MU Director of Campus Facilities Space Planning & Management Gerald Morgan will speak at 7 p.m. Wednesday, Oct. 26 in a meeting of the Historic Preservation Alliance of Columbia in the Friends Room of the Columbia Public Library.

Morgan will explain the complex decision-making process that goes into deciding which MU buildings to save and which to demolish that led to MU demolishing nine buildings on the University of Missouri campus.

Morgan has nearly three decades of experience with MU and was named to his current position in 2015. Previous to coming to Columbia, he worked at the Dept. of Army Directorate of Public Works at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas. There he oversaw the design, maintenance and construction on more than 100 buildings, structures and sites on the National Register and form the Fort Leavenworth National Historic Landmark District. 

At MU, Morgan is in charge of the Mizzou Space Reduction and Strategic Relocation Initiative, a project that got underway in 2017 and uses a Facility Condition Needs Index as part of the process to evaluate buildings to determine which are too expensive to continue to operate. 

The hosts of the meeting, the Historic Preservation Alliance of Columbia, is a new group that began in May. It has three goals: to stop demolitions of historic properties, to educate people and policy-makers about the value of preservation and provide a place where people can buy and donate historic salvage materials. For more information, contact Alliance President Dianna Borsi O’Brien at dobrien387@gmail.com or 573.424.5749.