CORPUS CHRISTI, Texas — Some Texas A&M University-Corpus Christi (TAMUCC) Islanders will be leaving their mark on history.
The decision was made to create a time capsule for the school’s 75th anniversary, but this isn’t a traditional time capsule.
“We decided to do a time capsule to kind of capsulate what the islanders feel represents them,” Amanda Kowalski, digital archivist at TAMUCC, said.
Everyone was welcome to pick how they want this time in history to be remembered and place it in time capsule boxes.
This isn't a typical metal capsule that goes underground, rather they will be kept safe in the school archives.
“So, this was a great way for them to showcase how they showed their spirit just as much as showing academic pride,” Kowalski said.
She said since the university began in 1947, there haven’t been a lot of visuals in the archives. She would often show these archives to donors of the university.
“It was mostly like the student-run newspaper or the yearbooks, but not like ephemera or tiny items from the people themselves. And, stickers and hats and pins and things like that get given to students all the time, but they’re not in the archives,” she said.
Inside this time capsule is things showing the spirit of the island university. Little trinkets like an Izzy bobblehead, the local beer named after the Islanders, and handwritten letters from students.
TAMUCC senior Sarah Hebel even created stickers that show off different parts of campus.
"When those students see my work, I hope they are inspired to consider what makes the island special to them, what makes it home," she said in a statement from the university.
While you can see the physical changes to a university campus over time, much more you can’t see, is growing within it.
That's what Kowalski hopes people see when opening the capsule.
“We band together we have celebrations," she said. "Izzy Fest, things like that didn’t exist before and now we are making sure that our spirit is just as important as any other aspect of our school.”
Kowalski said the capsule should also represent the growth of the university.
"We are growing every day," she said. "Look at the March Madness. We made it into the big games and just to see the outpour of spirit from the community around us, not just the campus community, was amazing. And, it's something that wasn't here five years ago."
School archives will soon be moving to a new location in downtown Corpus Christi. The plan is to open the time capsule for the school’s 100th anniversary in 2047.
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