Featured Course: Topics: Race & Route 66 (HIST210)
(100% eLearning; September 6th – December 12th)
Bucks County Community College’s award-winning Historic Preservation program presents Topics: Race, Route 66, and Commercial Archaeology, beginning the week of September 6th.
Join us as we explore the real histories of America's most famous road, Route 66!
Drive the Mother Road and what will you see? The world's largest rocking chair. A giant blue whale. The famous Cadillac Ranch. Route 66 and our national roads helped to define the American identity in the 20th century. Inspired by the National Trust for Historic Preservation’s Route 66 preservation campaign, Topics: Race, Route 66, and Commercial Archaeology explores these roads through the commercial landscape and learn what they have to tell us about freedom, mobility, and the American story.
We will cover the historic context and impact of the Green Books on African American lives and relate to the context of women’s history in relation to highway history in America all while exploring how historic preservation work helps document and interpret these places for future generations.
Professor Michael Hirsch is an experienced urban planner and design architect with significant experience in the resort and tourism market. His work has included architecture and planning projects, including Red Sky Ranch Member + Guest Clubhouses (Eagle County, CO); Ritz-Carlton Residences, Vail; and a new base ski village for Breckenridge Mountain Resort, in Colorado. Serving as a preservation planning consultant to the New York City Department of City Planning, he completed work on design guidelines and signage recommendations for the Coney Island Redevelopment Master Plan, Brooklyn, NY. Prior international planning experience includes the Master Plan for the Lulu Island Resort, Abu Dhabi, U.A.E.
BCCC is open admission: everyone is welcome to take our courses. Though most of our historic preservation students already have degrees, anyone with a passion for preservation and history is welcome!
The course may be taken “audit” or for a grade; courses successfully completed for a grade can be applied to our occupational Historic Preservation Certificate, designed to enable students to “do” the work of preservation in their communities anywhere in the country.
The Bucks HP program is a Shared program for community colleges: everyone in Pennsylvania takes our courses for in-county or non-sponsored tuition rates (based on location).