HUNTINGTON, W.Va. –Marshall University Professor Dr. Luke Eric Lassiter was named president of the Historic Glenwood Foundation at a reception on June 8. The director of the graduate humanities program at Marshall, Lassiter has served on their board and now will take over as president.
The professor of humanities and anthropology has worked closely with the organization in the past, as a member of their board, collaborating with their foundation on several public and private educational collaborations.
The Historic Glenwood Foundation is a nonprofit organization dedicated to the preservation and interpretation of Glenwood, a National Register of Historic Places property located in Charleston, West Virginia. The goal of the foundation is to preserve, collect and facilitate or sponsor research relating to the property, which includes helping to promote local and regional history in and around Charleston. The foundation has sponsored many graduate humanities program projects, including graduate seminars, student internships, and research by faculty and students.
“I am honored that the board would entrust me with this responsibility,” Lassiter said. “Over the past decade, I’ve had the great pleasure of learning from an accomplished and dedicated group of community leaders, and I look forward to our continued work together.”
Current Glenwood Foundation President Pamela Tarr of Jackson Kelly PLLC in Charleston says Lassiter is a great choice to lead the foundation.
“The Glenwood Foundation is fortunate in having Dr. Eric Lassiter as a board member and now assuming the responsibility as board president,” Tarr said. “We believe Dr. Lassiter brings a unique set of skills and insights to the mission of this foundation. His dedication to scholarship and bringing students to a hands-on learning experience with a historic property and hundreds of historic documents holds great promise for the Glenwood mission and the educational experience of those students involved. In addition, the property provides the public a view into life of the families who occupied the Glenwood estate since its creation in 1852.”
The Historic Glenwood facility is the site of an academic based research effort involving multiple entities. Thousands of documents relating to Glenwood residents and others from the Kanawha Valley are reviewed and cataloged under the supervision of faculty from West Virginia State University and Marshall University.
Students from both universities participate in the effort to archive and preserve historical information involving Glenwood and other parts of Charleston. Among that effort is the Glenwood Center for Scholarship in the Humanities, a public-private partnership between the Historic Glenwood Foundation, the West Virginia State University history program and Marshall’s graduate humanities program. The scholarship center was established in 2014.
The center works to host regular speaker series, classes and workshops in conjunction with academic program at Marshall and West Virginia State. The Glenwood Scholarship program also works to support humanities-based research, hosting visiting scholars, involving students in the archival work done on site and other preservation projects.
For more information visit www.historicglenwoodfoundation.org.