» WSU launches $6.5Mcampaign for archives center,

Facility will hold Wright brothers, Dunbar collections.

Wright State University has announced a $6.5 million fund raising campaign to create a newhome for its historical archives.

Amanda Wright Lane, great grandniece of Wilbur and Orville Wright, and Pulitzer Prize-winning authorand historian David McCullough will chair the campaign, said President Cheryl Schrader during a WSU board meeting Friday.

With the “Discover Your Story” campaign, Wright State will seek to transform the former corporate headquarters of the Wright-Patt Credit Union at 2455 Presidential Drive into the new home of the university’ s Special Collections and Archives, according to the school.

The proposed archives center will include an exhibit gallery, reading room, rotating exhibits, a classroom area, a media lab and a preservation lab, according to the university. Wright State’s archives contains the largest Wright Brothers Collection in the world, first-edition works by Dayton poet Paul Laurence Dunbar and the archives of the Dayton Daily News among other historic archives, according to WSU.

The new facility will give people “a place where they can experience history in an up close and personal way,” said Schrader.

The new archives center is needed because the current space on the fourth floor of the university library is now too small for Wright State’s collection, Schrader said. The facility will also provide more proper storage and climate control to preserve historic materials.

The archives center will be solely funded by donations because of the university’s ongoing financial struggles and because it will be a community asset, Schrader said. The university slashed $30.8 million fromits fiscal year 2018 budget in June in an attempt to begin correcting years of overspending.

“This is a very important project andwe are committed to raising the funds,” she said.