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5^th Report from LSU to IMLS on the SAEC Project

Calendar Overview:

The Southeast Archives Education Collaborative continued its maturation through the second six months of its second year and completed the following activities:

Management

In May we replaced Richard Hodges with Cristina Caminita as our graduate assistant.

We held monthly electronic meetings (October, November, December, February, and March) of the Advisory Board. The Board met at its annual meeting in Baton Rouge in January.

Course Delivery

We completed the two classes (Records Management (SC) and Access and Advocacy (SC) for the fall semester.

Evaluation

We asked all fall students to fill out the evaluation instrument, with 80% compliance.

Dissemination

Dow, Schulz, and Marshall delivered a panel presentation on harmonizing Archives 101 at the SAA pre-conference on archives education in August 2004. Dow and a former student gave papers at the MARAC meeting in September. We decided to become a sponsor for the Society of Southwest Archivists annual meeting in May. Dow and Caminita created a brochure about the program which we distributed with the SSA registration packet.

Activities Initiated and Still Ongoing:

In the past six months, we have continued some activities and have initiated others:

Management

We continue to routinely update the Website to reflect project development. We also continue to hold our monthly meetings. Since Jeff Jakeman (AU) has taken a new position at Auburn, the history department hired a replacement, Dr. Joe Turrini. Turrini will start at Auburn in the fall, but he has begun to sit in on our meetings from Catholic University, where he works in the archives.

We have begun to set in motion the grounds for continuing this collaboration as a permanent opportunity for our students. At the annual meeting in January we drew up a letter of agreement and a set of guidelines according to which we will conduct ourselves.

Course Delivery

We started two classes (Oral History (UKy) and Electronic Description of Archival Materials (LSU) ) for the spring semester.

Evaluation

Nothing ongoing.

Dissemination

We have been accepted to present at the SAA annual meeting in New Orleans in August, 2005. The program we will present there will have three former students evaluating the project in light of their employment experience.

Problems:

So far this experiment has been remarkably trouble free. In previous semesters we have had minor technical problems, but the technical crews have shown great diligence in fixing them when they arise and reducing their number overall. We’re now in our fourth semester of classes, and the technical glitches have nearly disappeared.

We’re finding that personnel changes. Bob Williams (SC) has retired and Jennifer Marshall now carries most of that load. Jeff Jakeman (AU) is moving into another position and will be replaced by Joe Turrini. Andrea Milam (UKy) has moved into another position and has no official capacity with which to help us. She has however made arrangements to continue an informal relationship. She will attend monthly meetings and the annual meeting when she can. She thinks highly of the program and wants to stay involved. So far we have found ourselves able to make a smooth transition, even though we’re still young and vulnerable. The next foreseeable personnel change will come when Tim Sineath (UKy) retires, but he has set no date. Dow has decided to stay in place until 2013, by which time the program should have enough inertia to continue without so much as a wobble.

Comments:

1. The students’ evaluation statements run remarkably consistent. The bulk find the opportunity a genuine gift in their education. They concede that the technology can be annoying, but the annoyance pales when compared to the advantages.

2. The annual meeting has evolved into a familiar and welcome event. The face-to-face interaction allows us to tackle big issues that can take hours to work through, such as the letter of agreement and the guidelines. But we have all agreed that January is a difficult time to meet, and we have scheduled our next meeting for September 2005 in Columbia, SC. There’s a sense that having got our act together in Baton Rouge, we should take it on the road.

For the SC meeting, we’re discussing a Friday afternoon “event” for the upper administration of the university in which we explain the process we’ve gone through and the principle of reciprocity that makes this a relatively simple but highly effective partnership.

3. We applied for and received a no-cost extension for the grant. We have the funds to cover the cost of finalizing this collaboration into a mature, on-going arrangement. We also see value in having a professional designer develop a logo, a brochure format, and a new web page that reflects our permanence.

Submitted by:
Elizabeth H. Dow
4/07/05