An advisory group that is looking at whether to rename buildings and academic colleges on the University System of Georgia’s 26 campuses has compiled a list of 840 buildings and nearly 40 college and university names for further research.
The Savannah Morning News reports that Albany State University President Marion Ross Fredrick, who chairs the advisory group, says group has culled those names from more than 3,000 buildings in Georgia’s university system.
The group has fielded more than 1,700 public comments about the renaming project, Fredrick says.
The advisory group was created amid a backdrop of protests across the nation over centuries of racial injustice in the United States. Statues of Confederate leaders have been removed and many have called for renaming buildings that have been named for figures connected with the South’s history of slavery, racial discrimination and violence.
Lisa Tendrich Frank, a Florida-based historian conducting research for the group, says her team has started delving into encyclopedias, newspapers, alumni magazines and other sources to identify the names attached to selected campus buildings.
“We’re trying to find out exactly who these individuals were,” Frank says. “Why was the building named for these people?”
The advisory group will produce a final report once the research work wraps up.
