Ģ������Ƶ

 Ģ������ƵStories      January 7, 2026

During the fall 2025 semester, 30 interior design juniors from Ģ������Ƶ’s School of Art and Design (SOAD) embarked on an experience that extended well beyond the classroom, offering hands-on, real-world design and research opportunities through a collaborative design charette with Auburn University.

The project began in January 2025, when Johnnifer Patrice Brown, assistant professor of interior design at WCU, encountered a National Park Service marker for the historic Tankersley Rosenwald School in Hope Hull, Alabama. The site is part of a major historic preservation initiative led by faculty and students at Auburn University that has received more than $800,000 in grant funding for Phase I and II exterior and interior architectural design.

“I saw this as an opportunity to turn my Junior Studio I class project into an applied learning experience and a collaborative design charette for my students,” Brown said. “I immediately reached out to the faculty at Auburn to ask if Ģ������Ƶcould participate.”

Gorham Bird, chair of Auburn University’s Department of Architecture and Construction Design, responded enthusiastically, and the two faculty members quickly began planning a collaborative, site-based learning experience.

In September 2025, Ģ������Ƶstudents traveled to Alabama to work alongside Auburn architecture students. The trip was supported by a $7,000 Intentional Learning Grant awarded to Brown in August 2025 from WCU’s Provost’s Office.

Research-driven learning rooted in history

As part of the pre-programming phase of the Junior Studio I course, Ģ������Ƶinterior design students conducted in-depth research on the history, architecture, and origin stories of Rosenwald schools in counties across North Carolina. Their fall 2025 design work was grounded in both this research and Brown’s ongoing scholarship related to Rosenwald schools in rural Alabama.

Rosenwald schools were innovative educational facilities designed by Robert R. Taylor, M.I.T.’s first African American architecture graduate and the architect responsible for much of Tuskegee University’s campus. The schools emerged through a groundbreaking collaboration between Julius Rosenwald, president of Sears, Roebuck and Company, and Booker T. Washington, the founding president of Tuskegee Institute.

“All of these key figures played a vital role in expanding educational access for African Americans living in rural areas of the Southeast between 1913 and 1945,” Brown said.

Visiting Tankersley Rosenwald School was especially significant, as it was among the earliest Rosenwald schools built in the early 1920s. The trip allowed students to engage directly with the physical origins of the buildings they were studying and designing.

Site visits and community engagement

In addition to Tankersley, students visited Tuskegee University in Tuskegee, Alabama, touring historic buildings designed by Taylor, including The Oaks, the former home of Booker T. Washington. The following day, students visited The Legacy Sites in Montgomery, Alabama, including the internationally recognized African Slave Trade Museum, which contextualized the history of the communities that Rosenwald schools served and highlighted their pursuit of education.

The learning experience concluded back in North Carolina, where students toured the rehabilitated Mars Hill Rosenwald School, allowing them to compare preservation and adaptive reuse efforts across regions.

While in Alabama, students met with more than 25 members of the Tankersley community, including a descendant of the individual who originally purchased the land for the school.

“Visiting Rosenwald schools, meeting alumni and descendants, and engaging in place-based research gave each student a broader lens for their design work,” Brown said. “It also connected the dots—showing how a single design concept expanded to more than 813 Rosenwald schools in North Carolina, the highest number in any state. Informed learning truly occurred as interior design and architecture students worked together to develop multiple design solutions for new and reimagined spaces.”