Month: June 2016

Learned Something New: Visiting Lafayette

On Friday, the Digital Summer Scholars had the pleasure of visiting other digital scholars at Lafayette College. The visit was both fun and educational. It was interesting to hear about the projects the Lafayette students were working on. One thing that surprised me was the diversity in Lafayette’s digital projects. Since all of our projects heavily revolve around history and Special Collections, I forgot that there are a number of other disciplines that use digital humanities as a way to present research. A couple projects had more of a social science feel to them and unlocked the political science and public policy view of digital humanities. One project revolved around music and creating a synthesizer interactive timeline. The diversity in these projects allowed me to really grasp the concept that digital humanities covers a wide variety of disciplines, not just history. I saw myself involuntarily collaborating and learning from these people I had known for only a couple hours through our discussions, activities, and twitter (this was the first encounter I have ever had with twitter). Overall, I learned things on this trip that I may have not encountered otherwise. I look forward to seeing these students again with their finished projects. I know they will be great!

Project Charter Proposal

Project Name: Taking A Stand: Student Social Justice Movements at Gettysburg College from 1980 to the Present

Project Owner : Lauren White

Project Summary

The goal for my project is to create a comprehensive and interactive timeline detailing student-led social justice movements at Gettysburg College from 1980 to the present. I will use Timeline JS software and a WordPress platform to detail at least ten major instances of student activism and how each event impacted the campus and how it tied in to local and national attitudes towards social justice.  I am primarily creating this for the Gettysburg College student body; however, I would be thrilled for my audience to include faculty, staff, and students from other institutions.

Deliverables

    • The oral histories, Gettysburg College factbooks, photographs, SURGE articles and Gettysburgian and Gettysburg Times articles which can be found in the College Archives or from college administration
    • Stories from alumni and current students about their experiences with activism at Gettysburg
    • WordPress and Timeline JS
    • Zotero

Timeline

  • Week 3: Finalize WordPress theme, and contact all the alumni or current students I intend to work with
  • Week 4: Understand Timeline JS and any other programs that are of interest to me
  • Week 5: Finalize the bulk of my research attained from special collections, my secondary sources, and the college factbooks.
  • Week 6: Finalize interviews with alumni and students willing to be a part of my project, and work out any copyright issues I may encounter.
  • Week 7: Have all research in a digital format.
  • Weeks 8 and 9: Fill in any blanks I may have left, edit website, and prepare for my project presentation.
  • Week 10: Finalize and deliver project presentation

 

  • End of Life/Future Plans
    • I plan to continue work on my project after the fellowship is completed and expand the time range to include earlier dates. Additionally, it is my desire that the timeline be continually updated as student activism continues to take place at Gettysburg.