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Digital Memory & the Archive - Fall 2017

This website presents research conducted by students at the University of Richmond in the Fall 2017 course, “Digital Memory in the Archive.” This collection of historical documents was developed in connection to the larger Race & Racism at the University of Richmond Project. Launched in fall 2015, the Race & Racism at the University of Richmond Project takes as its mission the documentation, preservation, and analysis of texts illuminating dimensions of the University of Richmond’s racial history. The goal of this site is to help grow this collection through metadata and additional content development. Our class focused on the time period between 1964 and 1986, and sought to analyze and question primary sources in an effort to learn more about the University’s history of race and racism. 

With the guidance of Project Archivist Irina Rogova, as well as other significant collaborators, we explored a number of questions throughout the course, including:

• How do we move studies of the past into the digital realm?
  
• How is an archive created?
  
• What is memory?
  
• How has the University of Richmond dealt with race and racism in the past? How does it deal with such topics today?
  
• Why is it important for race and racism at the University of Richmond to be taught and explored?
  
• How does the digital archival process work?
  
• What is the role of digital archives in protecting and making accessible stories of the past?
  
• How is public memory created?
  
• What is a liberatory archive?
  
• What are the benefits and disadvantages of digital archives as compared with more traditional means of preserving and sharing memory?
  
• How do we decide what is remembered and what is not?
  

These are just a few of the questions our class sought to explore and even, in some cases, develop answers to. In our journey to discuss and expand upon existing research, the class had the chance to engage with various different primary sources, primarily The Collegian, the campus newspaper, and unpublished materials from the University of Richmond Archive. The Virginia Baptist Historical Society offered the class an opportunity to conduct research within their facilities, giving us access to hundreds of archival documents from the University of Richmond.

The Fall 2017 class was the first to transcribe and digitize records which detail the University of Richmond just following the passage of Title VI and Title IX in the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the subsequent efforts to modernize the school and comply to federal standards. These records shed light on the complex issues the University faced during E. Bruce Heilman’s time as president of the University (1971-1986, 1987-1988). Not only does this research continue to address issues of race and racism, this class has opened up research into disability rights, and gender and religious based discrimination at the University during this time period. Our class also developed content for the digital Race & Racism platform through four projects: two exhibits (Resistance and Compliance and The Title IX Controversy at UR), a podcast (A Campus Divided), and a timeline detailing University Compliance with the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

In the vein of many other digital collections, we aim to curate a digital repository that will enable researchers and viewers to take a deeper look at the history of the University of Richmond. As archival records are made accessible through digitization, we hope that these freely available resources will prompt critical inquiries into how University history is kept and retold.

Campus Collaborators

We are grateful to the guest speakers and collaborators who have taken the time to enhance our research over the semester. Not only have these individuals taken the time to speak with us about our projects, they have also shared expertise from their fields of study, added new perspectives to the history of race and racism in Richmond, and encouraged us to ask questions about the archive.

• Fred Anderson — Executive Director Emeritus, Virginia Baptist Historical Society

• Julian Hayter — Assistant Professor of Leadership Studies at the University of Richmond's Jepson School of Leadership Studies

• Darlene Herod — Research Assistant, Virginia Baptist Historical Society

• Lynda Kachurek — Head of Rare Books and Special Collections, University of Richmond

• Nicole Maurantonio — Associate Professor of Rhetoric and Communication Studies, University of Richmond

• Rob Nelson — Director, Digital Scholarship Lab, University of Richmond.

Contributing Students

After contributing to this project with the addition of two exhibits, a podcast, a timeline, and a collection of 150+ metadata entries, our class wishes to continue this conversation on Race and Racism at the University of Richmond. We hope to live this project into action by engaging the University community to raise the question: how do we decide what is remembered and what is not?

• Kirsten Avila is a senior from Malibu, California, majoring in Interdisciplinary Studies: Business of Media, Culture, and Communication, with a minor in History. The most interesting part of the project for her has been learning about the University’s reluctance to comply with Title IX and the Civil Rights Act of 1960.

• Kaitlin Brennan is a senior from Fairfield, Connecticut majoring in PPEL and Rhetoric & Communication Studies. The Race and Racism project has helped her think about race not only on the University’s campus but in the city of Richmond in general. She has become especially interested in how the University has talked about race and gender equality to the public, including to its students.

