SEMO BUILDING SAVED TO PRESERVE HISTORY

All that currently remains of the oldest building on the Southeast Missouri State University campus is its exterior walls.

A decision to renovate the Social Science Building at a cost of $4.4 million rather than raze it and put up a new structure was based on preserving the historical integrity of the campus.

The 95-year-old Social Science Building, situated behind the northeast corner of Academic Hall, was already under construction when fire destroyed the original Normal building in 1902.

Before Academic was built on the site of the Normal building in 1904, a second building, behind the northwest corner of Academic, was begun in 1903, using the same architect, the same exterior plans and the same limestone quarried in Cape Girardeau as that used for the Social Science Building. That building, today's Art Building, is the second-oldest on campus.

"The idea of razing the Social Science Building seemed strange because it would have left a void in the face of the campus," said Martin Jones, dean of the College of Liberal Arts. "A new, modern building would have been inconsistent with campus history."

Jones said the Social Science and Art buildings are sister buildings that complement each other. Destroying one, he said, would be like knocking a tooth out of someone's mouth.

Jones said another consideration on the part of then-president Kala Stroup was that the university has a nationally known historical-preservation program, and destroying the oldest campus building would not be consistent with that program's goals.

Dr. Frank Nickell, director of the Center for Regional History at Southeast, said he thinks it is important for any campus, and especially Southeast, to maintain its traditional landscape.

"Old buildings allow us to have an encounter with the past," Nickell said. "Preserving them enables us to see that history is not just an idea or a book but something you can visually and emotionally connect with and touch.

"People can come back 50 years from now and if the buildings are still the same, they can connect with the past. It will still be the same place."

Jones said an additional reason for the decision to retain only the exterior walls and gut the interior of the Social Science Building was that the building had been renovated previously and all the original interior was already gone. The interior remaining at the time the decision was made was very plain, he said, consisting of stucco walls and steel staircases. Finally, the interior was in very bad condition at that time, he said.

Since the interior is being gutted, 28 holes for steel-reinforced concrete pilings will be drilled down to bedrock inside the structure, along with 12 outside.

"We realized that the building was not earthquake proof," said Jones. "It was felt that the building would have failed in a severe earthquake; therefore, it was decided to use the pilings to tie the structure together."

Jones said the departments of history and political science would occupy the building when it is finished in mid-1998.