If a picture is worth 1,000 words, Robert Wicks will not be short of things to say when he presents a graphic history of Miami University.
"Picturing Old Miami: Discovering Campus Life 1809-2009," is scheduled to take place at noon March 11 at the Miami University Art Museum. It will commemorate and detail the evolution of the university during the past 200 years through a pictorial presentation.
Wicks, director of the art museum, will be showing approximately 100 photographs of Miami from its earliest conception to present-day, accompanied with brief commentaries.
The lecture will show how the physical appearance of the campus has transformed over the years, especially in regards to building additions and modernization. It will also show how the people of Miami have changed over the past 200 years, according to Wicks.
One of the most notable changes Wicks said he noticed in his research is how the university has shifted from elitist to egalitarian and open. Wicks also commented on the progress the university has made in terms of diversity, through the acceptance of women as well as racially and ethnicallydiverse students.
"One of the most interesting things I came across were old pictures of an early bicycle club," Wicks said. "I found it very funny. I also liked the pictures of the early graduates wearing top hats."
Wicks said he spent two years gathering images, most of which he found from the Miami University Archives. Others he came across through libraries and private collectors. Of these photos, he narrowed the working group down to 600.
Wicks collected the pictures for a book titled, "Miami University, 1809-2009: Bicentennial Perspective," which tells a chronological history of Miami. It is set to be published in February 2009, coinciding with the beginning of the bicentennial celebration and will feature about 450 of the compiled photographs, Wicks said.
Text for the book is a narrative written by Curt Ellison, director of the McGuffey Museum and a professor of history and American studies, coupled with various sidebars and anecdotes from other sources, Wicks said.
"The responsibility kind of fell to me to gather the photographs because I am an art historian and the director of the art museum," Wicks said. "(The photographs are) a short-handed way of understanding what went on in various points of time."
Sophomore Mallory Naber said the lecture sounds interesting.
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"I really love photography," Naber said. "It's so different from my pre-med major and that makes it more interesting. I think the pictures can show how Miami has changed and progressed."
Wicks said he expects students from various classes, such as history and photography, as well as local history buffs to be among the majority attending the presentation.
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