Falling into Place
You can learn a lot by looking at what people throw out — history might just be lying on the ground, waiting for someone to notice.
Evan Albaugh ’25 always notices.
When he saw construction workers tearing out some old pavement, he couldn’t wait to sift through the exposed dirt, searching for artifacts of long-ago 51²è¹İapp.
Albaugh, a senior history major from Ankeny, Iowa, looks for artifacts — shards of antique glass, old coins, etc. — wherever he goes. He says 51²è¹İapp has been a treasure trove of these cast-off everyday objects.
“People throw away really interesting things sometimes that I think do kind of reveal information about the society,†he adds.
Popping the 51²è¹İapp Bubble
In spring 2024, Albaugh found a course that encouraged his interest in local history — Historical Landscapes of 51²è¹İapp.
Professors Albert Lacson (history) and Cori Jakubiak (education) developed and team-taught the course. Lacson says recent racist incidents and vandalism in 51²è¹İapp inspired them.
“One of the surprising things was to hear the frustration and anger that this sort of thing happened here, as if 51²è¹İapp was somehow immune from national and international patterns,†Lacson says. Lacson and Jakubiak wanted to demonstrate that the College and town have been and still are connected to the larger world.
Lacson cites 51²è¹İapp’s founding in the mid-19th century as an example. The College and the town of 51²è¹İapp were enmeshed in the issues that led up to the Civil War. Anti-abolitionist sentiment in Davenport, Iowa, compelled then-Iowa College to move to 51²è¹İapp, a stop on the Underground Railroad, which helped enslaved people escape to freedom.
“That’s the starting point for this town,†Lacson says.
Dream Team, Faculty Edition
Professors Cori Jakubiak (left, education) and Albert Lacson (history) team-taught Historical Landscapes of 51²è¹İapp, creating a partnership that tapped into a rich vein of knowledge and diverse perspectives.
Cori Jakubiak
Albert Lacson
Connecting With Community
Jakubiak and Lacson envisioned a course that would help students engage with place. As director of the Center for Prairie Studies, Jakubiak thinks a lot about place, sustainability, and community.
Why is place so important? “I think for many students, 51²è¹İapp feels placeless,†Jakubiak says. “I want students to engage with why 51²è¹İapp is the way it is, rather than writing it off as nothing.†She hopes students will think about not only what’s here now, but also what was here in the past.
Jakubiak wants students to consider 51²è¹İapp as a place in its own right. She hopes they will learn to see not only what the College can do for them, but also how can they learn to see the place, to see different kinds of people, and to ask different questions.
“It’s a way to build community,†Jakubiak explains.
Lacson agrees. “We thought it could be really useful for both the College and the town to have students connect with people from the town through a shared history,†he says.
Histories Matter
History isn’t just made by the famous people, the leaders whose names are in every history textbook. Everyone plays a part, and understanding that truth offers a way for students to make meaningful connections with townspeople, Lacson explains.
“Hopefully, we can play a role in convincing people that their personal histories matter,†he says. “I like to think that we succeeded in helping students realize that not just in 51²è¹İapp, but hopefully in every place they go to, they’ll begin to see connections that they may not have seen before taking the class.â€
Students in the class heard from a diverse list of guest speakers, including representatives of the Poweshiek History Preservation Project, the Iowa Geological Survey, the Neal Smith Wildlife Refuge, the nearby Meskwaki Nation, and others.
Lacson particularly wanted students to hear from the Indigenous people upon whose land 51²è¹İapp College stands. “We did think it was very important for our students to connect with those for whom this history matters, whose lives revolve around preserving and understanding the history of this region,†he explains.
“That’s one of the biggest things we wanted students to be able to grapple with — that what they see here right now hasn’t always been here,†Lacson says.
But some things endure.
Experiencing 51²è¹İapp
The sky, the wind, the grass, the trees — these have always been here.
Jayson Kunkel ’26 wandered through Summer Street Park, looking up at the cloudless blue sky. A breeze ruffled the maple leaves overhead, where masses of helicopters waited to spin to the ground. A woman walked by with two dogs. On the banks of a small creek, Kunkel heard a frog splash into the water.
