HIS 5944 (4/16-4/23/2021)

 This week I began to compile a list of the people that we have interviewed to assure that we cover as many perspectives on the pandemic within the college as possible. When discussing the project’s parameters early on, I wanted to use the “ark” system with compiling two perspectives from each respective college or group. For example, we wanted to have a minimum of two History students or faculty perspectives to not overwhelm the project with only History majors. In addition, the project was concerned with only garnering responses from males, so it was important that we did not interview repetitive subjects. These parameters made that aspect a priority going forward as I believe that the interviews we have could be improved upon with further perspectives.

Prioritization has been a unique skill to learn through the internship both with the work I need to do and the interviews I conduct. Certain individuals may seem more important to contributing to the purposes of this project more than others. I believed that everyone has a voice to be heard in these times, yet we must remember that everyone experienced it differently or suffered in different ways. In addition, I will confess that marketing has become a focus for me lately yet the timeframe of the end of the Spring semester has slightly hindered the process. Most students or professors remain focused on the end of the semester with examinations which has given them less time to give interviews. Perhaps during the May and Summer semester, students and professors may be more open to giving interviews due to the break usually taken.

Conducting the list helped validate my contribution as our interviews grew from 2020 towards a wider range. When I was given the project, I only saw six interviews given from the contributions from Dr. Murphree’s Professionalization Class. Upon creating this Excel sheet, the project encompasses roughly fifty interviews. This achievement was a collective effort with the Library’s Special Collections and University Archives helping the process. I cannot take credit that these interviews rose due to my expertise and am grateful that, as a team, we were able to have an improvement in the quantity while maintaining the quality of these interviews.

As I reach the end of the semester with this internship, it has taught me much about Oral History and conducting interviews. In some part, I feel more confident in giving oral histories about events that remain fresh in the interviewees’ minds. Knowing what questions to ask or reading the room only comes from experience instead of the typical book experience. How to market yourself and the project to others who could provide a unique perspective on an event is important and a worthwhile skill to learn.

I would like to thank Mary Rubin, Dr. Scot French, and everyone involved in the COVID-19 project that has helped me understand more about the effects of the pandemic on UCF. I believe that future researchers will be interested in getting a social history of the effects within Orlando.

HIS 5944 (04/03-04/09/2021)

 

The week consisted of continued captioning and further marketing for the internship. The project has been running smoothly with my transition as the lead of it. I am glad to say that this week was more reflective of how far this project had come in comparison to back in January or even in the Fall of 2020. The month of April always seems to be a busy time due to the closure of the semester, but I am happy to say that the project has not slowed down nor suffered due to the timing. So far, the project has a plethora of interviews online or in the process of being published that will set out to expand upon the perspective of COVID-19 on UCF’s constituents.

One aspect of this project that surprises me includes the aspect of reproaching those interviewed to have a follow up after a year. Reading that within the instructions Mary gave me made me think on how collective memory shifts between the time you experience an event and what you remember. Details or subtle things may seem more pronounced when given a fast discussion of it in comparison to after a year. For example, I recall in a class a professor remarked on how a holocaust survivor wrote extensively about the concentration in Warsaw about the three chimneys always smoking before the brief attempt at breaking free. The professor stated that, by historians’ accounts, there was no chimneys nor smoke during the time. We often think about things in the moment and so reading the instructions to take these interviews again makes me wonder what will be different.

In Alfred W. Crosby’s America’s Forgotten Pandemic, the historian writes extensively on the pandemic that occurs roughly a hundred years before. Comparisons aside, the 1918 Spanish Flu collectively is whisked away according to Crosby. Crosby studies a vast amount of area such as cities, military bases, outposts internationally where Americans were stationed due to the war. These perspectives quickly did not remark on it even if the sickness killed more than the war did.

Crosby asks the question how does this happen? How do historians notice this lapse of memory within the collective public on an incident remarkable?

Crosby speculates that the impact of it was overshadowed by the perception of the war or the nature of the flu being so fast. In comparing this to the COVID-19 pandemic, do we have that same luxury?

