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Research Report No. 20, Research Laboratories of Archaeology, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Reports in this series discuss the findings of archaeological excavations and research projects undertaken by the RLA between 1984 and present.

In a recent article on campus planning, the journal Architecture summarized some of the current issues facing academic institutions, forecasting that indicators of declining enrollment in the 1990s have made college administrators eager to improve their facilities as a means of attracting students (Anonymous 1991:37). This improvement often entails the construction of new buildings, particularly science and technology centers. While monographs and articles on university planning generally stress the need for master plans which take into account factors such as projected growth, costs, effective land management, visual uniqueness, and transportation (Dober 1992, Freeman et al., 1992, Junker 1990), preservation planning often receives little more than lip service. Pointing out this obvious oversight, Stephen Chambers (1990) has addressed the need for preserving structures, green spaces and archaeological resources of historical significance in his recent article on university preservation planning. While structures deemed to be of historic significance to academic institutions are more likely to receive consideration by university planners, archaeological resources are rarely given any attention. Preservation planning became an important concept in the early 1980s, under encouragement by federal agencies concerned with cultural resource planning at the state level (Heritage Conservation and Recreation Service, 1980). The model outlined by the Heritage Conservation and Recreation Service called for the creation of state resource protection plans which identify important cultural resources, formulate research objectives, and create operating plans which make specific recommendations for managing these resources. Although intended for a broader level of planning, the same model could be applied to preservation planning at a university level. This paper will demonstrate how this approach could be applied at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, by showing how a project currently underway there could be expanded into a preservation plan for archaeological resources on University- owned land.