by Brooke Clubbs, Southeast Missouri State University
Learning Objectives:
- Students will recognize different kinds of primary sources and their value in understanding higher education.
- Students will recognize and understand the policies and procedures of university archives that affect access to primary sources, and that these differ across repositories, databases, and collections.
- Utilizing primary sources, students will identify and analyze the environments in which organizational changes take place.
- Students will apply lessons from the past to present situations in higher education.
Introduction
Courses throughout the Higher Education Administration MA program return to the idea that higher education is an ever-changing landscape and that those changes are often accompanied by controversy. However, while students learn and understand the context of these changes in general, they may sometimes lose sight of the fact that they occurred at a specific institution as well, including their own. We need to connect the “big picture” history of higher education to the “snapshot” of their own institution. Some things may seem like they have “always been that way.” The concept of contingency helps students recognize that, “while in hindsight, the past seems to unroll in logical storylines, this was not necessarily the case for those who lived through it.”[1] This assignment encourages students to examine historical changes that took place at the institution where they are studying that are now well-established but were once controversial. Because students likely do not have any institutional memory beyond their few semesters of attendance, the course instructor can collaborate with a university archivist to find primary sources related to controversial changes. After determining which topics have enough material to provide contextual information surrounding those changes, the university archivists can then facilitate student access, including an information session led by an archivist to show the students how to access digital sources for their topics.
Summary of Activity
To prepare for this assignment, it is ideal to have a guest speaker, such as a history professor, present on the value of using primary sources to explore the history of higher education. If a guest speaker is not available, share the video “What is Historical Thinking?” that covers key concepts, such as multiple accounts and perspectives, analysis of primary sources, sourcing, understanding historical context, and claim-evidence connection.[2]
After students have been introduced to these concepts, they can be presented with some specific university changes and select one to analyze. For example, I worked with the archivists at my university library to compile a list of developments at our institution, including athletics (such as changing the mascot from the Indians to the Redhawks), campus life (such as the creation of the LGBTQ+ Resource Center), and academics (such as the creation of the nursing program). After being presented with these options, students post their chosen topic in a discussion forum on our learning management system (LMS). My courses are taught in HyFlex format, meaning students can attend face-to-face, synchronously on Zoom, or asynchronously online. An instructor who teaches only face-to-face might want to have an in-class discussion on topic selection. Students can choose the same topic, but they will need to use different primary sources for their projects. For example, if two students are interested in the mascot change, one could use minutes from The Board of Regents meeting and a letter to the editor in the community newspaper. Then, the other student could use a memo from the University President and an editorial from the campus newspaper.
The use of primary sources is often novel for Higher Education students. After topics are selected, the archivists who compiled the list of topics should visit the class to present on the in-person and digital resources available.[3] If this is not a possibility, the instructor could share information about the university archives. For my students, this will be an opportunity for them to discover how they can visit the university archives in person, what can be accessed online, and how to work with a university archivist face-to-face or virtually.
For the assignment, students select two primary sources after consulting with the university archivists and participating in an individual research session relating to their chosen topic.[4] The first should document the change and the second should provide an example of campus and/or community sentiment about the change. Students will provide links to these sources on a class Padlet, along with an opening summary of what precipitated the change, when the change occurred, and how the change was received.[5] They should then conclude with a brief analysis of the documents and compare this change to a current controversy in higher education. A student examining the mascot change, for example, might cite the decision at Florida State University not to use the word “mascot” with regard to the Seminole people.[6] They will also include citations of the sources.
To perform the analysis, the instructor may first have the students engage in the SOCC (Source, Observe, Contextualize, Corroborate) method suggested by the University of Iowa.[7] Students should start by considering the intended audience(s) for each document. They should examine differences in the perspectives represented by their sources, looking for points of agreement and disagreement. Finally, they should reflect on how this event sits in the context of current events.
Students will be assessed on their ability to:
- Describe the context of the change.
- Analyze the response to the change
- Compare the past change to a current controversy (the current controversy may be at a different institution or an overarching issue for higher education).
- Support their claims with primary sources.
[1] Daisy Martin, “Contingency,” TeachingHistory.org, Roy Rosenzweig Center for History and New Media (July 19, 2010), teachinghistory.org/teaching-materials/ask-a-master-teacher/24118.
[2] “What is historical thinking?,” TeachingHistory.org, Roy Rosenzweig Center for History and New Media, (November 10, 2010), https://teachinghistory.org/themes/teachinghistory/homevid/historical_thinking.mp4.
[3] The primary sources university archivists curated for this activity include: “Sub-Series 1: Mascot Change, 1998 Nov 17-2002 Jul 3,” Dr. Carol Morrow Collection, Box 4093, Folder 05, Special Collections and Archives, Kent Library, Southeast Missouri State University; “Newspaper Clippings Scrapbook 4, pages 1-13, 1996 – 1997,” Southeast Rainbow Alliance Collection, Box 1822, Folder 017, Special Collections and Archives, Kent Library, Southeast Missouri State University; “Southeast Missouri State College Brochure, Includes the Nursing Program, 1965,“ Helen Kinney Collection, Box 1058, Folder 006, Special Collections and Archives, Kent Library, Southeast Missouri State University. The topic list curated by university archivists for this activity can be found here:https://drive.google.com/file/d/1SUFay5lRCKnOrKejX8iID02IzrhwDg1i/view?usp=sharing
[4] A link to the class slides for this activity, including instructions, can be found here: https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1cHuvHFsXqtnoElvfEqSG1NKOcAm0nuZfPzR36LtSnB8/edit?usp=sharing
[5] Examples of archival sources in this activity include: “Brodsky Collection Transfer of Ownership,” The President’s Office Records: Series VII: Bill Stacy Collection, Box 4044, Folder 001-008, Special Collections and Archives, Kent Library, Southeast Missouri State University; “Faulkner Center created at Southeast Missouri,” The President’s Office Records: Series VII: Bill Stacy Collection, Box 4044, Folder 001-008, Special Collections and Archives, Kent Library, Southeast Missouri State University; Robert Hamblin, My Life with Faulkner and Brodsky, (Southeast Missouri State University Press, 2017); Robert Hamblin, interview by author (July 8, 2024), https://spotifyanchor-web.app.link/e/mshRlXAH4Kb; Robert Hamblin, interview by LTS Project, (June 24, 2024), https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cibH-GIsKAE; “Kent to House Faulkner Collection,” Capaha Arrow, Aug. 31, 1988-Apr. 25, 1990, Box 1170, Special Collections and Archives, Kent Library, Southeast Missouri State University; “Opinion: New Information Arises on a University ‘Gift’,” The Southeast Missourian, October 1, 1990, https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=PsgfAAAAIBAJ&sjid=qNgEAAAAIBAJ&pg=1627%2C6303498; Josh Moody, “Trustee Lawsuit Illuminates Penn State Transparency Concerns,” Inside Higher Ed (July 29, 2024), https://www.insidehighered.com/news/governance/trustees-regents/2024/07/29/trustee-lawsuit-illuminates-penn-state-transparency.
[6] “Florida State University & Our Relationship with the Seminole Tribe of Florida,” Florida State University Libraries, https://guides.lib.fsu.edu/fsuandseminoles.
[7] Catherine Denial, “BHH in the College Classroom: Analyzing Written Documents,” Bringing History Home, University of Iowa (2010) https://www.bringinghistoryhome.org/assets/bringinghistoryhome/analyze%20written%20sources.pdf.