These interviews have shown me that the pandemic has severely hampered academic or private life from students to faculty. Students experienced blockages in their academic routines, inability to see friends, and having to respect safe guidelines to stop the virus. We live in a society that has a vast amount of communication and ability to attend class from home. However, that does not mean that the virus lacks any depth to it regarding severity. The internship has taught me how collective memory works and how people remember their experiences during a pandemic. In a few months, after this internship, I’d like to know how people remembered it in comparison to their first interview. Differences could provide me more knowledge on a subject and a second chance for the interviewee to share their perspective.

Even after a year of the virus, the participants in this project certainly continue to feel the struggles of living within a post-pandemic world.

HIS 5944 (03/27-04/02/2021)

 

This week continued with the administration process with me catching up. The metadata sheets continue to be an interesting reminder of the interviews that I have given. As I participate in this project, the number of interviews that I have given has only increased that I may forget the details so these data sheets are useful in that regard. Next week should see me doing captioning which I further describe later within this post. For now, the administration process has concluded.

Regarding marketing, I have reached out and received some feedback from some of the people of interest. I was disappointed to hear that one professor from the Computer Science department declined to speak to me due to their busy schedule. While their perspective would have made it interesting, there was no way of convincing them nor any reason to push further. Perhaps a follow up question to see if they are still interesting would be acceptable. Other professors have not given me a response, but I suppose this is merely a skill to hone regarding communication and email ethics.

One of the interviews given was from a professor I greatly respect, Daniel Murphree, a professor at the UCF History Department. Contrasting with Gerber, Dr. Murphree was far more interesting on the professional side. The interview covered much of the professor’s dealings with classes and handling students in different ways. This may be due to Murphree’s smaller class sizes instead of Gerber. Murphree brought up a rather interesting suspicion that some students may take advantage of the COVID situation and may get away with certain things. The interview provided another perspective of a professor dealing with the pandemic and it’s effects on students.

In some ways, the pandemic has fostered some cynical perspectives throughout the year as students have begun to show some distrusting of those without masks. There is no way of each professor verifying if a student is overexaggerating their sickness to be more sympathetic which could be a possibility. Although, faculty and students continue to have some optimism with their continued adherence to safety guidelines placed into the university.

Due to the substantial amount of interview given, parts of the project have halted with me attempting to aid in streamlining the process. Captioning is one of these stages for the oral history as it allows for people to follow along the transcriptions and understand what the interviewee is saying. This can be helpful in case they have a particular accent or somethings may be hard to hear. I watched an instructional video given to us by the Special Collection and University Archives which use a program to caption the interviews. The process is slightly tedious as you must make sure that the captions are correct and within frame. Sometimes a student may be talking fast so the caption may not be there, and you have to be sure that it does not linger either. The process is grueling, so it has taken up a substantial amount of time for me to complete. However, this is a new skill of transcription and video editing which I have only been slightly familiar too. I am grateful to have this opportunity within the project and internship.

HIS 5944 (3/20-3/26/2021)

 

This week saw the continued routine of administrative backend work to bring up to speed the interviews conducted. I noticed that my interviews schedule was not being processed due to the number of interviews I conducted. Six interviews that were conducted lacked being placed in the process to be properly transcribed or reviewed. Rushing through the project will leave other portions behind as if I focus solely on marketing, the review process slightly slows down. This week I processed some of these interviews to be transcribed yet needed a metadata sheet for the final process. These interviews included the political affiliated UCF students or organizations which were very vital in importance.

This led me to something I dealt with which was prioritization that this interview helped teach me. How does a historian prioritize certain sources or pieces of information above others? I find it hard to dismiss others’ perspectives of the COVID-19 pandemic that repeat themselves yet someone else may find it extremely easy to do so. One of the interviews I conducted this week reiterated that same sentiment, asking if they gave me something useful. I informed the interviewee that it did not matter if they gave me a piece of new information. A historian cannot establish a commonality if there was only one perspective. It is true that some perspectives will be more valuable as Matthew Gerber’s position as a teacher would be helpful, yet not one interview should triumphantly dissuade the collection of information. Prioritization to know who to interview and to pull either a common trend or a unique aspect is extremely useful in the field of history and oral history.

In addition, I require some comments on the internship from home experience. Mondays and Fridays are the days I actively work on the internship and properly provide for the COVID-19 project. Wednesdays are days typically reserved to go in person to the UCF Library in order to aid in whatever Mary Rubin requires of me. That could be processing a collection or helping move some materials to new areas for storage.

