Faces of Southeast Missouri: Dr. Steven Hoffman, PhD

Dr. Steven Hoffman, a professor and coordinator of the historic preservation program at Southeast Missouri State University, stands near the Broadway Theater as renovations continue on the historic building.

Photo by Aaron Eisenhauer

Dr. Steven Hoffman, PhD, coordinator of the Historic Preservation Program at Southeast Missouri State University, says he felt like he found his place for the first time in Atlanta at age 18, working as a delivery person for a word processing service bureau. The job allowed him to walk throughout the city every day, and he loved the energy.

“When I went to Atlanta, that was where it all clicked. … I think being in Atlanta really sparked a love of being in places that were vibrant and diverse and activated,” Hoffman says. “That Atlanta experience was really profoundly formative for me, because it really showed me the potential.”

Born in New Jersey, Hoffman studied history at Georgia State University, earned his master’s degree in heritage preservation at Georgia State University and then his PhD in heritage preservation at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh.

In 1995, he applied for a job at Southeast Missouri State University (SEMO) that included work in built environment, or the ways cities are manifestations of the people who live there and their power relationships; he’d previously written his dissertation on the way African Americans and working class people shaped the city of Richmond, Va.

He got the job, and he and his wife Margaret Waterman have lived in Cape Girardeau since.

Hoffman says he “fell in love” with the program, community and students at SEMO “from day one;” downtown Cape Girardeau is another place that matters to him, because he feels like he knows it “inside and out,” from taking his students on walking tours of dilapidated buildings throughout it.

Preserving these buildings is important, he says, because historic buildings help create unique experiences, which drive the economy of an area.

“You’re going to have a stronger emotional bond when you’re in this cool historic space and you’re walking through these historic pedestrian thoroughfares and you realize you’re connected to the broad stream of human history,” Hoffman says. “You’re connected to everything that’s happened here in Cape Girardeau since way before you got here and way after. And so, you feel more at peace and more connected and more rooted.”

A few projects Hoffman considers highlights of his career are listing the Cape Girardeau Court of Common Pleas, the Broadway Theatre and St. James A.M.E. Church on the National Register of Historic Places. He is also proud of saving the Esquire Theater from being torn down, as well as renaming Ivers Square after James Ivers and bringing the statue of a member of the United States Colored Troop Regiment to stand in the greenspace.

“It’s all about a collaboration, all about bringing people together to try to celebrate the places that are meaningful to them,” Hoffman says.

Currently, Hoffman is working with a student to list the Lincoln Junior High School in Sikeston, Mo., as an African American cultural resource on the National Register of Historic Places. He is also collaborating with the People Organized to Revitalize Community Healing (PORCH) Initiative to list Holy Family Catholic Church in Cape Girardeau on the National Register of Historic Places.

For Hoffman, all of his work comes back to telling the stories of the people in a place.

“It’s not the buildings themselves, but it’s what the buildings allow the people to feel and connect to,” Hoffman says. “There’s a real power to place."