Campus niches: Don’t miss out on archives, gardens and viticulture at FSU, FAMU

There’s more to FSU than Strozier, Westcott and Doak Campbell Stadium, and there’s more to FAMU than Bragg, Lee Hall and the Eternal Flame. Here are a couple of university spots you may have missed.

FSU Claude Pepper Center

A quieter place to study – the Claude Pepper Center is located at 636 W. Call St. on Florida State University’s campus, near Strozier Library. The center is home to the collected materials of U.S. Senator and Representative Claude Pepper (1900-1989), and offers a quiet student reading room, a museum, an archives and the memorialized offices of Pepper’s terms in office. The archives and museum are open to the public and are free of charge. Researchers are encouraged to contact the center to schedule appointments to peruse the archives and use its other resources for projects.

FSU Sustainable Garden 

FSU Sustainable Garden will be opening fall of 2017. It is roughly a half-acre dedicated to 10-15 garden plots available for students to rent at a nominal fee. Students will grow and harvest vegetables from the plots that are then for their own use, with the option to donate to various food pantries on campus. The garden will offer an ADA-accessible entrance to the plots, and encourages visitors to stop by to view the sustainability effort.

FAMU Black Archives 

A blast from the submerged past – the Meek Eaton Black Archives is located on FAMU’s campus at 445 Gamble Street and sits as the largest archive dedicated to African-American history in the Southeast United States.

The archives house more than 500,000 records and 5,000 artifacts, available to both student and public viewing. Researchers are encouraged to contact the Archives for project research, and the center has received international attention and acclaim.

Tours are self-guided, and the archives are open 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday – Friday and 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Saturday.

FAMU Center for Viticulture 

For anyone interested in grape culture or wine, FAMU’s Center for Viticulture and Small Fruit Research is a worthwhile stop. Located at 6361 Mahan Drive, the research center is open to researchers and laypeople curious about wine production and grape-growing innovations.

Each year in September, the Viticulture Center hosts an annual Grape Harvest Festival, inviting wine vendors and the Tallahassee community to mingle among the FAMU grape arbors.

Outside of the festival, the center continues pioneering hybridization of grapes, mapping the grape genome and engaging students with grape research.