HIST 4425/01 (Oral History)
CRN # 11926 – Spring 2011
Instructor: Dr. Thomas A. Scott
Tuesday/Thursday 9:30 – 10:45 P.M. – SO 5074
An Oral History of Kennesaw State University
Office:
SO 4100
Office Hours:
Tu-Th 10:45-11:30, 12:30-1:45, 3:15-4:00, or by appointment. I
expect to be on campus practically every day. Drop in any time you
see the door open or, if possible, let me know ahead of time when you
would like to come by. I will respond to e-mail or phone messages as
soon as I receive them.
Phone:
FAX:
e-mail:
Website:
770-423-6254 (office); 404-421-8319 (cell)
770-423-6432
tscott@kennesaw.edu
http://ksuweb.kennesaw.edu/~tscott/
Required Book: Donald A. Ritchie, Doing Oral History: A Practical Guide, 2nd edition (New
York: Oxford University Press, 2003).
Class Project: This semester the class will help document the history of Kennesaw State
University. I would like you to transcribe one of your interviews. If we can find some
financial support, it’s possible that we might be able to send additional interviews to be
transcribed off campus. Your term papers and tapes and/or transcripts of your interviews
will be donated to the KSU Archives; transcribed oral histories may also be placed on the
KSU Archives website. While you acquire skills in the field of oral history, you will be
performing a valuable service to the university as we prepare to celebrate our 50th
anniversary in 2013.
Testing and Grading:
Quizzes over discussions &readings
4 Oral History Interviews
Rough draft & Bibliography
Term Paper
Class Participation
Presentation
25 percent total
30 percent total
10 percent
25 percent
5 percent
5 percent
Total
100 percent
Quizzes (25%) There will be a quiz each time we have a reading assignment. A typical
quiz will consist of 10 or 12 questions that can be answered in a sentence or two each.
Any time it is necessary for you to miss a class, please call or send me an e-mail, before
class if possible.
Oral History Interviews (25%) You can do your interviews individually or part of a
team of two. You or your team will do 4 interviews with 4 different individuals. Each of
you will have a specific topic on some aspect of KSU history. For example, you may
choose to do the history of a particular academic department or program or student
organization. Or you may choose to focus on a particular era, such as Kennesaw’s first
decade as a junior college. Or you may take a thematic approach, such as the history of
race relations or the changing status of women at KSU. There are lots of possibilities. I
will help you find topics and people to interview.
You will be expected to call or e-mail your potential interviewees to try to set up the time
and place for the interviews. Each oral history should be about an hour in length. Please
bring me each tape as you complete it, so that I can make a backup copy. Ideally,
all interviews will be conducted in February and March. As mentioned above, each
of you will transcribe one interview yourself. For team projects, each of you transcribe a
different interview. As interviews are transcribed by you or an independent transcriber,
you will be expected to check the transcripts for accuracy and do a light editing—
eliminating false starts and “crutch” words, checking grammar and spelling, etc. For any
un-transcribed interviews, you will be expected to produce a table of contents to aid
future researchers. We will discuss proper editing procedures in class. The breakdown
of the grade on the interviews will be the following: 1) the interviews themselves: 50
percent; 2) the transcript of the interview that you do, along with its final editing: 25
percent; 3) the editing or of other transcripts or the table of contents for un-transcribed
tapes: 25 percent.
Rough Draft and Bibliography (10%) Turn in at least five pages of your paper along
with an annotated bibliography. I will make corrections and return them to you as
quickly as possible.
Term Paper (25%) You will be expected to write a paper of about 10 to 12 pages, using
your oral histories as primary sources and also making use of the other sources you listed
in your bibliography.
Class Participation (5%) It’s important that we help each other succeed. For most of
you, this should be bonus points for attending class regularly, participating in discussions,
supporting your classmates, and, in general, acting in a collegial and professional manner.
Class Presentation (5%) We will devote the last week to a discussion of the oral
histories and term papers you have completed. Each of you will be given about ten
minutes to discuss your conclusions and what you learned from doing your interviews.
