The other day I was talking with a good friend. She said that she enjoyed reading my DreamersAndGiants blog. (That’s great to hear!) When I asked her if she also enjoyed the website, she looked a bit puzzled. Website? What website?!?
This week marks the two year mark of my retirement, and so I thought it would be a good time to take a look at DreamersAndGiants….the progress that has been made and the pathway to the future.
Early Inspirations: Lists
At the very beginning of the project, I really just wanted a place to put lists of things. Things that I had to keep looking up over and over again…..Who WERE all of the presidents of the college over the years? What year was the Annie Merner Pfeiffer Library built?
Lists take some time to compile. And they tend to lead to more lists to compile.
- List of all of the faculty throughout the years — which leads to wondering what they taught, which ones were alumni of the college, who served on what committees……another list!
- List of all of the trustees throughout the years — what committees did they serve on, who were the officers, what were the major issues during their times of service?
- List of winners of various awards — or spring sing — or homecoming queens…..
At first, DreamersAndGiants was just something I did to help satisfy my own curiosity. When retirement became an option, that just gave me even more time to find out things. One of the first things I had to find out was how to create a website. Luckily, my years of librarian training came in handy as I began to put together something that helped me collect-organize-preserve the information as I found it. Soon, though, it became clear that others were interested in knowing some of these things as well. So, I added a blog as a supplement to my website to highlight stories, people or information and to look at very familiar things with an eye to the back stories. They are published each Monday morning. The full list can be found here.
Taking Another Look
Being an amateur creator of websites, I wasn’t sure that it was sustainable. I called upon Jon Benjamin (who teaches website design among other things) and asked him if he would critique my website. He did, made a few suggestions, and then completely turned my perspective around. He told me that what I had was not a website with an added blog. It was a blog with an added website. What????
And, he was exactly right.
What had started out as a place to store lists became an endless source of material for telling the stories of the people and events of WVWC.
The Chinese concept of yin and yang is all about how things that may look very different may actually be complementary, interconnected, and interdependent on each other. Just like the website and the blog — or the blog and the website.
The information about the people and events had stories that needed told.
The stories needed information about the people and events.
Chronologies
Chronos (time) and Logikos (reason or order) — putting things into order by time.
This is a way that I have begun organizing WVWC History for courses that I teach on the topic. It is a way of thinking about things in terms of before and after. Here is one example. It is a combination list and chronology which I find myself consulting over and over again. One of the first was the Chronology of Buildings.
So which did come first? President McCuskey or President Wark? Click here to find out!
Spring Sing Winners Through the Years is one that took a lot more work to complete than you might imagine. It required digging through Murmurmontis yearbooks (which no longer exist) and newspapers and Sundials. More recent ones even included digging through Facebook and college press releases. No matter how excited people get about these winners at the time of the event, it seems that by the next week/month/year it is hard to remember for sure.
New chronologies are being developed in the background that haven’t yet been posted to DreamersAndGiants (the website). Here are a couple of examples. They are in the very early stages, so consider these a sample of coming attractions.
This Day in Wesleyan History (which was largely developed through the work of my class in June term of this year. It is likely to grow quickly in the next few months. When it is robust enough, I will post it to the website).
Alumni Adventures is one of the newest being developed. The alumni magazines throughout all of the years have included information about the things people did after their days at WVWC. This one is in the experimental stage – and only includes entries from a small number of issues, but is one that could really help to tell the story of the impact of our alumni on the world.
These types of documents are being considered for a vast number of areas of the WVWC story…..each department, each sport, each organization, speakers and concerts and plays and…….
Ironically, all that is stopping all of them from being done is TIME!!
Honoring Our Community – Building Our Community
In the past several months, our campus community has lost two people who were very much considered Giants. People who worked hard, cared deeply, and had what seemed to us to be extraordinary energy. Dr. Rob Hull and Dr. Allison Hull (no relation as far as I am aware) both died very suddenly. People that we thought would be here for many years were suddenly just gone.
This entire project of DreamersAndGiants is meant for just such loss. It is a place and a way to remember all that they did for their students and for the college. Sometimes I am asked why I run the words together in this way. Two reasons, really. First, because that is how the url is formed. More importantly, it is very difficult to find a Dreamer who is not also a Giant, and vice versa.
Moving Forward….One Baby Step At A Time
There is a lot to collect – organize – preserve – and share.
It sometimes seems a bit overwhelming, but I have some secret resources. Student interns and volunteers are stepping up to help discover more about the history of their school. There are some alumni and campus colleagues who are also pitching in. Working together, we can make a lot of progress!
We can build our community while discovering and sharing our history.
If you are reading this, you have already discovered the Blog. Be sure to check out the website as well. It is always under development, and always developing. One baby step at a time.