Category Archives: Exhibits and Events

Old Main Renovation 2014

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Note: this page is still under construction. Please check back again later to see the complete post. Thanks.

During her tenure as President of the University of Arizona (2012-2017), Ann Weaver Hart decided it was time to renovate Old Main, the University’s oldest and best-known campus building. It was previously renovated in the 1940s and in 1972 was selected for listing on the National Register of Historic places. The latest project, begun in early 2013, was expensive, totaling over 13 million dollars, and not a very popular undertaking (with some donors and administrators), but in the end, the transformation of the second floor of Old Main was a sight to behold. The newly renovated building, replete with new air conditioning units on both floors, now houses, among other things, student services, spacious meeting rooms, and the president’s office, and showcases some of the University’s finest artwork and cultural artifacts. The architectural firm, Poster, Frost, Mirto took the lead in designing the recent project. Sundt Construction completed the work.

In 2013, the director of Special Collections assigned me and another colleague the task of assisting the coordinator of the Old Main interior design project in identifying historic photographs and other materials for display in Old Main. My colleague took the lead in identifying and providing photographs and I worked on identifying materials for a small exhibit case and wrote annotations for many of the photos.

Historic photographs of the campus and photographs of covers of UA Yearbooks now fill the hallways and meeting rooms of the 2nd floor the Old Main building.

I chose materials for the exhibit case below. An inventory follows.

This is the exhibit case that I filled with memorabilia and documents from Special Collections. Below is the inventory of material included.

Most of the following photographs are from Special Collections. My colleague and the interior designer assigned to the renovation project worked with a professional photographer to restore and frame the historic photos included here.

Old Main at the beginning…
The original floor plan, courtesy of Special Collections.
Old Main now.
Corky Poster, one of the architects involved in the renovation project.
Photos from Special Collections above the exhibit case that I contributed material to.
Rodney Mackey, a staff member of the UA’s Planning Design and Construction department, gave a tour to the UA staff who contributed artwork and artifacts to the project.
The Arizona State Museum contributed some beautiful American Indian pottery to the project.
Minerals from the UA minerals collection.
From Special Collections, a photo of an early 20th century celebration at the Old Main fountain.
This sign, belonging to the original contractor, was found in the attic during the renovation.
The walls are also filled with photos from the Center for Creative Photography.
Meeting rooms on the 2nd floor.

Another shot of Old Main, courtesy of Special Collections.
One of the larger meeting rooms on the 2nd floor.
Another large meeting room.
The reception area leading to the President’s office.
Students at work in a science classroom, early 1900’s.
UA co-eds outside one of the women’s dorms.
Yearbook covers lined the walls of the various meeting rooms on the renovated second floor.

The architects held an open house for contributors to the project in advance of the grand opening. Below are some of the photos of the renovation.

From a presentation given by the architect, Corky Poster.
More photos of the work.
Photo courtesy of Sundt Construction.

Click here see a complete, annotated list of the photos contributed to both the Old Main project and the Phoenix Health Sciences building project.

A thank you letter from President Hart

Further reading:

Saving Old Main, The UA’s Oldest Building, by La Monica Everett Haynes, University Communication, October 1, 2013.

Old Main Renovation almost finished at University of Arizona, by Anne Ryman. The Arizona Republic, May 5, 2014

Old Main Re-opens Its Doors, University Relations-Communications, August 27, 2014.

University of Arizona Old Main Renovation. Sundt Construction.

That’s all, folks!

UA Alumni Association 50 year reunion exhibition

Exhibits and Events, Uncategorized, Work,

Note: this page is still under construction. Please check back again later to see the complete post. Thanks.

2015 UA Alumni Association 50 Year reunion

In early 2015, I was asked to work with representatives of the UA Alumni Association to create a small exhibit of materials from the UA Class of 1965. The exhibit cubes shown below are housed on the 1st floor of Old Main. The exhibit remained in place for several years.

I did a lot of research for this particular exhibit, and could not possibly fit everthing I wanted to into three cases. I still have all the material I gathered and will be adding more to this blog post, as there is no limit here. I can add as much stuff as I want, so I will! What I have gathered together so far does not provide much context for what happened in 1965, so I’ll be working to add more factual information and additional photos etc. Stay tuned. It may take me a while, but I’ll get there soon enough!

Stay tuned. More to come…

Status of Hispanic Library and Information Services : A National Institute for Educational Change, July 29-31, 1993

Exhibits and Events, Latino Librarianship, Work, , ,

I was a member of the planning committee for this event. My main role was to organize the opening night reception. I worked with colleagues from the Library and student members of the local chapter of REFORMA, of which I was president, to plan the logistics and serve as hosts. It was a very successful and fun evening, with live music and plenty of food and drink.

The following photos were taken during the opening reception of the Institute. I worked with members of the Library staff to host this event in Special Collections.

40 Years of Tucson Meet Yourself: Folklife and Culture, with Dr. Maribel Alvarez / Program, November 19, 2013

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Promotional material by Marty Taylor, University of Arizona Libraries

The second program associated with this exhibition featured Dr. Maribel Alvarez, professor of Anthropology and executive director of the Southwest Folklife Alliance.

Here is the news release for the event:

“40 Years of Tucson Meet Yourself: Folklife and Culture”

Date: November 19, 2013

Times: 6:00 pm – 8:30 pm

Location:   Special Collections

Contact: Bob Diaz

Description:

Join us for the final lecture accompanying Special Collections’ current exhibition, “40 Years of Tucson Meet Yourself.” Maribel Alvarez, research professor for the UA Southwest Center and Tucson Meet Yourself program director, will share stories of Tucson’s folklife and culture and how they manifest themselves in every day life.

The following biographical snapshot of Dr. Alvarez is borrowed from the University of Arizona Southwest Center’s webpage:

“Maribel Alvarez, Ph.D., is an anthropologist, folklorist, curator, and community arts expert who has documented the practice of more than a dozen of the country’s leading emerging and alternative artistic organizations. She is Associate Dean for Community Engagement for the College of Social and Behavioral Sciences, is the Jim Griffith Chair in Public Folklore and Associate Research Social Scientist in the Southwest Center, and Associate Research Professor in the School of Anthropology.  She founded, and until recently served as executive director of the Southwest Folklife Alliance, an independent nonprofit affiliated with the University of Arizona. 

She teaches courses on methods of cultural analysis, with particular emphasis on objects, oral narratives, foodways, and visual cultures of the US-Mexico border. In the last few years, Maribel has written and published essays about poetry and food, intangible heritage, nonprofits and cultural policy, the theory of arts participation, artisans and patrimony in Mexico, and popular culture and stereotypes. In 2009 she was a Fulbright Fellow conducting research in rural Mexico.  Maribel was the co-founder and executive director for seven years of MACLA–Movimiento de Arte y Cultura Latino Americana, a contemporary, alternative urban arts center in San Jose, once described as a “lab for intelligent cultural interventions.” Maribel is a trustee of the American Folklife Center at the Library of Congress; in addition, she has served as faculty for ten years at the National Association of Latino Arts and Culture’s summer Leadership Institute in San Antonio, TX. Currently, she is completing two book manuscripts for the University of Arizona Press, one on the verbal arts and lore of workers in the Mexican Curios cottage industry at the US-Mexico border, and another on the cultural history of wheat and flour mills in the state of Sonora in northern Mexico. Maribel was born in Cuba and came to the United States at the age of seven; she lived in Puerto Rico for eleven years before moving to California in 1980, where she became active in the Chicano arts community and multicultural arts movement of that decade.”