Honors students go where few have gone before, to view UC’s ‘hidden gems’

“It has been incredible learning about some ‘hidden gems’ of UC, including both the accomplishments of faculty and the unique objects themselves,” says Staub, one of the 11 honors students enrolled in the seminar.  

The University Honors Program comprises students academically in the top 7% of UC undergraduates, nearly 1,500 in total across all nine undergraduate colleges.

The seminar, piloted by Christopher Platts, an assistant professor of art history at the College of Design, Architecture, Art, and Planning, takes students on visits to various UC collections, archives, libraries and laboratories across campus and beyond.

Consisting of in-class learning and 14 site visits, the course encourages students to encounter everything from an autographed photograph of physicist Marie Curie to astronaut Neil Armstrong’s flight mask to a life-size, marble Venus carved by the emperor Napoleon’s imperial sculptor Antonio Canova.

“We uncover the hidden collections of UC and the hidden stories that accompany many of the items, artifacts, instruments, costumes and other things squirreled away in various buildings, libraries and depositories on campus,” says Platts, adding that almost every department, school, college and library has a special collection related to the history of a given academic field or discipline and to the history of UC.

At UC’s College-Conservatory of Music (CCM), for example, there is a vast collection of costumes and accessories from across the decades, some original and some duplicates made for specific opera and theater performances. The students learned, from CCM costume professors and curators, that costume technology involves the realization of the costume designer's sketches, samples, notes, research and fabric swatches, transforming designs into practical, effective and affordable costumes for a production on stage, television or film. Among CCM’s prized possessions is the costume collection of mid-20th century international opera star Italo Tajo, a former UC professor who is known as the father of opera at the college.

Students had the opportunity to personally examine how Tajo’s fanciful costumes were specially constructed for the opera singer to be able to breathe properly and sing and to allow for maximum movement and visibility on stage and how the curators do their best to preserve Tajo’s garments and the thousands of other items in storage at CCM. 

“Growing up as a dancer and performer, I was able to almost immerse myself in this collection. I learned more than I could have ever imagined about the ‘behind the scenes’ history, jargon and preservation techniques — it was truly fascinating,” says Straub.

Says Platts: “We simultaneously investigate how collecting the world, so to speak, is a form of history-making in which the material things we select, classify, study, preserve and display help us understand our place in the universe and motivate us to generate knowledge and tackle global issues.”

On the last day of class April 21, Platts invited Professor Jeff Tilman, associate director of UC’s School of Architecture, to give students a selective walking tour of UC’s campus that focused on how the university has “collected” signature architects during the last three decades: Peter Eisenman’s Aronoff Center for DAAP, Michael Graves' engineering Mantei Center or Frank Gehry Vontz Center for Molecular Studies.

“These structures not only transformed the campus into one of the most beautiful in the country, but also have encouraged DAAP and other students to study and experience their surroundings in new ways," says Platts. 

Most faculty, students and staff have never heard of these amazing collections and the stories they can tell about UC and its place in the academic world and the wider world, says Platts. “Since 1819 the University of Cincinnati has collected an amazing variety of tangible things.”

Featured image at top: CCM's Elizabeth Payne (center), assistant professor of costume design and curator, shows UC honors students the detailed boning and straps incorporated into a vintage opera costume. Photo/Andrew Higley/UC Marketing + Brand.