FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Monday, April 21, 2008
Contact: Dave Wellman, Director of Communications (304) 696-7153
 

Graduate seminars involving Glenwood development
to be offered this fall by MU Graduate Humanities program

HUNTINGTON, W.Va. – Two graduate seminars which will involve the development and construction of a traveling exhibit of Glenwood, the historic estate on Charleston’s west side, will be offered beginning this fall by Marshall University’s  Graduate Humanities program.

The Graduate Humanities program is housed on Marshall’s South Charleston campus. The program director is Dr. Luke Eric Lassiter, who along with Dr. Billy Joe Peyton, is co-directing Phase II of the three-phase project about the 156-year-old estate.

The Glenwood Project is funded in large part by the West Virginia Humanities Council and also will involve the creation of an educational Web site detailing the history of the estate.

Glenwood is a pre-Civil War mansion that was home at various times to the Laidley, Summers and Quarrier families, three of Kanawha County’s most prominent families. The house was built in 1852 on a vast estate with 366 acres that extended over much of what is now the West side of Charleston.

The estate is now owned and maintained by the newly established Historic Glenwood Foundation Inc., which formerly was the Marshall University Graduate College Foundation.  The foundation is a partner with the Graduate Humanities program in this effort.

The seminars will offer three hours of credit.  This fall Mark Tobin Moore, a noted artist and designer who also is an instructor at the Marshall University Graduate College, will teach Museum Studies and Exhibit Design.  Moore’s class will focus on the design, development and construction of the exhibit.

The class will work collaboratively with the second seminar, Historical Studies, taught by Peyton, assistant professor of history at West Virginia State University.  Peyton’s seminar will involve students in the organization of historical materials to be used in the exhibit. 

The exhibit will consist of six panels with an accompanying extensive Web site which will give a detailed look at the estate, its complex history and the impact it has had on the Kanawha Valley both historically and culturally.  Plans call for the exhibit to travel to several locations in the area.

For additional information about the seminars or the project, call (304) 746-2022 or 746-2023, e-mail at lassiter@marshall.edu or visit http://www.marshall.edu/gsepd/humn/.   

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