SCUA staff taught approximately 75 classes and workshops sessions in the Spring 2023 semester, reaching over 1500 students, and incorporating primary sources from across our collections. These sessions give students the opportunity to learn from “hands-on” experience with archival materials. Some of the notable classes this quarter include:
“Something Happened Here”
On Thursday, April 20th, 2023, UNCG undergraduate students in Honors 244: “’Who Lives, Who Dies, Who Tells Your Story’: University History and Digital Storytelling” debuted their final class project – “Something Happened Here.” The course, taught by University Archivist & Student Engagement Coordinator Erin Lawrimore, introduced students to archives and archival research through the lens of UNC Greensboro history.
“Something Happened Here” uses a series of yard signs placed around campus to indicate sites where something important (but not widely known) happened. Each sign has a QR code to lead the viewer to a website with information about that person/place/thing. During their presentation, students provided an overview of the project and a guided tour of a few of the sites along College Avenue. You can view a map marking all the campus sites in the “Something Happened Here” project here: https://go.uncg.edu/shh_map.
The yard signs will be around campus until May 17th, but the website containing the student’s work will be available much longer. If you’re not able to visit campus while the signs are in place, you can still view the students’ research on this site: http://uncglibraries.com/shh/.
Introduction to Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies
Instructor Tiffany Holland brought her WGS 250: Introduction to Women’s, Gender and Sexuality Studies class to SCUA for two class sessions. The students learned about LGBTQ+ campus history and examined primary source publications with Beth Ann Koelsch and Patrick Dollar. Carolyn Shankle created a pop-up exhibit of zines, which are self-published magazines, in the collection, and Suzanne Helms led a zine making workshop.
Zine Workshop
Students learned to make three simple book structures: an eight-page zine from a single sheet of paper, a boustrophedon (based on the Greek word for how an ox plows a field) zine resulting in a 16-page mini zine from a single sheet of paper, and a simple sewn pamphlet zine. Students had the option of creating a zine for a final class project, so the workshop provided the basic skills should they choose to use the zine format.
