SPRING 2024 | 27 changed. The historians who founded the museum discovered personal belongings of the families who had lived there between the 1860s and 1930s. Black wonders whether modernization and building codes had also impacted the dormitories once in the Clayton UC. “I try to imagine the students who may have slept there,” said Black, who was fascinated by the opportunity to make a tangible connection to Lehigh’s early history. She wondered whether Miles Rock, a member of Lehigh’s first graduating class, and the subject of the spring 2024 exhibit in Linderman Library, might have climbed the stairs to the top of the Clayton UC. Items discovered during the renovation were handed over to Special Collections to preserve. Special Collections plans to have a team of student workers investigate who may have created the drawings. So far that has proved difficult. It’s hard to find information about them. The area where the drawings are located consists of two 20by-20 windowless rooms. It is believed to have been closed up for decades and only occasionally used for maintenance access, LaRose said. The rooms will be closed up again, as there is no way to make them compliant with the Americans with Disabilities Act, he said. In addition to student housing, it’s thought the rooms were once home to the campus radio station. A rendering from 1954 labels the space as “faculty suites.” For those who didn’t know the fifth-floor rooms and images existed, opening the rooms is like opening a time capsule, said Ilhan Citak, archives and Special Collections librarian. “The archivists’ job is without any judgment, without prejudice, without any discrimination to preserve evidence of the university’s history,” he said. “In this case, in a moment of time, at a certain point of time, a group of people were there and they sent a message to the future generations without knowing.” Citak compares the discovery to prehistoric cave paintings. He and colleague Alex Japha, a digital archivist with Special Collections, looked through old pictures of Lehigh administrators, faculty and staff and were able to identify several of the drawings with the portrait photographs, such as Coppee and Harding. “The ‘artists’ crafted a message that they were there. Why is this important? Because it shows us every single, possible inch of our campus is full of history and the stories of our members,” Citak said. To acknowledge the Clayton UC’s extensive history, Lehigh plans to install a time capsule in the West Lobby when the renovation is complete. The time capsule will be opened in 2075, 50 years after the Class of 2025 graduates. A survey of faculty, staff and students was conducted during the spring semester to gather recommendations of what should be placed inside. “It has been fascinating to be shown some of the hidden gems that have been uncovered during the renovation.” —CAROL HILL SCAN TO WATCH A VIDEO FROM INSIDE THE SECRET SPACES
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