Interning from home is difficult in the same way that classes being online with their lack of transparency and ease of distractions. Distractions are abound throughout the process as having my computer here and being at home makes me less focused. I can confess sometimes taking a small break to watch a short YouTube video has occurred. However, it can be very helpful as I feel more productive at home than being stressed in a new place. The internship has taught me this mixed modality of working from home as well as easing me back into proper life.

Subtle details often become overlooked as we continue through the seemingly end of the pandemic with the vaccine. I am sure most people will want to tell their stories about the quarantine or the pandemic’s effects on them. Most students that have spoken to me have really gave interest to wanting to study the pandemic’s long-term effects. Nobody truly knows the impact of the virus as we continue to piece together the events occurring, yet I can guarantee that each perspective will matter when historians begin looking into the topic.

HIS 5944 (3/13-3/19/2021)

 

This week saw less interviews than before as we have slightly slowed down in marketing to catch up on the administrative front end. The project exhibits an ebb and flow between processing interviews and conducting them. I interviewed two people with one of them being a professor within an unique department within the University of Central Florida. Prior to my contact, my extent into the University’s wide range of departments was limited to the History Department. Contacting professors in the History Department felt more comfortable to approach as someone that belonged in the department. However, to continue with the integrity of the COVID-19 project, I pitched the idea of collecting perspectives from the vast other departments within UCF. I coined it as the “Noah’s Ark” approach or “arking” it, simply meaning gathering two perspectives, at minimum, to preserve. I confess that this process is slower than simply randomly pulling people, yet it does provide for different perspectives on the effects of COVID.

For example, the Department of History does not rely on being present within a laboratory to conduct experimentations or work that the Department of Engineering may rely on. Our work always can be done at home with a computer, typing our research out, yet we also lean on having primary or secondary sources that the library generously provides. Shutting down the library will not see an effect on the Computer Science Department as it does with the History Department. These perspectives matter in the grand scheme with how people’s attitudes are with the pandemic even drawing aside the differences between students and teachers.

On Monday, I had the pleasure of interviewing the Computer Science Department’s Matthew Gerber who was very pleasing to listen about his reaction to the pandemic. As a teacher, Gerber experienced challenges of switching modality and providing for the education without the advantage of being used to a physical methodology of teaching. Throughout my academic endeavors, it is often difficult to separate the person from the professor as a student. The students only see the professor as a pseudo-boss as someone who gives lectures and grades papers or assignments with a lacking care. However, Gerber’s interview represents a reminder that the professor is a human being with their own troubles within their life. I was happy to hear that his own students cared for him as much as he cared for them and their education.

Gerber’s interview brought up a few questions and future endeavors that I may seem to be interested in. We discussed if there was a difference with education going from a regular society to a pandemic world and such. However, what really was pivotal with this interview was his contacts and suggestions for the project. He named a few professors and some CPEL that would also have a unique perspective of the effects of COVID-19.

I am happy to say that this internship has helped me identify with professors and empathize with them at a different level than as a graduate or undergraduate student. The pandemic has reminded us that deep down we are all human beings attempting to get through the day. I hope that this project can capture that perspective which reveals the more human part that sometimes is difficult to ascertain.

HIS 5944 (3/6-3/12/2021)

 

This week surrounded the continued efforts of marketing towards the Student Government and political centered organizations. The marketing aspect of the project has an endless potential of gathering perspectives that I continue to explore. Student Government and the political organizations on campus sometimes are overlooked due to their seemingly difficult entry to email yet I experienced the opposite of that preconceived notion. The Student Government officers, and officers of these UCF sanctioned clubs were rapid in their response and enthusiasm to contribute to the project. I am thankful that the students and officials in these institutions participated in the project, allowing for a perspective of COVID-19 beyond the average student.

Outside of those aspects of marketing, the professor I was slated to be interviewing needed to reschedule which was slightly disappointing. However, I understand that we are in the mid-spring semester where examinations are still occurring and preparation for spring break is coming up. In the future, I would like more than just this professor and one from the History Department. A marketing team would be a perfect fit for this project if we had an unlimited amount of manpower to garner more attention. Mary informed me on Monday that we would be holding off on the social media post due to the massive influx of interviews this week. Hopefully, we continue to see that trend exhibited by UCF students and faculty.

