About 200 Columbia College alums, students, faculty and staff turned out for Thursday’s dedication of the Dr. David and Lee CC Heritage Center in Missouri Hall.
It honors former Columbia College president Dr. David Russell and his wife. Dr. Russell tells 939 the Eagle that the rotating exhibits in the center are impressive and that this is significant:
“For decades … decades, our graduates have gone through those gates out front and gone about their careers. Many of them very successful and then in later years they wanted to do something for the college and they wanted to preserve the history that they knew,” Dr. Russell says.
He says exhibits inside the center steward the history of Columbia College. There are numerous exhibits and they rotate every six months.
Dr. Russell praises the new heritage center, saying it will share stories of students, alums, staff, faculty and the college community. Dr. Russell tells 939 the Eagle that many alums want to preserve history and have items for the center:
“And they were sometimes disappointed that we didn’t really have a legitimate archive space that we could use to display the donations they would give us. So now we have it,” he says.
939 the Eagle News covered the dedication. Exhibits include artwork, historical items and a diploma from 1854.