Partnering for Success

Lessons from the Archives:
Three Colleges Partner with Brooklyn Historical

American Studies Associa5on (ASA)
Annual Mee5ng -‐ Washington, DC
Sunday, November 24, 2013

Introduc5on
Robin M. Katz
Outreach and Public Services Archivist
Co-‐Director, Students and Faculty in the Archives
Brooklyn Historical Society

Students and Faculty in the Archives ● Brooklyn Historical Society

What is SAFA?
• Innova>ve postsecondary educa>on program
• Uses primary sources to teach
– document analysis,
– informa?on literacy
– cri?cal thinking skills

• First-‐year undergraduates


What is SAFA?
• Three year grant
– US Department of Educa2on (FIPSE)
– $750,000 over 3 years
– Jan 2011 un2l Dec 2013
• Supported
– 2 FT professional staﬀ
– 1 PT staﬀ member
– S2pends for par2cipants


What is SAFA?
• Three schools within walking distance
– New York City College of Technology (CUNY)
– Long Island University Brooklyn
– St. Francis College
• Nineteen local partner faculty
– All ranks and stages of career
– Wide range of disciplines
– Variety of types of classes (seminars, surveys, etc.)
– Intellectual and professional community
• Na5onal partners


What is SAFA?
• Centered around class visits to the archives
• Over four semesters (Fall 2012 -‐ Spring 2013)
– 1,100 individual students
– 63 courses
– 100+ class visits to Brooklyn Historical Society


What is SAFA?
• Class visits in a nutshell
–
–
–
–
–

Ideally 1 – 3 visits to archives
Anywhere from <10 – 40+ students
Faculty request documents 3 weeks ahead of ?me
Staﬀ pull, prep, cite, assess copyright, set up docs
Staﬀ greet class; review care/handling; occasionally
lecture; co-‐facilitate exercise & wrap-‐up


What is SAFA?
• Student popula>on
–
–
–
–
–

Mostly ﬁrst-‐year / early academic career
Both professional and liberal arts majors
Mostly products of NYC public schools
Very diverse: minority, non-‐tradi?onal students
Many interna?onal students, new Americans, or
non-‐na?ve speakers of English

• SAFA’s secondary goal: familiarize students
with cultural ins>tu>ons and resources


What is SAFA?
• Our Teaching Philosophy
-‐ Goals and objec?ves
-‐ No show-‐and-‐tell
-‐ Ac?vely use materials
-‐ Less is more
-‐ Modeling document analysis to beginners
• Document analysis
-‐ Not tradi?onal bibliographic instruc?on
-‐ Preselected, pull at the item-‐level

• Speciﬁc vs. generic prompts


What is SAFA?
• Document analysis
– Not tradi?onal bibliographic instruc?on
– Preselected, pull at the item-‐level

• Speciﬁc vs. generic prompts
– Ex: “Why did Henry Ward Beecher write this leder?”
– Not “Who is the creator? What type of document is
this?”


What is SAFA?
• Professional Development Opportuni>es
– Summer Ins?tutes 2011, 2012, 2013

• Summer Fellowships
–
–
–
–
–
–

Applica?on process
Produce own scholarly or crea?ve projects
Only undergraduate fellowship of its kind
Gabriel Furman papers, ARC.190
hdp://safa.brooklynhistory.org/fellowship2012
hdp://safa.brooklynhistory.org/fellowship2013

SAFA Findings
• Independent evaluators have found that SAFA
students are more engaged and perform beOer
than their peers.


SAFA Findings
• Receive and analyze reten>on data this year
– Final Report due December 2013

• Data from 2012 Evalua>on Report
– Available in your folders
– Online at hdp://safa.brooklynhistory.org/docs/
EvalReport2012.pdf


Findings: Observa5on Skills
• Q: Why might this document be worth
preserving in an archive?
PRE
Students no2ng a single feature
of giving a vague response

72%

49%

Students no2ng mul2ple physical
features

POST

28%

51%


Findings: Ar5cula5ng ‘a
usable past’
• Q: Why might this document be worth
preserving in an archive?
Sample PRE responses
This is a photo from the past
Because it showed what was going
on at that moment.
It gives insight... to what life was
like during the 1960s.

Sample POST responses
To show how society valued
entertainment
[It] shows how technology was
progressing in the US.
It shows how people were
sending postal cards through the
telegrams and how it was
diﬀerent... than... today.


Findings: Academic Performance
• Just one class at LIU Brooklyn
SAFA
Comple2on Rate

96.9%

76.7%

Passing Rate

91.9%

48%

Grade B or be[er

NON-‐SAFA

60.7%

30.3%


Findings: Students
•
•
•
•

Improved observa>on and interpreta>on skills
Found archives “interes>ng and useful”
Understanding of history is “complicated”
Exposed to new career op>ons


Findings: Faculty
• Return involvement with SAFA
• Improved pedagogical design
– Document selec5on
– Framing ques5ons

• Appreciate professional development
• Increased conﬁdence in student ability


Findings: The Program
• What maOers to success?
– Not:
• discipline
• amount of 5me spent in archives

– Relevance
– Opportunity to tweak and reﬁne
– Support and guidance of BHS staﬀ


Why does SAFA work?
• High Impact Educa>onal Prac>ces
–
–
–
–
–
–
–

Work with ﬁrst-‐year seminars, learning communi?es
Common intellectual experiences (among a cohort)
Collabora?ve assignments and projects
Undergraduate research
Diversity/global learning
Community-‐based learning
See www.aacu.org/leap/hip.cfm


TeachArchives.org
• Launch December 19, 2013
• “Teaching eﬀec>vely with primary sources”
• Three audiences:
– Local community
– Educators na?onwide
– Librarians and archivists na?onwide

• Three content areas:
– Exercises
– Ar?cles
– Project documenta?on


TeachArchives.org
• Exercises
• To use outright or as a model
• Each will include:
– Info about course and prof
– Narra?ve and ?tle
– Objec?ves, context, end products, assessment
– Adached handouts/prompts
– Skills used
– Some digi?zed documents


TeachArchives.org
• Ar>cles by SAFA staﬀ
• Including:
– Our teaching philosophy
– Faculty / staﬀ collabora?on
– Document selec?on
– Crea?ng handouts
– How to teach care and handling
– Cita?ons: it’s not about plagiarism
– Digital cameras and tablets in the archives


TeachArchives.org
• Ar>cles by partner faculty
• Including:
– “The Appeal of the Archives: Engaging Students in More
Meaningful Research”
– “Why Less is More in the Archives”
– “Ficng It All In: Incorpora2ng Archival Materials into a World
History Survey Course”
– “Texts as Objects: Complemen2ng the Literary Anthology with
Primary Sources”
– “How Archives Can Teach Design Students to Eﬀec2vely
Communicate Ideas”


TeachArchives.org
• Project Documenta>on
• Including:
– US DOE annual and ﬁnal reports
– Reports by independent evaluators
– Materials and tools created by SAFA
• Online call slip, care & handling handouts, etc.

– Comprehensive lists of classes taught, materials used


Thank You
Robin M. Katz
rkatz@brooklynhistory.org
@robinmkatz

#safabhs and #safafellows
TeachArchives.org (Dec 2013)
Launch party: Thurs, Dec 19, 2013
Brooklyn Historical Society (Brooklyn, NY)


Partnering for Success

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