Jack Breihan: Every building tells a story For Loyola History professor Jack Breihan, each and every building and street in a city has something to teach us about times and places we might never know personally. This belief drives his recent professional work on the history of 20th-century suburbs, his commitment to historic preservation, and his involvement with Baltimore Heritage, a non-profit organization committed to architectural preservation in Baltimore. It’s also driving two programs he developed for the Year of the City: a History course for undergraduates, “Baltimore: Its History and Architecture,” and a faculty seminar called “The Baltimore Colloquium.” Breihan’s class aims to educate students about the significance of certain Baltimore buildings and neighborhoods—imparting a rich understanding about the different architectural styles used in various areas of the city. “By the end of the course, I want to be able to blindfold students and take them to any spot in Baltimore, and they’ll instantly know where they are,” he says jokingly. “Along the way, they’ll develop a new vocabulary, and begin to understand the difference between “looking” and “seeing.” In addition to its architectural focus, Breihan’s course will also include a service-learning component and encompass other elements of Baltimore life, including politics and the economy, race and ethnicity, and the impact of city planning—issues that have long been at the heart of his Historic Preservation class, and ones that appear prominently in Cherry Hill: A Community History. This volume of oral histories and photographs of the South Baltimore neighborhood stemmed from field interviews conducted about five years ago by Breihan and 17 Historic Preservation students. Breihan also finds ways of incorporating the city’s history in his broader-ranging courses, such as his class “Britain, Ireland and America.” He recently led that class on a trip to the Irish Shrine and Railroad Workers Museum in West Baltimore, which consists of a group of five alley houses where Irish immigrants working for the nearby B&O Railroad lived in the mid-19th century. While Breihan’s focus remains on his students, he also believes faculty collaboration can be a tremendous benefit to the College’s Year of the City efforts. To foster these crucial partnerships, Breihan established The Baltimore Colloquium, a group of between 15 and 25 faculty from a wide range of disciplines who meet three times a semester to share and discuss scholarly research relevant to the issues facing Baltimore today. The Colloquium’s September session examined the Arts, while the October program focused on mental health issues affecting the City. The third meeting, “Is Baltimore Doomed” will consider the challenges—and possible opportunities—facing the City and its residents from an economic perspective. That event is set for Nov. 30. “I know that I’m not the only faculty member interested in Baltimore,” says Breihan. “Through these seminars, we hope to encourage more in-depth knowledge of the City, each of us taking and sharing our experiences, ultimately incorporating them into the classroom and fostering a better appreciation for the city in our students.” | 
