SCUA staff teach class sessions across many campus departments and programs, incorporating primary sources from our collections. These sessions give students the opportunity to learn from “hands-on” experiences with archival materials. Some of the notable classes and instructional opportunities this quarter include:
Theatre 145 Stagecraft
Students in THR 145 were treated to a textile and primary source extravaganza when visiting Special Collections and University Archives this spring. Learning about costuming, students were tasked with choosing a decade and a textile from our collections, supplementing their research with yearbooks and photographs, to create a presentation.
LAT 102 Elementary Latin II
Robyn Le Blanc brought two sections of LAT 102 to SCUA for a pop-up exhibit and document analysis using the medieval manuscripts in SCUA’s collections.
WGS 250 Introduction to Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies
Sophe Khan brought their section of WGS 250 to SCUA to explore the history and genre of zines as well as learn how to create their own zine. Carolyn Shankle created the pop-up exhibit and led the history portion while Suzanne Helms demonstrated several varieties of zine designs.
History 391: Historical Skills and Methods: U.S. Women’s History
Beth Ann Koelsch gave a presentation to the class about digitized materials in SCUA.
MST 325 Gender in Media
Early in the spring semester, undergraduate students in Media Studies 325-01 and 325-02: Gender in Media taught by Paula Damasceno visited Special Collections to apply what they were learning in class. As they had been studying relevant terminology related to how gender is represented in media, they viewed various historical examples in our collections and worked in small groups to identify instances of their terms in various publications. Once back in the classroom, students reported their findings to the full class.
CST 200 Communications and Community
Students from CST 200, Communications and Community, had an opportunity to examine the history of UNC Greensboro through the lens of creating communities. Students learned about the various communities that have existed on campus, such as faculty clubs and student organizations. They then had the opportunity to look through yearbooks to identify communities and communications through the years.
English 642 Pre-1800 Literature
The students in ENG 642 were immersed in the works of George Herbert, English poet. UNCG holds the largest collection of Herbert’s works in the United States.
GES 486 Environment, Security, and Justice
Carolyn Shankle and Maggie Murphy co-taught this class session. Students were able to explore a pop-up exhibit focusing on zines relating to environmental issues as well as learn how to create a zine of their own.
ART 328 Printmaking II
Both Chris Thomas and Topher Alexander brought their sections of ART 328 to SCUA for a pop-up exhibit and letterpress printing session. Carolyn Shankle curated the exhibit which featured materials from Rare Books and Special Collections. Suzanne Helms led the letterpress printing session, incorporating wood type.
SCHEME: A Queer Feminist Leadership Convergence
SCHEME is a program coordinated by the WGSS program for “student activists, scholars, and creatives from universities across the Triad-Area to co-create a political home rooted in queer, feminist, and anti-racist politics.” We hosted the groups in the archives for the July 2024 cohort and the April 2025 cohort. Stacey Krim presented on theory and practice in “queer archiving.” A large exhibit of LGBTQ+ material was pulled for the participants. To quote one participant, “Looking at archives really informed a lot of us… a great way to introduce feminism/queer culture.”
ENG 628 MFA Poetry Workshop
In late April, first year graduate creative writing students in Emilia Phillip’s ENG 628-01: MFA Poetry Workshop visited Special Collections. Students reviewed examples of poetry from our Rare Books Collections, including poems inspired by Surrealist techniques such as the “exquisite corpse” method. The five students, Emilia Phillips, and SCUA staff member Suzanne Helms, then collaborated on a poem using that method in which each person writes one line of the poem while only being able to see the line just prior to their own. In this way, the poem develops organically, unexpectedly, and entirely uniquely. In this type of course integrated instruction, students were inspired by materials in Special Collections and were able to craft and print a spontaneous poem in response.