A unique Fall 2025 X-Labs course centered on Montpelier brought students from various disciplines together to solve a problem through team collaboration.
Dr. Aaron Bodle, professor of early, elementary and reading education, had been taking his students to James Madison’s 18th-century plantation in Orange County, Virginia, for years to learn about the property’s enslaved individuals and how their stories are told today.
In 2024, the Community Archaeology Lab at Montpelier (CALM) burned down, and a new facility was built across the road in the old Montpelier Supply Company Store on State Route 20. For the X-Labs course, students had to come up with suggestions for how Montpelier might encourage people to visit the lab despite it being farther from the main property.
Joining Bodle in teaching the class — How Does 3D Printing Help Us Tell the Story of Montpelier? — were Jamie Calcagno-Roach (’04, ’06M), director of educational technology services, and Dr. Carole Nash (’83), professor of geography and integrated science and technology. They modeled the class on another X-Labs course, 3D Printing Real-World Solutions.
“The hallmark of an X-Labs course is it’s cross-disciplinary taught, so we had an education background with Dr. Bodle, I brought the X-Labs expertise and Dr. Nash had the geography-archaeology expertise,” Calcagno-Roach said. This course also satisfied the Madison Foundations’ Critical Thinking requirement. One question students had to answer was “How are they going to continue this very important story if they are no longer in physical proximity to the mansion itself?”
After beginning the second week of the course and working with Matt Reeves, director of archaeology and landscape restoration at The Montpelier Foundation, the professors realized the trajectory of the course would change entirely. “In true X-Labs style, we were able to pivot and work with the students and help them get through that trajectory,” Calcagno-Roach said.
“In order to help our students understand folks who were experiencing the problem, they were put in front of community archaeologists and folks who actually did some of the work of uncovering the artifacts that were so important to the story,” Calcagno-Roach said. The professors trained students in how to conduct interviews, and they were given contacts from Montpelier staff members.
One team pitched an educational archaeology lab to expand CALM’s outreach. “Our final creation was a mobile version of the lab called CALM on Wheels. I really liked it, and if implemented, it would serve Montpelier well,” said RJ Gatling, a junior Architectural Design major.
“This course introduced me to the concept of public archaeology,” said Jean Wong, a junior Graphic Design major, “and I found it really powerful that CALM was taking a space that holds a lot of painful history and helping return it to the community. Montpelier and CALM are considered models of public archaeology at historical plantations, especially plantations of the Founding Fathers. CALM is helping challenge that status quo and the stories told surrounding the Founding Fathers, telling the story behind their households and who was doing the work.”
“One of the reasons this was so very important is that, as the archaeology lab is reopening in this new space, it wants to be a community center,” Nash said. “It doesn't just want to be a scientific laboratory. It wants to be a place where the members of the descendant community, the local community and kids, can come and learn about the connection between archaeology and these hidden histories that are never told.”