Heritage Preservation at Georgia State University

09/24/2026

Thank you to everyone that turned out for the recent panel discussing the proposed changes to the Section 106 process hosted by the Anthropology Department and the MHP program. It was great to see so many faculty, students, and community members interested in learning how the proposed changes will impact the preservation of our cultural resources.

We’re especially grateful to our panelists for giving us their time and expertise on this pressing matter.  They provided amazing insight into how the process currently works, what makes it so successful, and how the proposed changes will result in in the loss of important historic and cultural resources.

In addition to the panel, we got to see artifacts from the MARTA collection on display. These artifacts are housed in the Anthropology Department and were recovered during the Section 106 process that occurred before beginning construction on the MARTA rail.

09/15/2026

On Tuesday, September 22 from 6-7 pm, the Anthropology Department and the Historic Preservation Program will host a panel discussion on the impact of the proposed changes to the Section 106 process. This will take place in room 223 at 25 Park Place. The event is free and open to the public.

Panelists include:

Patrick Bowen, History Staff Lead at VHB

Gretchen Eggiman, President of Georgia Council of Professional Archaeologists (GCPA), President-elect of Society for Georgia Archaeology, PI and Lab Manager for Southern Research

Jennifer Flood, Division Director at the Georgia Historic Preservation Division

Sarah Love, Archaeologist at VHB

Wright Mitchell, President and CEO of the GA Trust for Historic Preservation

Maureen Meyers, Director of Archaeology, New South and Associates

07/15/2026

The Historic Preservation Division (HPD) of GA is hosting a HPC Training in partnership with the Georgia Downtown Conference, which will be held in Rome this year. It will be on Monday, August 17th from 9:00 AM to 4:30 PM. Registration can be completed through the GDA website. Cost is $115 per person. 

This training will cover a wide variety of topics related to historic preservation, including what it means to serve on a historic preservation commission, programs and tools that can be utilized to protect and rehabilitate the historic resources in your city or county, maintaining historic building materials, and how to use historic preservation as a tool to grow and strengthen your local community. All sessions will be presented by professionals with educational and/or professional experience in or with the field of historic preservation.

07/13/2026

05/29/2026

From the academy into practice. A next progression for recent MHP public history graduate students who are able to bring their academic research to a public audience. Keandres Dyson, Maya Henry, and Jessica Brooks are kicking off an exhibition of their capstone projects at the Sun ATL on June 19th from 2pm - 5pm. The exhibit will feature a talk from each curator and a screening of Maya's documentary Sexy in Sepia: Black Burlesque, Sexuality, and Socialization in Media and Performance. 

The exhibit is titled Self-fashioning Sacred Selves and focuses on artwork and histories of Black artists, communities, and families. The exhibit breaks down into three sub-exhibits titled “Sexy in Sepia”, “Her Lens, Her Voice”, and “Anchored in History”. Each exhibit focuses on the way Black artists and communities create their own identities through movement arts, visual arts, and storytelling. The ethos of the project follows the second principle of the Nguzo Saba, Kujichagulia or self-determination in which Black people craft our own selves for us, by us. The exhibit includes burlesque pieces such as gloves, feather fans, headpieces, and pasties, oral histories, family objects, photography, and an original documentary.

05/26/2026

Thanks to everyone who made our field study trip to Savannah such a wonderful learning experience! This includes site visits with a focus on various topics such as local preservation planning, architectural preservation, historical archives, African American history, historic site interpretation, tax incentive programs for rehabilitating historic structures, and cemetery conservation. Thanks to all the wonderful preservationists and public historians who shared their time and expertise!





crotzer.7

05/04/2026

Congratulations to the students that completed the MHP capstone course and those graduating this week! They recently presented their final projects and posters to fellow students, faculty, family, and members of the Atlanta preservation and public history community. We appreciate all your hard work and wish you much success! Thanks to all who attended.

Julie Abraham, Documenting Change and Continuity: An Historic Resource Survey of East Cobb, Georgia

Jessica Brooks, Restoring The Gaze: Black Women Photographers

Vivian Cannella, Documenting Forty Oaks: Architectural and Historical Documentation Using Historic American Building Survey Guidelines

Keandres Dyson, Preservation Beyond the Museum

Ira Eidle, Documenting Neurodiversity History

Sepideh Farahmand, Kodak Building: A Façade as a Storytelling Canvas

Maya Henry, Sexy in Sepia: Black Burlesque, Sexuality, and Socialization in Media and Performance

Azlyn Hernandez, Supercut History: Preservation Through Location, Location, Location

Mackenzie Roach, Grain and Grit: Georgia Craft Brewing

Kellea Roberson, Everlasting Resilience: Cobb Bethel Cemetery and its Restoration

Ryan Smith, Sanford Wade Heritage House Historic Structure Report

Rob Sturgess, Preserving Black History in Clarkston: The Clemsil Historic Resource Survey and StoryMap Project

04/24/2026

Students in the Investigating and Documenting Historic Structures course are in the process of recording the Bryan House in Kathleen, GA.  It was constructed in 1832 and is fairly unique for a few reasons. First, the dogtrot layout was built using post and beam framing. Dogtrots were typically assembled using stacked round or hewn logs. Second, dogtrot houses were vernacular in style. At the Bryan House, it’s quite the opposite. There are several details you usually find only in high style architecture like the use of wainscotting and faux finishing. The wainscot detail was even extended onto the porch, which created additional living space on the exterior of the home.  

Still more rare is the inclusion of a rain porch, which is characterized by a roof that extends further than the porch decking. These features make the Bryan House a very exceptional design for the period.