08/15/2026
PRESS RELEASE
Opening of Southeastern Louisiana University’s HIPS Military Museum on August 26
A new military history museum will open on the campus of Southeastern Louisiana University on Wednesday, August 26. It will be known as the HIPS Military Museum, “HIPS” being the acronym for the Department of History and Political Science, which curates the collections. Located in the Patricia A. Ahrens Gallery on the second floor of Fayard Hall (Room 223) at 1250 North Oak Street, it will be open to students, faculty, staff, and the general public 10:00 to 3:00, Monday through Thursday except for holidays. Admission is free, and a website is forthcoming.
The museum is home to large collections donated by Mr. Al Freyder and Dr. Ralph Shaw, and some smaller donations from alumni. In total more than 1000 military antiques have been catalogued, including fi****ms, swords, uniforms, and other artifacts spanning centuries of global conflict. The mission of the museum is to honor the armed services and bring to life the personal experiences of soldiers, sailors, airmen, and civilians who endured combat in all its forms. What makes this museum unique is that many of the items come “out of the cabinet” for students and visitors to touch and feel and, in the process, gain a deeper understanding of what it meant to go to war at a specific time and place in history.
The opening exhibit, “The Nuremberg Trials and the Search for Justice,” commemorates the 80th anniversary of the verdict in the International Military Tribunal that held senior N**i officials accountable for crimes committed during WWII. Most were convicted and many were sentenced to death by hanging. More than one hundred artifacts are on display to tell the story of the rise of Adolf Hi**er, his demand for a war of annihilation, and the power of an ideology that drove the German people to murder more than 6 million Jews and 5 million others, based solely on race and ethnicity.
As Allied forces pushed into Germany in 1945, they discovered the horrors of the concentration camps and immediately began gathering evidence of N**i atrocities. The unprecedented scale and brutality of N**i genocide demanded the creation of a new criminal charge, “crimes against humanity.” Together with the Subsequent Trials, which continued through 1949, the events that took place at Nuremberg reshaped the world’s view of individual responsibility for wartime actions, made genocide an international crime and, in the process, redefined human rights.
The exhibit also highlights a significant local connection to the trials. Justice Paul M. Hebert, former Dean of LSU Law and namesake of the building that currently houses it, served on the bench at one of the Subsequent Trials. Thanks to a generous loan from LSU Law Center and LSU Law Library, the judicial robe that Justice Hebert wore at that trial will be on display.
Dr. Sam Cavell, Associate Professor of Military History at Southeastern is the museum’s director and worked with Graduate Assistants Haley Creith, Abbey Hynes, and Andrew Worthy this summer to catalogue the collection and create the opening exhibit. “We’re a small museum, but the story packs a punch,” said Dr. Cavell. “It’s so important to remember this critical moment in our not-so-distant past when the U.S. led the charge for accountability and justice in an international forum.” Cavell added, “Today Holocaust denial has never been more prevalent, especially among young people. The Nuremberg Trials put the Holocaust on record using the N**is own documents to prove both their actions and the numbers they killed. It’s a fact of history that cannot be forgotten.”
Dr. Bill Robison, Department Head of History and Political Science, says, “Dr. Cavell and her assistants have done an incredible job in telling this important story.” The department is grateful to Mr. Freyder and Dr. Shaw for their donations, to the estate of Patricia A. Ahrens and to a generous anonymous donor for their financial backing. The HIPS Department would also like to thank Southeastern President Dr. William Wainwright, Provost Dr. Eric Skipper, and Dean of the College of Arts, Humanities, Dr. Jeff Wright for their support from the outset.
Robison notes that the museum and its artifacts provide an important opportunity for hands-on instruction and for the promotion of what he calls “enlightened patriotism,” pointing out that “Southeastern students now have a hands-on experiential learning resource on campus – and it is not just for History or Cultural Resource majors. Students across so many disciplines can come an be a part of the creative process of designing a museum, maintaining its collections, and making it a platform for community outreach.”
