History Students Aim to Build Community Bridges
Tuesday, Dec. 10 at PAC Facility on Penn campus – 8:15 to 9:30 a.m.
Thursday, Dec. 12 at Smokey Row – 8:15 to 10:00 a.m.
The students from William Penn’s History 299 invite the Oskaloosa and William Penn communities to attend their event “Coffee Talks with History 299: Building Bridges” on Tuesday and Thursday, during their final week of classes.
The events are designed to create a space for community members to chat with students about their perspective on how William Penn University and the wider Oskaloosa community interact with each other. The students have developed a series of questions to understand the relationship between the two communities and how it has changed over time. Participants have the option to be recorded with video or audio for the purposes of this course project, or may have a conservation with students taking notes without being recorded.
The students have spent the semester studying public and local history – what it is, how to do it, and how to keep history relevant to local communities. Throughout the course, they have analyzed ways different professionals gather, display and share history with larger audiences, including monuments and exhibits, conducting oral history interviews, and utilized digital tools to create interactive events or maintain archives.
It was the use of digital tools and conducting oral history interviews that sparked their plan for the final project. “The students want to engage with the community in a way that allows community members to share their stories and build relationships,” explained instructor Margaret Spiegel, lecturer at William Penn and Director/Curator at the Nelson Pioneer Farm & Museum. “They were very excited to integrate video and actually talk to people for their project. When the project moved away from the original idea of creating a brochure of local history and updating a website to this public event, the excitement over the change was tangible. We’ve talked a lot about how historic sites and public history can help meet the needs of the communities who engage with it, and this project format is designed to do just that. The students saw a need for personal interaction and conversation between William Penn and Oskaloosa, and they have created a way to ask questions and get out to talk to people. We hope folks with be able to join us for those conversations.”
The information gathered at the event will help students understand the dynamics of the Penn/Oskaloosa relationship and may inspire future projects. The emphasis for these students is the information gathering itself.
Spiegel explained, “The learning process for how to plan and execute an event like this is just as important as identifying the community need. We have a diverse class of experiences and majors, but the concepts we discussed throughout the semester transcend being a public historian. Thinking about how to work with each other, have those conversations, and meet folks where they are at help us be more engaged citizens of the world. I’m very proud of all of the work these students have done this semester; the course challenged them to think it different ways and examine topics they’ve never dealt with before. I hope everyone can come out to meet these dynamic students and help their event be a success.”