Course Description:
HIST 4425 focuses on the methods of conducting, processing, and preserving oral histories, as
well as on the planning, development, and operation of oral history projects for libraries,
museums, corporations, and public history agencies. Because the course requires field work,
students will be expected to conduct their interviews outside the normal class period.
Course Objectives:
Students who successfully complete this course will develop
The ability to conduct, transcribe, and edit oral history interviews
The ability to oversee and organize a coherent oral history project for a public history
agency, corporation, library, or university
Analytical, writing, and verbal skills acquired by discussing and writing a term paper
based on your interviews
An understanding of the ethical issues involved in conducting oral histories
A greater knowledge of the history of KSU and of higher education since World War II1
History and Oral History:
“History is not ‘what happened in the past’; rather, it is the act of selecting, analyzing, and
writing about the past. It is something that is done, that is constructed, rather than an inert body
of data that lies scattered through the archives.”
“For better or worse, historians inescapably leave an imprint as they go about their business:
asking interesting questions about apparently dull facts, seeing connections between subjects that
had not seemed related before, shifting and rearranging evidence until it assumes a coherent
pattern. The past is not history; only the raw material of it.”
James West Davidson and Mark Hamilton Lytle, After the Fact: the Art of Historical
Detection, 5th ed. (Boston: McGraw-Hill, 2005), xix, xxix.
“History is a special kind of thinking. It involves telling a story, and while facts are essential in
telling a story they are not enough. You can have a big, bad wolf, a little girl named Red Riding
Hood, an old grandmother, a basket of cakes, and a dark woods without having a story. You can
even know the date of the wolf’s birth, the color of Red Riding Hood’s hair, and the mailing
address of the grandmother as well as her Social Security number, and still not have a story.”
“Whatever its subject, the study of history is an unending detective story. Historians try to solve
mysteries in the evidence and to tell a story that will give order to the confusion of data we
inherit from the past. Historians make connections, assign causes, trace defects, make
comparisons, uncover patterns, locate dead ends, and find influences that continue through the
generations until the present.”
Richard Marius, A Short Guide to Writing About History, 3d ed. (New York: Longman,
1999), 1, 11
“Memory is the core of oral history, from which meaning can be extracted and preserved.
Simply put, oral history collects memories and personal commentaries of historical significance
through recorded interviews.”
Donald A. Ritchie, Doing Oral History: A Practical Guide, 2d ed. (Oxford and New
York: Oxford University Press, 2003), 19.
“The greatest advantage of oral over written documents is that the historian actively participates,
as interviewer, in creating the oral document, and therefore he can try to get the information he
needs. This active role for the historian can also be a great disadvantage, because if he does not
guard against his biases, he may consciously or unconsciously fabricate the document and make
it say what he wants it to say.”
James Hoopes, Oral History: An Introduction for Students (Chapel Hill: UNC Press,
1979), 12.
Daily Class Schedule:
We will have some guest speakers visit the class. Their names will be added to the daily
class schedule as their visits are confirmed.
January 11 – Introduction to course and beginning discussion of KSU history.
January 13 -- Read Ritchie, Chap. 1, “An Oral History of Our Time.”
January 18 – Read Ritchie, Chap. 2, “Setting Up an Oral History Project.” Class will
meet in LB 209 with Dr. Tamara Livingston, Director of the KSU Archives and Ms. Anne
Graham, Digital Collections Archivist. They will give us an overview of what archivists do and
what the KSU Archives hold, with particular focus on institutional records and oral histories
already conducted. They can be reached at 770-423-6289 or tlivings@kennesaw.edu and
agraha31@kennesaw.edu. The Website address is www.kennesaw.edu/archives/
January20 – Read Ritchie, Chap. 3, “Conducting Interviews.” Quiz 1
January 25 -- Please read “The View from the Bottom Rail: Oral History and the
Freedpeople,” from Davidson & Lytle, After the Fact After the Fact Chap. 8.pdf (Study Guide:
AF8.doc)
January 27 – Read Ritchie, Chap. 4, “Using Oral History in Research and Writing.”
Quiz 2
February 1 – Read Appendix 1, “Principles and Standards of the Oral History
Association.”
