In light of the popular repudiation of Confederate monuments, those responsible for the new campus memorial has to wrestle with questions such as: How do we create an inclusive final product in a college that was all male and overwhelmingly white until 1979? How do we address the fact that the most decorated Westminster alumnus was a Confederate general? How do we celebrate the service of our veterans while not creating something which unduly aggrandizes the military? How do we determine what objects and stories we include in ways that do not alienate domestic and international students?
In this poster, we detail the theoretical underpinnings and practical choices that guided this project. The poster will include text and rich images from the final campus memorial and museum cases. The presenters will also bring some of the objects we decided to showcase in the displays and some examples of those we deemed too controversial to include. Ultimately, in an era in which many monuments are rightly being reassessed, we had to contend with the question of what does it look like to create a monument involving controversial or contested issues in 2020 which addresses the interests and concerns of the various communities it represents. The presenters hope this work will encourage conference attendees to consider undertaking similar projects at their institutions.
Three presenters collaborated on this poster, each representing different constituencies of the project: Dr. Mark Boulton oversaw the awareness-raising, fundraising, design, and construction of the project as Chair of the Westminster History Department; Dr. Rebecca K. Shrum provided valuable feedback and expertise as Director of the Public History Program at IUPUI; Kelsie Slaughter was the student responsible for bringing this idea to life after returning from the Vietnam travel course. She served as Chair of the Westminster Veterans Memorial and Museum Committee from 2018 until the project’s fruition in 2020.