statues – for example, California swapped out Thomas King for Ronald Regan a few years ago – and it’s who Keller replaced that caught our eye.

Keller's statue replaced one depicting Jabez Curry, whose statue represented Alabama since 1908. Curry was originally from Georgia and served as president of Howard College (now Samford University) and it is this university where the statue will now reside.

Curry also has a slight tie-in to SHSU, too. In 1881, Curry was chosen as General Agent of the Peabody Education Fund. The fund sought to establish educational opportunities across the southern United States following the Civil War; because of a $2 Million endowment from this fund, Sam Houston Normal Institute was able to open in 1879. Following his death, a stained glass window was presented in his honor by the SHNI senior class of 1903 for placement in the Memorial Hall of Old Main. The window, like the many others honoring campus luminaries, was lost in the 1982 Old Main fire.

Persons who should not enter the normal

As we celebrate the 130th anniversary of the first day of classes at the Sam Houston Normal Institute, we present a series of remarks from the SHNI catalogue, as printed in History of Education in Texas (1903):

If you desire to prepare for the study of law, medicine, or theology, do not come to the normal.

If you wish merely to obtain a general education, do not come to the normal.

This is not a reform school. It is not a place for children. Boys or girls incapable of self-control should not enter the normal.

If you have not completed a course of study that would fit you to enter a good high school, you can not be profited by our work, and should not apply for admission.

Our work is special, and will suit none but those preparing for the teacher’s profession. If you wish to teach in our country schools, our city schools, or high schools, we can give you good instruction by trained and skillful teachers, with all needed helps in the way of apparatus, libraries, etc., and special professional training that will be most valuable. But the normal school is not a college or university. If you are merely seeking to obtain a general education to prepare yourself for other than the teacher’s profession, do not come here. Our work will not suit you, and we will not be satisfied with you. Only those desiring to prepare for the great work of the teacher should come to the normal.

Conversations about the Master Plan

More discussions about the Campus Master Plan from President James Gaertner in today Houstonian:

“We plan to tear down all of the small student housing, like King Hall for example, and build additional student housing. We are going to tear down the LSC and build a new LSC on the same spot, and build new Nursing and Allied Health, Engineering, and College of Business buildings and turn the old business building into general classrooms," Gaertner said. "We also plan to add to the Criminal Justice and Education buildings. There will also be three structured parking garages being built."

"The building schedule depends on our enrollment growth, the availability of funds, certain programs growing at a certain rate, and programs being approved, such as the Engineering and Nursing and Allied Health programs," Gaertner said. "One of the very first projects we will have is going to be new dormitories and student housing because we need a certain number of beds available when we tear down the older houses. We will probably break ground [on the housing project] within the next year and a half or so and then probably after that Allied Health and Nursing."

Chime in with your thoughts or questions about the Master Plan at the katfans forum.

Last (Small) House Standing

If you’ve read your copy of the Fall 2009 Heritage magazine then you’ve been more or less brought up to speed on the status of the Campus Master Plan and the changes that will come to the SHSU horizon in the next decade or so. In an interview about the master plan, SHSU President James Gaertner notes some of the items on the planned demolition schedule include Allen, Randel, Spivey, and Vick Houses.

Those are but four examples of the small, brick residential units that have dotted the campus landscape over the years. There were originally 25 of these “small houses” (the oldest date back to 1956) and they’ve been home to underclassmen, fraternities, sororities, and a menagerie of other various campus offices (such as Residence Life). But in recent years they’ve slowly been removed to make way for bigger and better buildings. None of them are architectural treasures that were meant to stand a century or two or the classiest of digs to call your home, but they have served the campus – and their students – well over the last 50 years.

So that got us thinking: because they sit on prime campus real estate, and it's little surprise that they're regularly listed as candidates for demolition, which will be the last small house standing on the SHSU campus? Cast your vote today!

Quizzes by Quibblo.com

Building a Mystery #3

Periodically we come across shards of uncertainty in our research. Today it's the Catholic Student Center (CSC).

First, the building, located west of main campus on 17th Street, is not owned by the university. Seeing how it's one of those close-by structures (and that it appeared on past campus maps) we decided to do some research into it. What we found was a number of interchangeable names.

The 1982 Alcalde notes the construction of a new Catholic student center called Morkovsky Hall. No location is given but we assume it's the building along 17th Street; our maps dated before the 1980s indicate nothing at that location so we feel safe that they are one in the same. Who was Morkovsky? No immediate clue unless it was John Morkovsky (1909-1990), the bishop of the Catholic Diocese of Galveston-Houston - who would have still been alive in 1982. And don't tell us that's the wrong Morkovsky because we'll then have headaches and be all cross.

We're not sure how official the "Morkovsky" name was, however, because campus maps from the mid-1980s identify the structure as the Newman Foundation. Many Catholic student centers across the country - indeed, the world - are labeled "Newman," named for John Henry Newman (1801-1890) who maintained the idea that "Catholic students attending public universities should have a place to gather where they would be able to support and encourage one another in their faith."

Hereafter the name of the building flip-flops from "Newman Foundation" to “Newman Student Center” to “St. Thomas Catholic Student Center” and finally to, what signage currently out front says, "Catholic Student Center." Saint Thomas? Yes, have no doubts, St. Thomas the Apostle Catholic Church sits just north of the student center, facing 16th Street.

We've forwarded a few emails to the CSC but to date have heard nothing in return. That leaves it to our readers at large: does anyone have information on the history of the Catholic Student Center or other Catholic student organizations on campus?

USC Law School Wasn’t First "in the Southwest"

Roger Grace writes in the Los Angeles Metropolitan News Enterprise that the University of Southern California’s website lays claim to be being home to “the first law school in the Southwest.” Grace counters that this isn’t so.

On March 17, 1855, the website of the Texas Historical Assn. says, “the first law school in Texas was established at Austin College” in Huntsville. It continues:

“Previously, all legal training in Texas had taken place by apprenticeship. The innovation was discontinued at Austin College after four students had completed the one-year course….”

Austin College still exists. Its March, 2009 magazine muses:

“Had the law school survived the money problems that doomed it, today it would be among the oldest dozen law schools in the U.S.”

The college is now in Sherman, Texas—but the Huntsville building in which its law school was housed is extant (on the campus of the Sam Houston State University) and a plaque on it commemorates the “First Law School in Texas.”