Public History Projects
Beck Cultural Exchange Center Collections Management Policy
For this project, I worked with the Beck Cultural Exchange Center in Knoxville, TN to develop a 15-page collections management policy for their archive devoted to preserving records related to the African American communities affected by urban renewal practices throughout the 20th century. At the time of the project, the Beck Cultural Exchange Center lacked a formal collections management policy which allowed me the chance to develop one completely from scratch. Through this project I not only created a collection, deaccessioning, loan, and preservation policy for the organization that balanced the needs of the archive with the needs of their clients, but also created the various forms that coincided with each policy.
A History of Water Pollution in Rutherford County
This paper, authored by myself and a colleague, examines the history of water pollution and public access to recreational water and greenways in Rutherford County, TN with an emphasis on the city of Murfreesboro. Through our analysis of water testing data and census maps from the past few decades, we found that while lower-income non-white household census tracts have more access to greenways with water access, the water those communities have access to is heavily polluted by runoff from the surrounding roads and nearby garbage dump. The paper also includes comparative data analyzing other cities that have dealt with issues related to waste water and the solutions they've employed in recent years.
Gore Center Strategic Plan
This project, currently a work in progress, involves the creation of a strategic plan for the Gore Center archive on Middle Tennessee State University's campus. For this plan I interviewed the head archivist, Dr. Louis Kyriakoudes, as well as various members of the staff about what general ideas and principles should guide the next 5 years of the archive.