About

Welcome to the Dearborn Campus Memory Collective, a space dedicated to recalling, sharing, and rethinking the evolution of the University of Michigan-Dearborn.

The Dearborn Campus Memory Collective (DCM Collective) originated as the 1959 Project, a mixed-methodology initiative within the Inclusive History Project that aimed to rethink campus history and inform the development of future reparative policies at UM-Dearborn. The DCM Collective's mission has expanded to accomodate stories, evidence, and historical investigations of many kinds, including digital exhibits, data-based research deliverables, StoryMaps, and more. It serves as a living archive, growing as campus community members continue to contribute their stories.

 

The DCM Collective features three major collections: 

 

Stories

The Stories collection provides public access to two primary resources: Oral Histories and Memoirs & Reflections. Oral Histories includes digitally curated oral histories from university archives at the Mardigian Library available on a database powered by the Oral History Metadata Synchronizer (OHMS) and OMEKA S. The collection includes interviews with former faculty and administrators.

Oral Histories will additionally feature interviews from the Michigan Middle East Traveler's Oral History Project (MMETOHP), which explores “regimes of im/mobility" and perceptions of campus community members who have traveled to the Middle East. 

Memoirs & Reflections presents written reflections and responses to interview prompts centering on the themes of inclusion/exclusion and campus evolution.

Investigations

As our archives have grown, faculty, staff, and students have utilized primary sources and data to build, challenge, and expand narratives about our campus histories. Investigations showcases these narratives through digital exhibits, including Hidden in the System: A brief history of women and computing at the University of Michigan-Dearborn.

Evidence Portal 

The evidence portal presents primary sources that enrich existing Investigations and are open to further interpretation. It includes data narratives drawn from the Survey of Travel, Mobility, and the Campus Community, as well as campus newspaper article collections.

 

About The 1959 Project

The 1959 Project originated as a mixed-methodology initiative aimed at recalling, sharing, and rethinking the evolution of the University of Michigan-Dearborn, from a specialized co-op education program to an autonomous regional campus.

Utilizing oral histories, surveys, focus groups, and research in the campus archives, The 1959 Project seeks to draft a more inclusive history that recognizes the contributions of students, faculty, and staff to the campus’ legacy. Their accomplishments sometimes were the result of efforts to uplift and sometimes achieved without the full support of the rest of the campus community or despite the chronic underinvestment in the Dearborn campus. 

The project currently encompasses four digital humanities initiatives, which serve as both an expanding archive for inquiry and as avenues for restorative and reparative storytelling. These efforts are designed to inform the development of future reparative policies on the campus. 

The 1959 Project team expects the infrastructure for digital oral history curation that is being developed for these collections will also serve as a useful repository for interviews generated by other IHP-funded projects on the Dearborn campus (including the “Institutional Memory Project,” which will examine the history of the Women and Gender Studies Program on our campus).

 

The 1959 Project currently encompasses four digital humanities projects:

 

Restored Voices

The Restored Voices collection will make digitally curated interviews from the archives of the university at the Mardigian Library available on a public database powered by the Oral History Metadata Synchronizer (OHMS) and OMEKA S. Both tools are used for other oral history databases at UM-Dearborn. Researchers are working on the curation of archived interviews with former faculty and administrators, including Wiliam E. Stirton, the Vice Chancellor who was the first Director of the Dearborn Campus from 1959-1968, Dr. Helen M. Graves, a professor of political science who helped found UM-Dearborn’s Commission for Women in 1974, and former Chancellor Blenda J. Wilson, who became both the first African American and first woman to lead any University of Michigan campus – indeed the first woman to lead any public university in Michigan – from 1989-1992.

 

Dearborn Campus Memory Collective

The Dearborn Campus Memory Collective began out the need to feature newly recorded interviews of individuals with memories of the earliest years of the campus and key inflection points in its history.  Having established both an initial list of interviewees and a process for identifying more among UM-Dearborn alumni and former faculty and staff, researchers began scheduling interview sessions in August 2024. As the 1959 Project evolved and encompassed more research deliverables, the goals of the DCM Collective expanded to accomodate deliverables of all types, not just oral history interviews, but digital exhibits, data-based research deliverables, StoryMaps, and many more. 

