If you’re going about campus after May’s commencement ceremonies, you might notice that something is missing. Due to the deterioration of the widely popular Alma Mater statue, it is being removed for about a year to spruce it up a bit. The whole story is over at the News-Gazette:
The 93-year-old campus icon will be taken down from her familiar perch at the corner of Wright and Green streets just after this spring’s commencement, for up to a year of much-needed R&R.
Dedicated in 1929, the Lorado Taft sculpture has gone decades without proper maintenance and is now literally coming apart at the seams, UI officials said.
A campus Preservation Working Group has selected Conservation Sculpture and Objects Studio Inc. of Forest Park to repair the sculpture at a cost of $99,962, funded by the chancellor’s office.
The firm will move the sculpture to the company’s 13,000-square-foot facility, where conservators will develop a treatment plan.
