Oral Histories as a Transformative Educational Practice

• In Event: AERA Roundtable Session Thursday 8:00 a.m. Four Seasons Ballroom 2-3
  In Roundtable Session: Open Educational Resources for Teaching History of Higher Education (Table 10)

Abstract

Purpose
With descriptors such as “The Unraveling” and “Academic Armageddon,” the late 1960’s is largely portrayed as a period of radical change and chaos for American higher education (Geiger, 2019). This narrative is reinforced by images from the period of social and political protests on campuses nationwide. This tumultuous period can also be difficult for faculty to fully address given its alignment with more recent socio-political campus movements, including Black Lives Matter protests and the pro-Palestinian encampments—events that have resulted in congressional testimonies and the resignation of university presidents. This OER utilizes oral histories from 1970-71 to provide a more nuanced understanding of how this period of radical change shaped the climate of one southern university.

Perspectives
Oral histories offer a high-impact instructional resource to engage students in discourse about difficult, divisive, and politically charged topics. They also make space for alternative narratives to the mainstream historical record, centering voices of the marginalized and pushing students to reframe how they view major historical events, movements, or periods. This OER is framed by critical counter-narrative as a transformative praxis in the teaching of higher education history. Counter-narrative is an instructional and methodological approach informed by critical pedagogy that encompasses critical storytelling, counterstories, and counter-narratives (Miller, Liu, & Ball, 2020). Counter-narrative provides us with the opportunity to critically analyze “…the social reality of the education system and society by narrating authentic, lived experiences” (Delgado & Stefancic, 1992). This OER demonstrates how oral histories can be used to authentically connect students to these alternative narratives and serves as an example with cross-disciplinary applicability.

Methods and Source Material
The OER uses a set of oral history records related to the Black Thursday event at the University of Florida. Interviews from two Black students—one involved in the Black Thursday takeover and one who intentionally avoided involvement in campus activism—present two contrasting, yet compelling narratives of Black student life at a large, southern, flagship university from 1970-1971. These contrasting viewpoints present a powerful, nuanced, and personalized discussion of student activism pressures, influences of militarized movements captured in public media at the time, and lived experiences of Black students attending a southern PWI during the first wave of desegregation. Additional newspaper articles and other primary and secondary source materials are used in tandem with the student interviews to provide students with larger historical and social context for the period.

Results and Significance
Revisioning how we approach and engage students in discourse around divisive topics is of growing importance. Oral histories offer a valuable instructional resource for faculty navigating an increasingly polarized landscape, making space to introduce topics and lead discussion based upon first-hand accounts that organically engage multiple perspectives. As more states take steps to limit academic freedom, squashing movements to advance diversity, faculty-led efforts to explore difficult topics and incorporate counter-narratives have been effectively chilled. Oral histories offer a creative remedy to incorporate multiple perspectives with resonance for the present context.

Author

• Lindsay Byron, University of Florida