Thanks to the generous support of the Great Lakes Colleges Association and the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, we’re able to offer micro-grants to faculty from GLCA schools and beyond. While members of the OHLA Collective come from a variety of disciplines and our theoretical interests vary widely, we all share one guiding principle:
We believe that oral history methodology and digital storytelling are appropriate methodologies for curricular-driven community engagement in small liberal arts colleges.
In other words, we’re figuring out how to teach and learn by getting our students out of the classroom and into the community using an integrated toolkit drawn from interview methodology and the digital humanities.
Honoraria for Faculty Authorship
OHLA recognizes that faculty, digital librarians, and technologists are currently engaged in meaningful oral history and digital storytelling projects in the liberal arts environment.
Authorship honoraria are reserved for contributing scholars who write case studies or substantial thematic chapters/white papers. Authors are not required to be affiliated with a GLCA institution. Authors will have an ongoing or recently completed project that employs oral history, digital storytelling, and community engagement. (Participating authors may curate their projects in the OHLA project repository if desired.)
OHLA Case Studies
Microgrant: $500 per case study
Eligibility: Must demonstrate alignment with best practices and a substantial pedagogical or methodological handle on oral history, digital storytelling, and/or community-based learning strategies that get students engaged with community partners or thematic trends that stem from curriculum.
Timeline: Recruited. OHLA expects to fund 16 case studies each year of the three-year grant.
Case Study Categories:
ON PEDAGOGY & CURRICULAR INNOVATION: Short-form essays exploring critical resources for pedagogies useful in community-based learning that uses oral history and digital storytelling, offering analyses of the advantages and disadvantages of these resources. Case study essays will be foundational pedagogical discussions of oral history methodologies, documenting digital tools for oral history and detailing ways digital tools for oral history was used in the classroom or in the field, and strategies for teaching oral history methodologies to undergraduate researchers. (Funding 8 annually.)
ON EXEMPLARY COLLABORATION: Short-form essays exploring networks of support structures and/or community partnerships at a particular institution, exploring in detail how that partnership came to be, what technological and staff supports made the collaboration possible, and what the partnership was able to accomplish. These case studies emphasize the benefit the exemplary collaboration brought to student experience, or the contribution the college was able to make to a community.
OHLA White Papers
Microgrant: $1000 per white paper
Eligibility: White paper authors will be singularly qualified to speak on a major aspect of community-based learning that integrates, and is driven by, oral history and digital storytelling in the liberal arts environment.
Timeline: Recruited. OHLA expects to fund 12 white papers over the course of the three-year grant.