Introduction
This project has many different goals. It was created as part of the program requirements of the Antonian Honors Program at St. Catherine University. This project is answering the question of why spaces on campus are peculiar. These spaces are peculiar because of the history they have lived through and the way they have been preserved whether in physical space or in memory. This project will explore the spaces on the St. Paul Campus of St. Catherine University. Through this research hopefully others will see the odd features on campus as more than just inconveniences but as connections to the past and stories of the past. I also hope this project will impact the way we change spaces in the future to preserve the stories and character of the university. This project is not limited to members of the St. Catherine University community and there is no prior knowledge needed.
This project will move through the buildings in the order they were built, starting with Derham Hall and ending with one of the most recent additions the Coeur de Catherine. Not all of the buildings will be covered, this is mostly for lack of time within this project and the information available in archives. The sections about buildings are also not equal for similar reasons. For some buildings there is simply little information preserved while other buildings have had a rather bland history. A majority of the sources used here are from the St. Catherine University Archives and Special Collections however as this provided an incomplete history I also conducted oral histories. Each building will feature a building overview and then include subsequent pages that share more information about the functions of the building and its history. Towards the end this project will also explore what it takes to change a space today and the stories surrounding buildings.
