UNI students dive deep into 150-year history through podcast project
UNI students dive deep into 150-year history through podcast project
Even the proudest Panthers may not be familiar with all of the rich 150-year history of the university they call home. Throughout the spring semester, one group of 28 students worked on a research project about the history of UNI. By the semester’s end, they shared their findings in the form of a podcast, broadcasting their lessons to the masses.
“The goal is to highlight from a student's perspective the interesting aspects of UNI history that might be a little bit less known but are still worth having people know about,” said Brian Rumsey, assistant adjunct professor of history. “The bigger goal is to help the students turn their research skills into something that actually has a broader interest, particularly connecting to the UNI community.”
“It's cool to learn the history of places where you spend a lot of your time,” said Laura Comstock who took the class as a senior. “I thought it would be a cool thing to dive into and learn more for my project and my classmates’ projects and gain a better understanding of where the school came from.”
Comstock, an environmental science major, chose a topic she knew she would be especially passionate about: looking into UNI’s impact on prairie restoration and prairie reconstruction, especially through the Tallgrass Prairie Center. Through her research, she discovered more than a century of work relating to prairie conservation. She discovered Alison Aitchison, an instructor from around 1915 who taught prairie conservation classes to future teachers working in areas where preservation was critical. But the impact didn’t stop there. It continued with the creation of the center to conserve prairie across the state.
“I’ve learned so much about the Tallgrass Prairie Center’s work starting in the 60s and 70s and how it has worked and reached out to different counties in Iowa to help with their prairie restoration,” she said. “They've just done a lot. I knew about the Tallgrass Prairie Center, but I didn't realize how far their reach was, which was really interesting.”
In the process of learning how UNI has helped conserve prairie in the state, Comstock learned just how much prairie Iowa used to have and how little remains. This ties perfectly to the work she hopes to do in the future, helping companies minimize their environmental impact.
George Kimmich, a history major, went a different route.
“I was talking with my aunt one day about campus protests,” he said. “I thought it would be interesting if I did something on Vietnam War protests. There were a decent amount on campus. If you look at the IndexUNI (an online resource for university publications), even just in the student newspaper, there's like 500 articles or so about Vietnam, because it was such a big thing on college campuses.”
Kimmich’s research led him to Dennis Ryerson, a student during the Vietnam War who voiced the desire for UNI to participate in protests in an article penned for the College Eye.
“Three days later, there were a bunch of people getting together in the Union coffee shop to discuss this,” Kimmich explained. “And then you have professors saying ‘if this is such an important topic, it shouldn't just be regulated to a coffee shop. We should have people discuss this in class.’ And then people would say, ‘Well, we should use class time properly.’ There was all this back and forth about, essentially, freedom of speech.”
Rumsey instructed students to use the history department’s new podcast studio or their own devices to record a podcast focused on their research project. Some students like Comstock and Kimmich provided a narrative of their findings, while others did interviews or group conversations. Completed episodes are typically 10 to 20 minutes in length.
Kimmich found the podcast assignment very applicable to his future goals, as he hopes to work in public history either through a museum or library. This assignment helped him learn how to create a historic narrative that brings the past to life and draws an audience in.
Rumsey was impressed with the wide breadth of topics his students came up with. Several talked about various protest movements. One researched the history of sororities on campus. Another looked into Annie Turner Wittenmeyer, who was involved in founding the orphanage that became the Iowa State Normal School. Another found a UNI connection to an American presidential scandal during the Warren Harding administration.
In looking at his students’ findings, Rumsey himself learned even more about the institution he’s worked at for seven years.
“I’ve been humbled by the project,” he said.
Although Rumsey had previously taught the History of Iowa class, this was his first time making the focus of the class the history of UNI. It’s one of several engaged learning opportunities across campus for students to be involved with the sesquicentennial celebration. Kimmich was involved with the previous semester’s architectural walking tours on campus.
“In the history department, we were aware pretty early on there was going to be the sesquicentennial celebration, and so in conversations with my department head, Professor McNabb, we recognized we'd like to do something to tie this class into that celebration.” Rumsey explained. “We felt like this was really a class that offered a great opportunity to highlight the history of UNI.”
The timing also appropriately matched up with the Department of History getting its own podcast studio, allowing the students their very own spot to record.
“It felt like a great way to do something that could be a little bit more public-facing than just a research project, creating an artifact and output that could be shared with the UNI community.”
The finished podcasts are available on UNI ScholarWorks for more listeners to find. Episodes also premiered on Radio UNI beginning in May.
“I have enough of an appreciation and understanding of public history to say that one of the things that's important for a lot of historians is to be able to share our work in ways that go beyond a small subset of academic colleagues,” he said.