 

Michigan Middle East Traveler’s Oral History Project (MMETOHP) Phase 2

The Michigan Middle East Traveler’s Oral History Project (MMETOHP) will focus its next round of interviews on members of the campus community who have traveled to the Middle East.  In addition to the Phase 1 focus on how individuals navigate “regimes of im/mobility,” researchers will explore how connected individuals feel to the campus community and the Dearborn campus itself. Researchers are currently developing a survey of staff, students, faculty, alumni and retirees to identify potential interviewees. This two-part approach enables individual stories to add nuance to the information gathered from the anonymized data of the surveys.

 

Project Team & Partners

 

Inclusive History Project-Dearborn Project Team

• Dr. Camron M. Amin, Principal Investigator of The 1959 Project, IHP Director of Research, Professor of Middle East and Iranian Diaspora Studies, College of Arts, Sciences, and Letters, University of Michigan-Dearborn
• Dr. Kandra Polatis, IHP Research Fellow, University of Michigan-Dearborn
• Marlaine Magewick, IHP Project Manager for Digital Humanities, University of Michigan-Dearborn
• Furqan Al-Tamimi, IHP Research Assistant, University of Michigan-Dearborn
• Reena Hamad, IHP Undergraduate Research Assistant, University of Michigan-Dearborn
• Tawhid Khan, IHP Graduate Student Research Assistant, University of Michigan-Dearborn
• Zanab Al-Badany, IHP Undergraduate Research Assistant, University of Michigan-Dearborn
• Wallace Bowie III, IHP Undergraduate Research Assistant, University of Michigan-Ann Arbor
• Dr. Julio Borquez, Associate Professor of Political Science, College of Arts, Sciences, and Letters, University of Michigan-Dearborn
• Dr. Razieh Araghi, IHP Research Associate, Arizona State University
• Dr. Amny Shuraydi, IHP Steering Committee Member, Assistant Professor of Criminology and Criminal Justice, College of Arts, Sciences, and Letters, University of Michigan-Dearborn

 

Inclusive Storytelling Hub Team

• Professor Jennifer Proctor, Director of the Inclusive Storytelling Hub (ISH), Associate Professor of Journalism and Media Production, College of Arts, Sciences, and Letters, University of Michigan-Dearborn
• Rick Morrone, ISH Production Lead, Instructional Learning Assistant, Department of Journalism and Media Production, College of Arts, Sciences, and Letters, University of Michigan-Dearborn
• Marcos D. Carrillo, ISH Intern
• Benjamin Filler, ISH Intern
• Wren Snyder, ISH Intern
• Jordan (Jay) Snyder-Phillippoff, ISH Intern

 

UM-Dearborn Steering Committee & Campus Partners

• Hannah Zmuda, IHP-Dearborn Steering Committee Member, Campus Archivist, Mardigian Library, University of Michigan-Dearborn
• Holly Sorcher,  IHP Steering Committee Member, Assistant Director, Mardigian Library, University of Michigan-Dearborn
• Dr. Amy Brainer, IHP Steering Committee Member, Director of LGBTQ Studies and Associate Professor of Women's and Gender Studies, IHP Steering Committee Member, College of Arts, Sciences, and Letters, University of Michigan-Dearborn 
• Dr. Ivy Forsythe-Brown, IHP Steering Committee Member, Associate Professor of Sociology, College of Arts, Sciences, and Letters, University of Michigan-Dearborn
• Dr. Rose Wellman, IHP Steering Committee Member, Associate Professor of Anthropology, College of Arts, Sciences, and Letters, University of Michigan-Dearborn
• Greg Taylor, Television Engineer Senior, Department of Journalistm and Media Production (JuMP), College of Arts, Sciences, and Letters, University of Michigan-Dearborn