Getty Campus Heritage Project held a campus preservation workshop in the Shiloh Room of the University Center on Thursday, April 17.

Tim Ezzell, the director of the Community Partnership Center at the Institute for a Secure and Sustainable Environment, led the workshop and presented his recommendations for preservation of the UT campus.

"UT has a pretty bad track record when it comes to preservation," Ezzell said. "We have this rich legacy, this historical capital that’s an asset that we don’t use."

Ezzell partnered with Carroll Van West, director of Middle Tennessee State University’s Center for Historic Preservation, to survey the UT campus and assess its historic resources. The Getty Foundation Campus Heritage Grant funded their project.

Ezzell and Van West reviewed 76 structures on the UT campus, built between the 1870s and the 1960s. Of these structures, they found 13 buildings still potentially eligible for the national historic registry.

"The integrity of a lot of structures has been compromised," Ezzell said. "They expand; they renovate. The buildings reflect that change over time... so it’s really no longer the structure it was."

After reviewing the campus, Ezzell and Van West compiled a list of 16 recommendations for campus preservation that Ezzell will submit to the Getty Foundation at the end of May.

The greenest building is the one that's already built. Tim Ezzell, Institute for a Secure and Sustainable Environment

In this list, they encouraged the university to move forward with National Register of Historic Places nominations for:

• Hopecote
• The Tyson House 
• the Hill as a historic district
• Agriculture Campus/River Road as a historic district

They also suggested erecting signs outside the university’s historic buildings, raising funds to restore Cowan Cottage behind Strong Hall and promoting preservation of neighborhoods near the university.

Ezzell said he supports campus preservation for a number of reasons.

"It adds to the stature of the institution. It helps bring people in," Ezzell said. "A lot of students come to a university just on appearance. Faculty are drawn to campuses that are historic."

He also said renovating is more environmentally friendly than building entirely new structures.

Ezzell and Van West based their recommendations on similar efforts at the nation’s top 10 research universities. They said there seems to be a correlation between top institutions and campus preservation.

Ezzell encouraged everyone to get involved in the preservation process.

"We are trying to engage the entire campus community," he said. "Students, faculty, staff, alumni, anybody that has a stake in the University of Tennessee."