Kamara White, Staff Writer
Sponsored by the O’Grady Library
Students in Professor Zemel’s spring semester COM300 class recently collaborated with the O’Grady Library team on a special project that will be uploaded to the StoryCorps cloud and processed into the SMU archives.
StoryCorps is an online archiving platform, open to the public, where information from all kinds of people is uploaded to make it accessible for learning purposes.
As stated on the Story Corps website: “StoryCorps is committed to the idea that everyone has an important story to tell and that everyone’s story matters. Our mission: to help us believe in each other by illuminating the humanity and possibility in us all — one story at a time. Since our founding […] we’ve helped nearly 700,000 people across the country have meaningful conversations about their lives. These recordings are collected […] and in our online archive which is now the largest single collection of human voices ever gathered.”
SMU students Elizabeth Sees, Tanner Deck, and Theresa Nyantakanya met and interviewed over twelve alumni of Saint Martin’s University, some of whom attended when it was still an all-men’s institution and saw the Marcus Pavilion being built in real-time. This student-led project aimed to capture the alumni’s transitions coming to the University as first years and leaving the SMU as graduates, starting their careers. The goal of this project was to capture priceless SMU oral history and uncover information about SMU that many have come to cherish in their lifetimes.
The student teams’ roles in the process of bringing the alumni onto campus grounds and recording the actual interviews were split amongst the student volunteers. Roles were assigned based on each participant’s strengths. “I did the organizational part of it. I made […] the scheduling, layout, the template for scheduling, along with […] a spreadsheet with all the contact information on it […] mostly important digital things,” Sees said.
Tanner Deck did most of the communication to help build off of Elizabeth’s organizational preparation. “I reached out to almost everyone on that alumni list, scheduled them, and prepared them for what we’re going to be focusing on, and making sure to answer any questions they had,” Deck said.
Theresa was assigned the role of interviewer given her natural ability to come up with quality questions on the spot along with the aid of Professor Zemel helping with the recording setup and overseeing audio quality.
Professor Zemel, Elizabeth, Tanner, and Theresa did a test run interview with the Assistant Director of Transfer Admissions, Caitlin Gordon, to sift out all obstacles with the technical side of the process. “We couldn’t get the logic audio program that we were using […] to work right. It wasn’t doing soundwaves [like we wanted], but we did figure it out. I think it was just a user error,” Sees said.
Because of the many positive outcomes of a project like this, the student team felt it was a worthwhile experience to take a chance on. “You expose yourself to meeting different people and experience teamwork in a real work environment, along with having a good project to add to a resume or portfolio,” Nyantakanya said. “This is a great networking opportunity and you get to hear alumni stories you may have never heard about the school otherwise,” Decker added.
One of the alumni, class of 2011, Michael Grosso shared insightful experiences of his time at SMU. “When I came here, my thought of the campus initially was this seems really small. And so I initially realized I could have an impact on a place like St. Martin’s. But what really sold me […] was during the overnight visit because the concentration was on getting to know the students on going to a basketball game and really immersing yourself in the culture here,” Grosso said.
Grosso went on to mention how he was a part of the Sigma Mu Kappa fraternity at the time.
“ I was a part of Sigma Mu Kappa, which is a fraternity that’s no longer recognized at the institution and I was the president of that in my last year. We did lots of volunteering, lots of work with campus ministry, which was a ton of fun,” Grosso said.
The O’Grady Library archivist, Ryan Peterman, has also played a pivotal role in the success of this project, by processing all the audio files and archiving them for preservation. The invaluable history mentioned in the interviews will stay in the SMU archives for a long while once the process is done.
The SMU Story Corps page is not complete yet, but all are encouraged to visit the Story Corps page here: https://storycorps.org/
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