A fast, easy and low-cost approach for high school instructors, preservation trade practitioners and preservation organizations to introduce preservation trades in technical high schools.
The demand for craftspeople to appropriately preserve America’s aging building stock is increasing even as the supply of people with the hands-on tools skills and materials knowledge is decreasing. The Michigan Historic Preservation Network (MHPN) and the National Center for Preservation Technology and Training (NCPTT) have partnered to explore how a model developed in Michigan for introducing preservation trades education can be promoted and replicated across the United States. Experts from a wide range of preservation trades organizations and educational institutions convened in the spring of 2008 in Detroit, Michigan. The goal of the summit was to bring together preservation education leaders from across the country who have experience in implementing preservation trades programs to share and document their knowledge and ideas. They reviewed the successful grassroots approach used at Detroit’s Randolph Career and Technical Center (CTC) to introduce students to the preservation trades.
As a result of this meeting, MHPN developed this guide to show how preservation trades’ advocates could replicate the Michigan model in their communities. The guide reviews the steps taken in the initiation and implementation of the Randolph CTC Historic Preservation project. The initial success at the Randolph CTC hinged on several basic precepts:
- Historic Preservation was an adjunct or overlay to the existing curriculum.
- Little or no extra work was assigned to existing staff and administration.
- Students were self-selected, from those students who had selected career training in the building trades. Second, they had selected Historic Preservation as a specialty interest within their trade.
- Historic Preservation instructors were recruited and vetted for their work experience and appropriate teaching skills. They were also paid for their services.
- Students worked in the field on historic buildings performing valuable restoration work and providing a service to their community.
- There was an active partnership between governmental agencies, volunteers and organizations.
- There is a person inside the system who has the vision and passion to pursue the idea.
The guide also compares and contrasts the characteristics of a modest sampling of existing educational programs, and places the Michigan model in the context of other efforts to promote preservation trades education.