• Amanda Corbosiero is a senior from Roseland, New Jersey, majoring in Journalism and minoring in Rhetoric and Communication Studies and Film Studies. In the process of curating and creating metadata for the project, Amanda feels that the project has opened up her eyes to parts of the school's history that have gone unseen.

• Tegan Helms is a senior from Wilton, Connecticut. She is majoring in Rhetoric and Communication Studies and minoring in Visual and Media Arts Practices. This project has been an eye-opening experience, exposing the way the University of Richmond has handled the development of race relations throughout the years. In addition, this project has instilled in her the rhetorical importance of research and records in shaping our history and memory on certain subjects.

• Collin Kavanaugh is a senior from East Hampton, New York, majoring in Leadership Studies at the Jepson School of Leadership Studies. Collin has enjoyed finding connections between the Race and Racism Project and Michel Foucault’s theories of history making. This project has inspired him to continue researching forgotten history at the University of Richmond.

• Anna Lowenthal is a junior from Larchmont, New York, double majoring in Political Science and Rhetoric and Communication Studies. The most interesting part of the project to her has been the process of making connections between past and present and learning more about the history of the University.

• Julia Marcellino is a senior from Berwyn, Pennsylvania, majoring in Rhetoric and Communication Studies and Dance, and minoring in Business Administration. She believes that this project has been a great opportunity for her to to further her analysis and research skills while looking into a history that is still very relevant today. The most interesting part of this project for her was how some of the sentiments and viewpoints of certain people in the 1960's still resonate with situations that we are dealing with today.

• Alexa Sandy-Mendieta is senior from Apache Junction, Arizona majoring in Rhetoric and Communication Studies. She believes the class has given her an ability to understand the power of the archive and its ability to help or hinder an understanding of the past. Her favorite part was being able to examine the original documents.

• Vishwesh Mehta is a senior from Mumbai, India, majoring in Rhetoric and Communication Studies. Vishwesh began his involvement in the Race and Racism Project in the Spring of 2017, when he was enrolled in an independent study course, and continued his participation through the summer as the Social Media and Public Relations Intern for the project. He has been compelled by the archive’s ground level perspective on conversations and incidents involving race on the University campus.

• Elizabeth Mejia-Ricart Guerra is from Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic. She is a sophomore at the University of Richmond who is double-majoring in Economics and Mathematics. Elizabeth is a Boatwright and Oliver Hill Scholar, who tutors at the Academic Skill Center. She has been involved with the Race and Racism Project since the summer of 2017, as an A&S Summer Fellow. She is excited to discover more about the University of Richmond’s past as she believes it is linked to the city of Richmond’s interesting history.

• Keith Oddo is a junior from Roanoke, Virginia, double majoring in Rhetoric and Communication Studies and History. He believes this project provided him with great research experience that will be valuable in his future academic work.

• Destiny Riley is a junior from Maumelle, Arkansas, majoring in Rhetoric & Communication Studies and double minoring in Sociology and American Studies. Destiny contributed to the project in the Race and Racism Independent Study course in the Spring of 2017. The most interesting part of this project for her was making connections between the ways that the University viewed race in the early to mid-20th century and how the University views race in the modern day.

• Cory Schutter is a junior from Midlothian, Virginia. He is double majoring in Rhetoric and Communication Studies and Women, Gender and Sexuality Studies. He began his involvement with the Race and Racism Project in the summer of 2017, as an A&S Summer Fellow.The most interesting part of this project for him was learning about a hidden history of rampant telephone harassment during the late 1980s.

• Erin Tyra is a senior from Santa Fe, New Mexico, double majoring in Psychology and Rhetoric and Communication Studies. For Erin, this project has shed light on how the racial history of the University has directly impacted its present culture. Additionally, Erin feels the connections between the University and the city of Richmond provide an even more interesting perspective on how racial tensions have evolved over time.

• Caleb Ward is a junior from Hampton, Virginia, and is majoring in Rhetoric and Communication Studies. As an African American student athlete at the University of Richmond, Caleb is particularly interested in the research and scholarship produced by the Race & Racism Project.