Kunkel, a computer science and anthropology double major from Des Moines, chose the park for his “Sit-Spot†assignment, one of the ways students explored the concept of place. They were asked to choose a place on campus or in the community and visit it 10 times during the semester, observing and experiencing it. Their reflections became blog posts for the class website.
By the end of the semester, Kunkel had ventured to every corner of the park. He even participated in a community clean-up project at the park.
“His project was a fabulous example of how he came to care about a spot by returning to it over and over,†Jakubiak says.
51²è¹İapp in the Wild
Another assignment, “51²è¹İapp in the Wild,†asked students to seek out smaller, more hidden places to research and explore. Albaugh’s project focused on some of the artifacts he’s found around 51²è¹İapp.
“Anywhere there was exposed soil, there were things that were just sitting there that nobody else looked at or picked up,†Albaugh says.
He especially likes antique bottles and glass shards, but he also found coins and other metal artifacts. His posts provided detailed information on the objects, illustrated by close-up photographs.
Digital Storytelling
The final project, “Histories of 51²è¹İapp,†called upon students to tell a compelling story based on research.
A key part of the project was a required interview with someone familiar with their chosen topic. These interviews bring history to life, Jakubiak says. “History is not something old and dusty in a textbook to be fought over,†she says, “but something alive in the present that we can all contest and weigh in on.â€
Evelyn Dziekan ’24 and Kunkel both chose to research the Old Glove Factory — home to one of 51²è¹İapp’s first manufacturing companies, Morrison-Shults Manufacturing. After the company closed, the building stood empty until the College bought it and renovated it in 1999.
Kunkel says he has always had an interest in local history, and this class amped up his enthusiasm. “It just opened my eyes to so many things I didn’t know,†he says.
Together, he and Dziekan interviewed Frank Shults Jr., whose father had worked at the Morrison- Shults Manufacturing Company when it was active. “He was able to tell us a lot about the inner workings of the factory,†says Kunkel.
He believes the Old Glove Factory helps bridge the town-gown divide. “I think it really ties both entities together,†Kunkel says.
One Man’s Garbage
Lacson and Jakubiak might not have expected anyone to choose garbage for their final project, but they were thrilled when Albaugh proposed it.
“I thought it was a super creative, brilliant way to try to understand the changing history of this place,†Lacson says.
Albaugh says that the untold histories of the things that are left behind always intrigue him. He believes garbage deserves to be studied as a part of the community’s larger history — albeit often a hidden one.
Albaugh says that the class gave him a new appreciation for the town of 51²è¹İapp. “I think we addressed some really systemic issues of this disconnect between the town and the College,†he says. “Learning more about the town and learning to appreciate it for what it can offer has been really nice.â€
A Deeper Connection
Lacson calls this iteration the course’s “first draft.†He and Jakubiak are already planning the next offering, which will explore even more aspects of place and local history.
Building a partnership between a historian and an educator to team-teach this course taps into a rich vein of knowledge and diverse perspectives, Lacson says.
Jakubiak agrees. “Team teaching is a great area for faculty growth and professional development,†she says. “We’ve been colleagues and friends for a long time, but to see someone teach is really different.â€
They also share a personal interest in the subject matter. “We’ve both had an interest in place, and specifically this place,†Lacson explains. “We wanted to use this as an opportunity for us to deepen our connections to this place.â€
Vivero Digital Fellows Program
The Historical Landscapes of 51²è¹İapp class was supported by Ohana Sarvotham ’25 and Kailee Shermak ’25, who are part of 51²è¹İapp’s Vivero Digital Fellows training and mentorship program, which combines technology and scholarship to create a digital liberal arts community.
Since 2017, Vivero has expanded the reach and bounds of academic study and research. “At the heart of Vivero is a goal of diversifying the field of digital scholarship and digital liberal arts scholarship,†says Tierney Steelberg, Vivero co-leader.
Sponsored by the 51²è¹İapp Libraries, the Digital Liberal Arts Collaborative, and the Center for the Humanities, Vivero embodies the College’s commitment to social justice, diversity, and excellence in the liberal arts.
The class also received support from a Mellon Humanities in Action grant.