Heritage Renewal

Main lines of work for the center--and there are some definite ones--will take shape over the coming year, be described in this weblog, and be consolidated into pages of this website. It may be of interest now to mention one modest project getting started immediately--the investigation and explication of a classic memoir of the northern plains, Growing Up on Bald Hill Creek, by Harvey M. Sletten. This work was published by Iowa State University Press in 1977. In it Sletten describes his boyhood in Hannaford, North Dakota, and the landscape associated with Bald Hill Creek. It's an interesting subject intellectually in that it illustrates all the issues associated with historical memory in personal memoir and exemplifies the phenomenon of what has come to be called "deep mapping" in literary reminiscence. Eventually this line of work will produce a website that explores the context of the memoir and the phenomenon of deep mapping in relation to the historic landscape of North Dakota. History grad student Jen Wilkie is working with the center this summer to initiate the research on Growing Up on Bald Hill Creek.

On 17 May 2006 the State Board of Higher Education approved establishment of the Center for Heritage Renewal at North Dakota State University, with Professor Tom Isern as Director. The center now occupies space in Room 12 of the Criminal Justice & Political Science Building courtesy of the College of Arts, Humanities, & Social Sciences. It has equipment courtesy of Vice President for Research Phil Boudjouk.

"The mission of the Center for Heritage Renewal," as proposed to and approved by the state board, "is to identify, preserve, and capitalize on the heritage resources of North Dakota and the northern plains." The center, further, states the following goals:

1. To assist state agencies, private organizations, and the people of the state and region in generating prosperity and quality of life from heritage resources

2. To establish a center for expertise and action in the fields of historic preservation and heritage tourism

3. To provide opportunities for learning, employment, and internships for NDSU students (undergraduate and graduate)

The mission and goals of the center will form up further in coming months and years as the center consults with constituents and partners and initiates distinct lines of work and development.