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In celebration of the University’s 150th anniversary, the LSU Student Union Art Gallery opened a new exhibit Friday called “From Gemstones to Dinosaur Bones: Discovering the Treasures of LSU,” which contains selections from 10 University departments featured in the new book “Treasures of LSU.”
 
More than 50 authors worked on the book, and about 91 objects and representations were selected for the exhibit, said Laura Lindsay, interim dean of the College of Education and editor of the book.
 
Presenting “From Gemstones to Dinosaur Bones” was a daunting project, because the exhibit is “the doorway into the world of LSU,” said Marchita Mauck, exhibit curator.
 
“The Commission on the History of LSU thought it should be an important aspect of the 150th anniversary of LSU’s founding to emphasize the really unique and important and valuable ‘treasures’ that abound around us at LSU,” said former Chancellor Paul Murrill. “The goal is to get people to take notice of the treasures of LSU.”
 
The exhibit contains a variety of media that would appeal to all students, said Judith Stahl, Student Union coordinator.
 
Judith Schiebout, geology professor and associate curator of the University’s Museum of Natural Science, contributed several artifacts from the museum and the Department of Geology and Geophysics, including an allosaurus skull cast from the last Jurassic age, a mastodon tooth from the Ice Age and a cast of the lower jaw of an ancient whale more than 55 million years old.
 
“They are a tiny sample of the 17,000 specimens in the collection,” Schiebout said.
 
Michael Desmond, architecture professor, wrote an entry in the book about the original core of the campus and contributed a photograph of the campus in 1951 from the Architecture Department’s collection.
 
Shirley Plakidas, Student Union director, said the photo stood out to her.
 
The union had not been built in 1951, and the scattered oak trees in the area are still in their same place today. It’s fun to pick out the differences and similarities in the photo, she said.
 
Other contributing departments include the Costume and Textile Museum, the Graduate School, Hill Memorial Library, the LSU Student Union Art Gallery Permanent Art Collection, the College of Music and Dramatic Arts, the Natural History Museum, the Rural Life Museum and the School of Landscape Architecture.
 
The exhibit is great for the University, and many people worked hard to put it together, Murrill said.
 
“From Gemstones to Dinosaur Bones” will run through Nov. 14.
 
 
 
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Contact Kate Mabry at [email protected]