HerStory: The Trinity Washington Univeristy Oral History Project
Joshua Wright, Trinity Washington University
This session explores the use of oral history to tell the stories of women attending single-sex colleges and universities. It also demonstrates how oral history is being used to document the impact that racial integration and increasing opportunities for enrollment in coed institutions has had on these schools over the last sixty years.
ABSTRACT:Trinity Washington University is a hidden gem in our nation’s capital. For much of the 20th century it was home to the nation’s top collegiate women. Distinguished alumnae include Nancy Pelosi, Maggie Smith, Kellyanne Conway, Kathleen Sebelius, Joy Ford Austin, Caryle Murphy, Peggy Lewis, and Judge Jeanette Jackson Clark. Trinity was integrated in 1958 but remained predominantly white and middle class. As more schools became co-ed after the 1970s, Trinity’s enrollment dropped. In the 1990s Trinity began recruiting Black women from DC's working-class communities. During the 2010s similar efforts were made to attract Latinas; many of whom were first generation or DACA recipients. Today The U.S. Department of Education designates Trinity as a Predominantly Black Institution (PBI) and a Hispanic Serving Institution (HIS). It is the only university in the D.C. region and one of only a few nationwide with the dual designation. As the student population has transformed, so has the faculty. I came to Trinity in 2019 and launched HerStory, an oral history project to collect audio and video recordings of Trinity alumnae who graduated between the 1960s and the present. HerStory is aligned with the Trinity DARE Initiative (Driving Actions for Racial Equality), launched by our president in the wake of the George Floyd protests. Undergraduate students enrolled in my oral history course conduct interviews using digital audio recorders and zoom. HerStory documents the stories of our students, Trinity's racial evolution, and how this evolution connects to the school’s mission to promote social justice. This presentation will provide an overview of the project, the steps taken to train students and recruit alumnae, challenges we encountered starting this during the pandemic, preservation of our interviews, and our efforts to share this information with the larger DC community.
The 1959 Project at the University of Michigan-Dearborn: Oral History as Part of a Complex Methodology for Inclusive History
Camron Amin, University of Michigan-Dearborn
ABSTRACT: The 1959 Project is a “project site” under development at the University of Michigan-Dearborn with funding from the University of Michigan’s Inclusive History Project. The IHP aims to support existing institutional work around diversity, equity and inclusion but also to incubate new initiatives that have the potential to become self-sustaining endeavors that advance work in accordance with four frames: origins and trajectories, people and communities, sites and symbols, and research and teaching. The oral history component of The 1959 Project has several aspects: digital curation of archived oral history interviews, highlighting and developing content in existing digital collections and using several methods (“snowballing,” focus group networking, survey-driven outreach) to recruit and curate new oral history narratives. The other challenge for developing DEI-informed collections is that some interviewees may have had painful - even traumatic- experiences of exclusion, inequality and discrimination at our institution. For some university stakeholders, there may also be concerns about social standing or vulnerability to retaliation if they share their experiences. Therefore, methods to develop and curate interviews for discoverable digital collections need to be coordinated with other research methodologies to ensure insights that are earned ethically. Our initial solution is to articulate transparent procedures during the consent and intake process for interviewees to control access to their narratives. The procedures will also allow interviewees to anonymize their interviews or to shift towards sharing their experiences via more confidential methods. The presentation will include excerpts of interviews which feature an individual’s connections (and difficulties in finding connection) to the Dearborn campus, their local community and the full University of Michigan system.
"Fiat Lux," Let there Be Light: The Legacy of Bishop College
Adrienne Cain Darough, Baylor University Institute for Oral History
Bishop College was a historically black college (HBCU) founded in Marshall, TX, in 1881, that experienced significant growth after relocating to Dallas in 1961, but ultimately found itself in dire financial straits and closed its doors in 1988. This presentation will discuss the impact of Bishop, the effort to preserve its legacy and history by working with alumni, administrators, and former board members, and uncover some of the mysteries and misunderstandings surrounding the closing of the college.
ABSTRACT: Bishop College was founded in 1881 by Nathan Bishop and the Baptist Home Mission Society and was established to serve as an educational beacon for African American Baptists in East Texas. By the 1920s, the college expanded and began offering more courses; in 1931, an in-service training institute for ministers and lay church workers was established, which was named the Lacy Kirk Williams Institute in 1943. In 1961, the campus moved from Marshall to Dallas, where enrollment grew drastically along with the programs and degrees offered, and remained healthy until the late 1970s. In 1976, it was even reported that 70 percent of Bishop's faculty held terminal degrees. Unfortunately, the college endured financial troubles and eventually filed for bankruptcy in 1988. Upon its closing, Paul Quinn College, another Texas HBCU, took over the grounds and facilities of Bishop College in 1990 and remains there to this day. Since the university no longer has a physical presence, this project serves to preserve the history and legacy of Bishop College through the stories of alumni, former faculty and administrators, and board members. Also, due to its abrupt closing, many rumors circulated on why the college closed and a misunderstanding of Bishop’s financial state. Through the collected oral history and an archival donation of materials from Bishop alumni, the effort to piece together this puzzle will be reflected in this presentation.This presentation will also discuss the pros and challenges of working with alumni members, dealing with conflicting stories and contradictory narratives, deciding who gets to be interviewed, and how to preserve the legacy of something that no longer physically exists.
Bridging Generations and Academics: Oral Histories about Grandparent University
Karen Neurohr, Oklahoma State University
Grandparent University (GPU) at Oklahoma State University has been bridging family generations with the Alumni Association and faculty members since 2002. Oral history interviews have captured a variety of perspectives from this unique annual program.
ABSTRACT: The Oklahoma Oral History Research Program at the Oklahoma State University Library has developed more than thirty oral history projects since its inception in 2006. Projects designed to record alumnus stories include “O-STATE Stories,” “Cowboys in Every County,” and “OSU Diversity Sexuality and Gender.” In 2023, our “institutional biography” expanded to include interviews documenting the history of Grandparent University (GPU), a unique intergenerational learning opportunity offered by the OSU Alumni Association. GPU is a 3-day summer camp experience for grandparents, grandchildren, and faculty members. A variety of interviews have yielded rich stories, memories, and programmatic changes over time. The significance of GPU is conveyed through the perspectives of former attendees, facult
