By THERESA THINNES
Humanities major Brooke Bryan didn’t expect to miss her graduation from Antioch McGregor on June 28.
Instead of attending graduation, Bryan will participate in her first academic conference in Washington, D.C.
Bryan moved to Yellow Springs to attend Antioch College in 1999. She took time out to start her family before returning to school in 2007.
At Antioch McGregor, Bryan was active on the student newspaper, the McGregor Voice, and served as editor through 2008.
Bryan is completing the World Classics program, chaired by Jim Malarkey, PhD.
As part of an independent study with former Antioch College Professor Dennie Eagleson and Don Wallis of Nonstop, Bryan developed a community documentation project entitled “Why Here/ Why Now.”
Bryan’s documentation project provided an opportunity to explore mulitple medias. She describes the documentation process as “applied anthropology.”
For her project, Bryan photographed the community of Yellow Springs and combined the images with audio from interviews with Yellow Springs families.
Bryan submitted a proposal to THAT Camp, the Humanities and Technology Camp, of George Mason University Center for History and New Media. Her proposal centered around utilizing the visualization tool, wordle, to “harvest” meaning from spoken word interviews, Bryan explained.
This technique is incorporated into Bryan’s “Why Here/Why Now” documentation project.
While Bryan will miss graduation, she said she is “super excited” to be a participant in an academic conference. And, already she knows it will not be her last.
Bryan also submitted a proposal to the Oral History Association’s Annual Convention. Last week, Bryan was notified that her proposal, “Digital Oral History: Changing Tools, Changing Tides,” was accepted for presentation at this year’s conference, “Moving Beyond the Interview,” to be held in Louisville in October.
Bryan plans to develop a business model to work with the public sector in applied anthropology and plans to attend graduate school next year.
Bryan left the McGregor Voice this quarter to work as a reporter for the Yellow Springs News.
Theresa Thinnes @ May 5, 2009
BY THERESA THINNES
Antioch has a tradition of attracting students from many different places. The same can be said for the people who come to work at Antioch.
For Antioch McGregor’s Academic Librarian, Chris Dasanjh, the opportunity to develop a new library is “every librarian’s dream.” Dasanjh left his position as a librarian for the New York City Public Library to become Antioch McGregor’s first Academic Librarian.
After growing up in San Francisco, Dasanjh was planning to attend a small liberal arts college and was especially attracted to “Antioch’s values and tradition” as a school dedicated to “social justice.” While Dasanjh looked at both Oberlin and Antioch, he ended up attending San Francisco State. But, that early exploration of Antioch back in 1996 would eventually lead him to end up here, too.
Knowing Antioch’s reputation as a steward for “social justice and community is really what drew me here, “said Dasaanjh . Having a partner who is an Ohio native added to his decision to apply for the new position.
Since July, Dasanjh has been busy organizing and cataloging two major collections that were given to Antioch McGregor. He is in the process of ordering new books to fill the many empty shelves in the McGregor Library located on the second floor between the computer lab and classrooms.
While the shelves may provide a limited supply of books, the McGregor Library has access to 47.6 million books and other library materials as a member of OhioLINKS, Dasanjh explained. That means all students attending McGregor may order from millions of books and have the book order sent at no cost to the Antioch McGregor Library. Antioch students may also order books through the Antioch University consortium, WE Deliver.
OhioLinks is a consortium of 88 Ohio college and university libraries, as well as two public library systems, including the State Library of Ohio. Through OhioLINKS, students may order books as well as millions of electronic articles, 12,000 electronic journals, 140 electronic research databases, 40,000 e-books, videos and 17,500 theses and dissertations from Ohio students. Materials are usually received within three to five days. Books that are not reserved may be renewed for up to fifteen weeks.
All current Antioch University students may also order up to ten items per week through We Deliver. This includes books, chapters from books, articles, dissertations, and school related DVDs or videos. Like OhioLINKS, all materials are sent to Antioch McGregor free of charge. Unlike OhioLINKS, library book may not be renewed and may take up to two weeks to receive.
In addition to providing an ever increasing number of shelved books and fulfilling all online requests through OhioLinks and We Deliver, the McGregor Library also provides a quiet sanctuary to study or use a computer. According to Dasanjh, the computers in the library are even newer than the ones in the computer lab.
Previously, Antioch McGregor shared its library with Antioch College. While the rest of the Antioch College campus is closed, the Antioch College Library remains open from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. weekdays, and is expected to remain open, Dasanjh said. University students and community members may check out books at the campus library, as well as Antioch McGregor.
Theresa Thinnes @ April 26, 2009