Month: November 2017

Censorship on College Campuses: The Mystery of The Collegian Sex Survey

Irina Rogova Uncategorized ,

Over ten weeks this summer, 10 A&S Summer Fellows, 1 Spider Intern, 5 faculty mentors, and 1 community partner (Untold RVA) collaborated on The Race & Racism at the University of Richmond Project. Final projects focused on the Race & Racism Project included exhibits, podcasts, and digital stories. Over the next few weeks, we will feature these works.

Karissa Lim is a senior at the University of Richmond double majoring in Psychology and Rhetoric & Communication Studies. She first worked with the Race & Racism at UR Project during the Fall 2016 semester in the class Digital Memory & the Archive. Her final project in Fall 2016 was a timeline outlining the history of Race and Education between 1946 and 1971 with team member Damian Hondares. She returned to the project as a 2017 A&S Summer Research Fellow, working with the project remotely from her hometown of Franklinville, New Jersey and traveling to neighboring Philadelphia, Pennsylvania to conduct site visits.

Karissa’s final project was a digital story entitled “Censorship on College Campuses: The Mystery of The Collegian Sex Survey.” A bit about the topic in her own words:

While creating metadata for the Race & Racism at the University of Richmond Project, Summer Research Fellow Karissa Lim (’18) stumbled upon a series of letters from 1968 that referenced a Collegian sex survey that had been censored. As a social science and humanities student, Karissa was curious about the content of the survey and set out to find the questions and results, hoping that these would provide more context and answers. Unfortunately, Karissa could not find the questions or results of the second half of the survey. This mystery raised more questions about freedom of speech and religious reputation on the University of Richmond’s campus.

View Karissa’s digital story and other projects via our digital collection at memory.richmond.edu

Spider of Color: Korean-American Representation at the University of Richmond

Irina Rogova Uncategorized , ,

Over ten weeks this summer, 10 A&S Summer Fellows, 1 Spider Intern, 5 faculty mentors, and 1 community partner (Untold RVA) collaborated on The Race & Racism at the University of Richmond Project. Final projects focused on the Race & Racism Project included exhibits, podcasts, and digital stories. Over the next few weeks, we will feature these works.

Joshua Hasulchan Kim is from Colonial Heights, Virginia. He is a junior at the University of Richmond who is double majoring in Journalism and French. Joshua is involved in various clubs on campus: He is the co-president of Block Crew dance crew, the opinions editor for the Collegian newspaper, and is the Co-Director of Operations for the Multicultural Lounge Building Committee. Joshua joined the project as part of the Spring 2017 independent study (RHCS 387) and expanded upon this research with the support of an A&S Summer Research Fellowship during Summer 2017.

Josh approached his summer research with the goal of identifying Korean and Korean-American students throughout the University of Richmond’s history. His research took him down some unexpected routes. Read the various blog posts Josh contributed over the course of his research, including his archival discovery of the (possibly) first Korean-American student on campus, here. Josh’s his final project was a podcast–listen to it here: “Spider of Color: Korean-American Representation at the University of Richmond.”

Explore Josh’s podcast and other projects via the Race & Racism at UR Project’s digital collection at memory.richmond.edu

The Black Student Experience at the University of Richmond Main Campus (1970-1992)

Irina Rogova Uncategorized ,

Over ten weeks this summer, 10 A&S Summer Fellows, 1 Spider Intern, 5 faculty mentors, and 1 community partner (Untold RVA) collaborated on The Race & Racism at the University of Richmond Project. Final projects focused on the Race & Racism Project included exhibits, podcasts, and digital stories. Over the next few weeks, we will feature these works.

Jennifer Munnings is a sophomore, intending to major in Sociology with a minor in Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies. Jennifer was new to the Race & Racism Project when she joined our Summer 2017 team. She created 74 individual digital items for our online collection, and contributed several blog posts available here. Her final project for the summer was an Omeka digital exhibit entitled “The Black Student Experience at the University of Richmond Main Campus (1970-1992).” A bit about the topic in her own words:

The University of Richmond’s black student integration experience is a tale of feet dragging by the University administration, threats of defunding from the federal government, and some resistance from the student body.  University of Richmond jumped through hurdles to avoid integration and maintain federal funding after the Civil Rights Act of 1964, complete with creating University College to cater to the “nontraditional” student. In 1968 the University of Richmond had its first full time black student enrolled in Richmond College, Barry Greene. Black students at UR had to fight to cultivate spaces for themselves where their opinions were acknowledged as legitimate, and their experiences were not discredited within the predominately white institution….Black students did not have spaces for themselves on campus where their feelings, opinions, and right to be students were not questioned. There were no black faculty or administrators on campus; the only black adult face students would have seen would have been the custodians or the gardeners. This exhibit will explore the acts of activism, intentional or not,  by black students through their experience at UR in their creation of clubs and organizations. Additionally, it will explore the tension that existed between black students and the administration in their attempt to be integrated into the campus.

Jennifer also joined Project Coordinator Dr. Nicole Maurantonio, Project Archivist Irina Rogova, Community Partner Free Egunfemi of Untold RVA, and fellow sophomore and A&S Summer Fellow Elizabeth Mejía-Ricart at the Imagining American Conference at UC Davis to present on the summer work on October 14, 2017.

Explore Jennifer’s exhibit and others via the project’s digital collection at memory.richmond.edu

Faculty Response to Institutional and National Change (1968-1973)

Irina Rogova Uncategorized ,

Over ten weeks this summer, 10 A&S Summer Fellows, 1 Spider Intern, 5 faculty mentors, and 1 community partner (Untold RVA) collaborated on The Race & Racism at the University of Richmond Project. Final projects focused on the Race & Racism Project included exhibits, podcasts, and digital stories. Over the next few weeks, we will feature these works.

Dominique “Dom” Harrington is a junior majoring in American Studies and minoring in Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies. She worked with the Race & Racism project for the Fall 2016 seminar in the course Digital Memory & the Archive, where she developed an exhibit entitled “George Modlin’s Segregated University of Richmond” with team members Bailey Duplessie and Madeleine Jordan-Lord. This summer, she continued working with the project remotely from her hometown of Indianapolis, Indiana–she created some 60 individual digital items for our Omeka digital collection and contributed blog posts, including several site visit posts highlighting black history in Indianapolis.

Dom’s final project was an exhibit entitled “Faculty Response to Institutional and National Change (1968-1973).” A bit about the topic in her own words:

To date, the Race & Racism at the University of Richmond project has examined several key players to the university campus: college presidents, students, and staff.  However, a major group of folks that have the power to shape the culture of the school is missing: faculty and administrative staff.  To look at their role at the University, I chose a five-year window, 1968-1973, defined by change for both the university and the nation to explore exactly how these figures fit into this project. In 1968, Martin Luther King Jr. and Robert Kennedy were assassinated, racially restrictive covenants became illegal in real estate, two Olympic athletes staged the iconic silent protest by raising their fists instead of placing their hands on their chests during a medal presentation ceremony, and Star Trek aired the country’s first televised interracial kiss.  A Virginia case, Green v. New Kent, made it all the up to the Supreme Court where the justices ruled that “freedom of choice” was not a legal response to Brown v. Board of Education as it was not a sufficient method to integrate the school system.  That same year, the University of Richmond enrolled its first residential black student, Barry Greene, on its main campus.  Barrier shattering changes filled the rest of these years as well, particularly with the rise of liberatory movements for women, black folks, and the LGBTQ community to the anti-war movements that swept the nation.

Explore Dom’s exhibit and others via the project’s digital collection at memory.richmond.edu