{"id":6980,"date":"2022-05-09T10:18:55","date_gmt":"2022-05-09T14:18:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/library.qc.cuny.edu\/?p=6980"},"modified":"2022-05-09T10:18:55","modified_gmt":"2022-05-09T14:18:55","slug":"treasures-from-special-collections-and-archives-qc-faculty-and-staff-oral-history-project","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.qc.cuny.edu\/library\/2022\/05\/09\/treasures-from-special-collections-and-archives-qc-faculty-and-staff-oral-history-project\/","title":{"rendered":"Treasures from Special Collections and Archives: QC Faculty and\u00a0Staff Oral History Project\u00a0"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

By Lori Wallach, Adjunct Archivist and Queens Memory Outreach Coordinator<\/strong> <\/p>\n\n\n\n

One of the primary functions of a college archive is to preserve and make accessible a record of the school\u2019s past \u2013 its institutional history. At Special Collections and Archives (SCA), we do this through a variety of collections, such as those containing yearbooks; student publications; administrative records of numerous departments, schools, and programs; and items donated by individual faculty members and alumni. Of course, our Photograph Collection<\/a>, which we are in the process of digitizing, provides an especially rich documentation of the college from its very earliest days.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Over the past several years, we\u2019ve made a concerted effort to expand another type of institutional history \u2013 our oral history collection. Through our ongoing Queens Memory<\/a> partnership with the Queens Public Library, we\u2019re able to preserve both audio and video recordings and make them easily accessible to the public. These oral history interviews provide a fascinating firsthand look into the college\u2019s history in the words and voices of those who lived and shaped it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In 2019, we embarked on the Retired Faculty & Staff Oral History Project, an ambitious plan with two goals: 1) to actively pursue interviews with retired QC faculty, staff and administrators, and 2) to comb through our collections and solicit donations of earlier interviews that can be formatted for online access. Dr. Dean Savage<\/a>, retired professor of sociology, has been instrumental in helping us locate many of his fellow QC retirees.

An important addition to our oral history collection is a set of interviews conducted in one of Dr. Bobby Wintermute\u2019s history classes in 2013, to commemorate ºì¶¹ÊÓƵ\u2019s 75th<\/sup> anniversary. Dr. Wintermute donated the recordings and supporting documentation to SCA, and to date, we\u2019ve processed and made accessible nine interviews, with several more to go. We were particularly delighted to find recordings with former QC President Saul Cohen<\/a> and longtime history professor Dr. Martin Pine<\/a>, both of whom have since passed on.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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In this clip, former QC President Saul Cohen explains how he appealed directly to then-Governor Mario Cuomo for funding to construct a new building for the Aaron Copland School of Music.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

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