COVID 19 exhibit

Back in March, as life across the world and at IWU’s campus changed dramatically, I sent out an open call to the IWU community, inviting reflections on their lives in this pandemic era.

covid exhibit page

An exhibit with contributions from 15 students is now available. I  also added content from IWU’s webpages and made a personal contribution to the exhibit as a way of breaking the ice.

Students were given an option to answer as many of a set of pre-determined questions (see below) as they wanted to. They were also given the option of remaining anonymous online with the understanding that their identity would be associated with their remarks in the archives’ offline files.

Additions to this collection are welcome, and anyone who wants to keep their reflections offline may still participate. Participants may use the questions below if they’d like some ideas on how to start, but truly any way that people are comfortable expressing themselves for sharing their experiences is fine. Visit the project description for details or contact me (mminer@iwu.edu) if you have questions.

[Questions on student submission form]

Name (indicate if anonymity online is desired)
Class year
Major(s)/Minors(s)
Where are you living during the Pandemic of 2020?
How did you feel when you were informed the remainder of the semester would be held online?
What has been your experience with moving classes online?
If applicable, tell us a little about your thoughts and reactions to moving off campus or out of town.
How are you staying connected to your friends and wider community, through IWU or elsewhere?
How has the virus or the precautions taken to prevent it spreading impacted your daily life?
What is giving you hope and/or strength right now?
Is there anything else you’d like to tell us about what you’re feeling or experiencing right now?
Share a photo of yourself, or any photos, videos, or audio recordings you’d like to add to this historical record!

“How’s Crops, Dean?”

Film research project homepage

That’s the title for a Paramount Newsreel film describing IWU’s unique tuition exchange program that helped keep students enrolled during the Great Depression. In 2018 I submitted that work to a call for proposals to SourceLab, a digital humanities project at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign planning an Illinois Centennial Edition.

As part of their History 207: Publishing the Past course students reviewed all submissions and chose which projects to work on. One group chose the film of our tuition program and I met with students Virginia Campbell, Ryan Yoakum, and McKenzie Boes-Waddell online, and Virginia and Ryan made trips to our archives over the spring and summer of 2018. SourceLab published the work online as Vol. 1, No. 4 (2019). This link leads to a page with a complete description for the work.

This link leads to all issues published as part of volume 1.