I’ve been working on a post covering my upcoming infographics class, but then some awesomeness fell in my lap (or more accurately in my twitter feed) yesterday. So – stop the presses – I’m taking a little detour today and talking about it.
It’s no secret that HISP405, the preservation capstone course, is a beast. We cover Cultural Resource Surveys, preservation planning issues, and then top it all off with the National Register. To lighten the mood a little after what is always a very tough semester, I encourage students to make their final presentation a humorous one. They get points for content, of course, but also for making me and their classmates laugh. In past years, I’ve had pretty much everything: gameshows, poems, fairy tales, props, costumes, accents, you name it. Videos, too. One particular video made it big (or at least big for preservation) on the internet yesterday. Here it is:
Grumpy Group authored this music video, which brought down the house at HISP405 presentations last fall. The cameo from Godfather Gary Stanton didn’t hurt, either. Anyway, yesterday the National Trust posted the video on their Facebook page, and then people started tweeting… By the end of the evening, I was forwarded an email that had been passed around from NPS staff, with this message, among others: “NPS loves it”. The comments on the NTHP Facebook post were also all enthusiastic. Many commended the video for being so informative. Quite a few alums of the program also showed some #UMW #HISP pride.
It’s not every day that preservation planning and social media/technology intersect quite so neatly. This is worth savoring.
Oh my goodness, how have I not seen this? How have you not sent this to me? I have to put it on Preservation in Pink, even if it’s already made its way around part of the internet. I love you, Mary Wash!