February 3 – Read Ritchie, Chap. 6, “Preserving Oral History in Archives and
Libraries.” Quiz 3
February 8 – Read Ritchie, Chap. 8, “Presenting Oral History.”
February 10 – Read Interview with Horace W. Sturgis (first two interviews, 13 and 20
November 1986, c. pp. 1-43)
http://ksuweb.kennesaw.edu/archives/html/Faculty_Oral_History/Sturgis.pdf Quiz 4
February 15 – Read Interview with Horace W. Sturgis (third and fourth interviews, 15
and 29 January 1987, c. pp. 43-84)
February 17 – Read Interview with Horace W. Sturgis (fifth and sixth interviews, 5 and
19 February 1987, c. pp. 84-117) Quiz 5
February 22 – Read Interview with Betty L. Siegel (first two interviews, 14 December
1992 and 24 September 1993, pp. 1-56)
http://ksuweb.kennesaw.edu/archives/html/Faculty_Oral_History/Siegel.pdf
February 24 – Read Interview with Betty L. Siegel (third and fourth interviews, 27
October 1993 and 5 February 1999, pp. 57-95) Quiz 6
March 1 – Read Interview with Betty L. Siegel (fifth interview, 19 July 2005, pp. 96122)
March 3 – Read Interview with Daniel S. Papp (three sessions, 2006)
http://ksuweb.kennesaw.edu/archives/html/Faculty_Oral_History/Papp.pdf Quiz 7
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March 8 & 10 – Spring Break
March 14 – Last Day to Withdraw without Academic Penalty
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March 15 – Read Interview with Daniel S. Papp (January 2009) ksu-Dan Papp IV
01092009-final copy unindexed.doc
March 17 – Read Interview with Larry Stevens, trustee of KSU Foundation, former
chairman
http://ksuweb.kennesaw.edu/archives/html/Faculty_Oral_History/StevensKSUFoundation.pdf
Quiz 8
March 22 – Read Interview with Steve Scherer, first recipient of Kennesaw’s
Distinguished Teaching Award, 1982
http://ksuweb.kennesaw.edu/archives/html/Faculty_Oral_History/Scherer.pdf
March 24 – Read Interview with Mary Garner, Professor of Mathematics, Distinguished
Professor Award recipient 2009
http://ksuweb.kennesaw.edu/archives/html/Faculty_Oral_History/Garner.pdf Quiz 9
March 29 – Read Interview with Craig Aronoff, first holder of Kennesaw’s Chair of
Private Enterprise http://ksuweb.kennesaw.edu/archives/html/Faculty_Oral_History/Aronoff.pdf
March 31 – Read Interview with Dana Hermanson, Professor of Accounting,
Distinguished Professor Award recipient, 2007
http://ksuweb.kennesaw.edu/archives/html/Faculty_Oral_History/Hermanson.pdf Quiz 10
April 5 – Read Interview with Pam Cole, Professor of Middle Grades English Education,
Distinguished Professor Award recipient, 2006
http://ksuweb.kennesaw.edu/archives/html/Faculty_Oral_History/Cole.pdf
April 7 – Read Interview with Nancy King, faculty member since 1971 and former VP of
Student Success and Enrollment Services
http://ksuweb.kennesaw.edu/archives/html/Faculty_Oral_History/King2.pdf Quiz 11
April 12 – No class – work on your term paper
April 14 – No class, but please submit by 9:30 AM through regular campus e-mail or
GeorgiaVIEW Vista e-mail at least five pages of your paper with footnotes in proper style at
the bottom of the page and an annotated bibliography at the end. The bibliography should
contain all works you have consulted where you cite them or not.
April 19 – No class today. Use your free time to work on your paper.
April 21 – No class today. Use your free time to work on your paper.
April 26 – Presentations – plan on talking for about 10 minutes (Power Points are
encouraged but not required). You will be expected to talk about your interviews and the major
conclusions of your term paper. If you did interviews as a team each of you should talk for about
5 minutes, focusing on your individual term papers.
April 28 – Presentations – presentations for the rest of the class
May 3 – Term paper final drafts due by 9:30. As soon as I have the papers graded, I
will notify you by GeorgiaVIEW Vista e-mail.