Tiger Giving Day 2022 Funds Rosenwald Schools Historical Research

Thanks to your support on Tiger Giving Day last week, the College of Architecture, Design and Construction has raised $10,354 to support the preservation of the historic Rosenwald Schools, which were built to educate African American children across the racially segregated South in the early 1900s.

Today these buildings are falling into disrepair, but your gifts will enable faculty members Junshan Liu of the McWhorter School of Building Science and Gorham Bird of the School of Architecture, Planning and Landscape Architecture to document these structures through the use of cutting edge technological research methods, including Light Detection and Ranging (LiDAR), photogrammetry and Unmanned Aircraft Systems (UAS).

Liu and Bird have documented four of the Rosenwald Schools to develop models and virtual tours of what these buildings once looked like. With your help they will now be able to document an additional eight schools, and eventually they hope to create a series of exhibitions to educate students and the public about the importance of these historic structures. “We started last summer,” Bird said. “It is now approaching 100 years since many of these schools were built. It is estimated that 10-12 percent of the original schools remain. Most are falling apart, and there is a pressing need to document and preserve them before they are gone.”