mac2025minneapolis

Over the past two years, colleges and universities across the country have experienced waves of campus protests in response to the Israeli/Palestinian conflict and votes of no-confidence against administrators because of their challenges to free-speech, faculty governance, and DEIJ initiatives. Led by a board member from Project STAND, this moderated discussion will share approaches and lessons learned from five institutional archives (two private; three public). You will reflect on the decision-making processes within their archives during these events, including  following guidance from crisis-collecting best practices such as Project STAND and Documenting the NOW, the mechanics of soliciting and collecting contributions to physical and digital documentation initiatives, and strategies for incorporating perspectives and experiences that people might be reluctant to share directly due to fear of repercussions or distrust of parent institutions and their administrators. Additionally, they will discuss issues of ethics, anonymity, and access in balancing immediate, interim, and long-term collecting efforts.

To explore these issues, presenters will share unique campus-specific responses such as holding a writing workshop at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, offering fully anonymous submissions from protestors at Indiana University, working with a sociology research methods course documenting protest at Connecticut College, connecting collecting efforts with the congressional testimony by Northwestern University’s president, and looking at a full range of collecting options from the immediate to the long-term at the University of Minnesota. Common themes will include the implications of public vs. private institutional status, considerations about balancing documenting provenance while maintaining donor privacy, and the benefits of using student archives employees in this work. Ample time will be allocated for audience discussion.