STARKVILLE — In the heart of Louisville, a small group of Mississippi State University students is working to preserve a piece of local history.
Four graduate students in the Master of Fine Arts in Historical Preservation program have spent the last month researching and documenting Louisville Presbyterian Church to nominate it to the National Register for Historic Places.
The project is part of the program’s summer field studies course which, unlike seminar and lecture courses, gives students the opportunity for hands-on learning, said Associate Professor Jeff Fulton.
“When we put together the program, we decided we wanted a nuts and bolts program rather than a theoretical one,” Fulton said. “So one of the reasons we have the field studies class is so the students are actually in the field, measuring, and doing the leg work that they would normally do if they were working in a preservation office, architectural firm or interior design firm.”
The church, Fulton said, boasts historically-significant features. Its structure is based on Roman architecture, with a square exterior and rounded decorative beams inside. A set of stained glass windows, shipped from Italy, picture Jesus and the Samaritan woman at the well.
Beth Edwards, one of the church’s five remaining members, brought the church to Fulton’s attention about three years ago.
“We want the church to be recognized for the beauty that it has within it, its unusual octagon shape, the priceless windows,” Edwards said. “There’s a lot of history that goes into that church, and we just want it to be remembered.”
Students began researching the church in June, digging up archives about its history and leafing through newspapers to write the church’s historical narrative. Since then, the team has photographed the church’s interior and exterior, documented the architectural elements, measured the building to draw floor plans and used remote sensing technology, called a LiDAR camera, to produce a 3D digital model.
“It’s our first time doing a real project that isn’t just make-believe for school,” said graduate student Mary Claire Martin. “It makes it a little bit more rewarding seeing how it impacts real people … who have a connection to it in their lives.”
The documentation phase wraps up this week, Fulton said. From there, students will create a proposal to submit to the Mississippi Department of Archives and History. If approved, it will be sent to the National Park Service and added to the National Register of Historic Places.
“It’s just a national recognition,” Fulton said. “That’s really all it is, but for the congregation, it validates the building.”
Fulton said it will likely take about a year for the nomination to be approved.
One-of-a-kind degree
This is the second field studies project students have completed. Last summer’s field study group documented a building in Enid, Mississippi, which passed through MDAH this month and is being sent to the National Parks Service.
The MFA in Historic Preservation is still relatively new, Fulton said, and saw its first graduating class last fall.
Fulton worked with department head Beth Miller to develop the curriculum during the pandemic, and the program officially launched in 2021.
The program requires 60 credit hours and offers a terminal degree, which is the highest credential that can be earned in a particular field, Miller said. In addition to hands-on work, students learn about architectural history, preservation law and planning and methods of historical documentation.
Miller said the degree is one of a kind at MSU, and it is one of few like it in the U.S.
“We started doing a lot of research and looking at other universities that had a historic preservation degree, and one of the things that we found out is there was no public institution that Mississippi touches that had a master’s in historic preservation,” Miller said. “We thought that would be to the advantage of our program to be something really special and unique.”
The program will host another field study course in the fall, Fulton said, though he has not decided what building will be selected for nomination.
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