CSCC History Student Make History
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CLEVELAND, TN. – Cleveland State Community College students Tabitha Stone and Matthew Saunders are not only learning history while enrolled in History 2801, they are making it. History 2801, or History Laboratory is the first history course on campus devoted entirely to service-learning.
According to Learn and Serve America, service-learningis “a teaching and learning strategy that integrates meaningful community service with instruction and reflection to enrich the learning experience, teach civic responsibility, and strengthen communities.”
Team taught by Bryan Reed, Associate History Professor, and Sarah Copeland, Records Catalog Coordinator, the course allows students to be involved in a service-learning experience at an area museum, archive, historical society, or other historical collection. The course is designed to expose students to the practice of researching, digitizing, and handling historical artifacts. As with most other service-learning initiatives, students are asked to reflect on their experiences by maintaining a journal/log throughout the semester.
The fall 2010 semester was the pilot for the course. Based on feedback from students and the cultural heritage institutions where students have been working, Copeland and Reed said they will tweak the course for the spring 2011 semester so that it is an even better learning experience. They are hoping to slowly expand the program in the coming years so that students can be placed with cultural heritage institutions throughout the CSCC’s five-county service area.”
Copeland said, “Bryan Reed guides students’ historical research. He is an expert on local history, so he is the go-to person for finding information about individuals, families, places, and events. I focus on the ‘library science’ aspects of the class. I introduce students to cultural heritage institutions (i.e., museums, archives, historical societies), instruct them on how to handle old or fragile documents, and teach them how to structure their research so that it can be published on the web using our content management software.”
Stone said, “With this course, not only are we gaining a knowledge of history, but we are getting to do research on something that actually interests us. The instructors have done a great job getting this program established—teaching us how to scan photographs, how to do the research, etc. They are both available at the drop of a hat to help us if we ever need them.”
Service-Learning Facilitator Sherry Holloway, said, “Bryan and Sarah have done an extraordinary job of developing and implementing a service-learning course around digitizing photos and documents. Their first focus has been on materials from Cleveland, Athens, and surrounding East Tennessee areas. The extent of their potential outreach hit home for me when Bryan handed me a copy of Victoria E. Ott's book, Confederate Daughters, where one of his student's digitized photos had been published. Incredible!”
Upon completion of the course, students will be able to demonstrate appropriate handling of unique historical materials, describe the public role of institutions charged with preserving historical materials, create digital versions of historical documents, and publish newly digitized materials to the Southeast Tennessee Digital Archive (SETDA) using CONTENT dm, a tool for managing digital collections and publishing them on the world wide web.
Copeland, said, “The neat thing about this class is that students get to experience how history is ‘done.’ When you read a history book, the narrative is polished.You might get the impression that understanding and writing about history is simply a matter of collecting the facts and putting them in chronological order; you don’t see all of the dirty work that goes on behind the scenes. In fact, answering a historical question requires research, analysis, and sorting the significant details from the insignificant details. Our students get the opportunity to do this type of historical research and publish it to the web. They unearth all these little details, then shape them into a narrative and place it within its broader historical context. The most unique part of this class is that it is being offered at a two-year college. Most students at this level do not get the opportunity to handle artifacts.”
Copeland said that one of her goals with this project is to get students involved who have majors and interests other than history. This project could also appeal to people with interests in computer applications, genealogy, journalism, law, and other areas. Students in English classes may be especially interested once the project expands to include textual documents.
According to Reed, the goal of SETDA, and therefore this service-learning course was to be a support system for these local institutions and to create an online tool that teachers, students, and researchers will all be able to use.
Reed said, “In my opinion, this project defines what a community college should be doing—collecting, preserving, and archiving images in our five-county service area.”
For more information on this service-learning course, contact Sarah Copeland at (423) 472-7141, ext. 369 or Bryan Reed at ext. 362. For more information on SETDA, visit the website at www.clevelandstatecc.edu/setda/.
