Other Awards & Recognitions

Engineering Students Recognized for Work at Minidoka Site

By: Kathleen Tuck, February 18, 2016

Work done by a group of Boise State construction management students in conjunction with the university’s service-learning program is being recognized by the Society for History in the Federal Government.

The project to build a historical reconstruction of a guard tower at the Minidoka National Historic Site in Jerome County in 2014 will receive the John Wesley Powell Prize for outstanding achievement in the field of historic preservation projects.

“The award committee made the selection because the project is an excellent example of collaboration and reconstruction of a structure that is strongly tied to a place and time that is fading in many memories,” wrote members of the awards committee. “The students and volunteers learned not only how to build a tower, but also heard the experiences of the people who were guarded at Minidoka National Historic Site.”

The award will be presented March 17 at the joint annual meeting of the National Council on Public History and the Society for History in the Federal Government held in Baltimore, Maryland.

Idaho’s Minidoka National Historic Site was one of the largest and most remote Japanese American relocation compounds during World War II and was one of 10 relocation centers during the war. More than 120,000 United States citizens of Japanese ancestry were incarcerated during the war, an act now recognized as a violation of civil liberties.

The first Japanese-Americans arrived at Minidoka on Aug. 10, 1942. At its peak the relocation center held nearly 9,000 people, making it the seventh-largest city in Idaho. Today, Minidoka is a National Historic Site managed by the National Park Service.

Thirteen students enrolled during fall 2013 to work on the initial project planning while learning about the historical context of the incarceration and the political and social factors that contributed to it. About half of those students enrolled in the spring break 2014 class to complete the project on site.

Students built the tower as completely as possible in Boise State’s construction management highbay lab. They then partially deconstructed the tower in order to transport it to Minidoka. At Minidoka, the students completed the tower’s construction and placed it on its foundation.

“This project is an excellent example of how service-learning enhances the educational experience at Boise State,” said Amy Moll, dean of the College of Engineering. “The students learned important project management and construction skills while gaining a better understanding of the unique history of Minidoka.”

Members of the Construction Management Association (CMA), an Associated General Contractors (AGC) student group, assisted in the process. The entire structure was managed and built by students with faculty supervision — from estimates and orders for materials to final construction.

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