Last week saw me email the College Democrats and College Republicans for an interview as they were the main popular political RSO (official) UCF clubs on campus. The involvement of these two clubs allows for a researcher or viewer to understand the political side of COVID-19 and the University of Central Florida. Were students active or passive during the quarantine or where they actively campaigning? Questions like that were the initial ones to come to mind along with the 2020 presidential election amidst a pandemic.

However, I was very worried about skewing the project and muddying the intent. Historians often deal with the problem of attempting to be indifferent or seemingly apolitical. However, I have learned most historians mask their political perspectives as best as they can. Obviously, Marxist historians present their political affiliation easier than other historians. For me, I tried to remain impartial to both sides and make sure that the College Dems and College Republicans were given the same questions and emailing both. Only the College Democrats have schedule and given interviews for me to use while the College Republicans have not given me anything. Much like last week, should historians remain politically active within their sphere? It is a difficult debate that seems to be up to the historian themself. Either way, I cannot deny that the political aspect of the pandemic remains absolutely vital in policies enacted by the universities. It is almost inescapable to converse or discuss policies without identifying the political lens. 

The College Democrats' interview helped me reaffirm my confidence in facilitating the discussion of politics with their Vice President and President. They were very professional in making sure that it did not dive too much into the political area and I, sometimes, interjected to keep them within the parameters of the project. However, I discovered a vast amount of information from these interviews. Aspects of students campaigning, making sure that people were following UCF guidelines, and a plethora of information that solidified the potential of these interviews.

This week taught me about the care of handling a controversial topic such as politics within archival and historical work. Politics can be a divisive topic to anyone that may alienate your audience or peers. However, this archival internship has helped me gain more experience in dealing with these subjects and utilize this to further enhance the potential of the project. These perspectives will be very beneficial for those looking back on UCF students’ response to the pandemic within the pandemic.

HIS 5944 (2/27-3/5/2021)

The publication of the interviews given is now available for public viewing which has properly motivated me to continue this project. I am very proud with how they were and, after viewing a few, I decided to incorporate feedback from it into future interviews. I will be posting a link to the STARS link on UCF for any interested to view. To continue the privacy of this blog, Mary Rubin’s interview of me will be the one I link for those interested.

Scott Galloway STARS Interview: https://stars.library.ucf.edu/covid19-memory/3/ 

Marketing Mondays have been working well yet Mary and I realized that the slow stream of interviews may be concerning. Mary noted that she would be working on having a social media post for the project to continue gathering interview participants. I thought that was best for now while I persisted with the professors I emailed. One of them had immediately expressed interest within the Computer Science Department which I am very honored to interview. This will allow the project to further broaden the parameters of our interviewees. A method I came up with last semester was the “ark” method inspired by Noah’s Ark. Two interviewees from a department that will allow the project to properly give representation to UCF’s population. A future endeavor would be considering the majors and departments that the project covers for a proper analysis on representation.

 This week regarding marketing saw me reaching out for participants in RSO’s and Student Government within the university. I successfully reached out to the Student Government President during their tenure between 2020 to 2021 as well as the speaker of the Student Government’s legislative branch. There was one concern that I had thought about which was the RSO’s I have reached out to are rather political in nature. This raises an issue with how they may perceive the interview and if they may alter the course of it. I shared the concern with Mary and was given some advice for interviewing them.

With the “ark” method, we will only be interviewing two of them from the organizations as well as steer the conversation towards the talk about COVID-19 rather than about a political message. It can be quite difficult as COVID-19 seems to already spark talks about politics and policies regarding how the United States and UCF handled the pandemic. However, I am confident that these interviews will show the activism of students attempting to inspire changes within a global pandemic. There seems to always be the risk of the interviewee expressing desire to discuss something that is not in line with the true purpose of the project.

However, this experience will help me become a better interviewer and teach me communication skills to properly realign the conversation. This internship has certainly improved my email and communication skills to properly convey the purpose of the project and advertise for it. While historians or history students usually write for their audiences of like-minded individuals, the true skill of a historian is appealing to the reader and hooking them to either understand or seek further knowledge of a subject. In a way, this is similar with making sure the interviewee continues to understand the purposes of this project.