Background to the "One Story at a Time" web site:
In the spring of 2009, University of Delaware professor April Veness, her geography students, and their on and off campus collaborators undertook a community-based research project called "The Newark, Delaware Multimedia Mapping Project". The project had several goals. One was to teach geography students about Newark, and their place in Newark, by involving them in activities that brought them in contact with community members and the town's history. Another was to take what students were learning and produce media-rich digital stories that spoke to some of the experiences and concerns of Newark residents. Another was to put those stories on maps in order to illustrate that where we live, where we speak from, is part of the story we tell. And yet another goal was to make these stories about people and place part of the community conversation, homed in virtual space, as a way of encouraging greater campus-community engagement and a more inclusive sense who and what Newark is.
One story at a time, then, the web site has become a vehicle for collecting, co-creating, and sharing stories about Newark. The stories are arranged in chapters that more or less follow the history of the town. Veness and her students have joined ranks with campus-community collaborators over three semesters, and through these partnerships filled out and fill in the story-maps. Ben Mearns redesigned the original web site in an effort to make it more user-friendly and interactive. Likewise, responding to changes that occurred in 2008-09 when the Chrysler Assembly plant closed and the University of Delaware subsequently purchased that site, a chapter devoted to Chrysler's Legacy was added to the web site. Information about the Chrysler plant and Chrysler community was sought and digital stories for the web site (and a Community-Sharing Event) were produced by geography students in April Veness' and Mike Oates' courses. We hope that additional stories about Chrysler, and about Newark, will find their way to this site in the years to come.
April Veness - Project Designer and Manager, Department of Geography, UD
Ben Mearns - Project GIS and Web Lead, IT-Client Support and Services RDMS, UD
Michael Oates - Video Documentarian, Department of Geography, UD and 302 Stories, Inc.
Omar Peters - GIS Producer, Department of Geography, UD graduate 2009.
UD Student Researchers/Map-Makers/Digital Storytellers and valued contributors to the project.
Geog445, Method and Theory (Spring 2010)
Geog467, Geo-Video (Spring 2010)
Geog315, Newark, Delaware: People, Place and Politics (Fall 2009)
Geog315, Newark, Delaware: People, Place and Politics (Spring 2009)
Other important contributors and advisors:
University of Delaware library staff in Special Collections and the Student Media Design Center
University of Delaware staff in Institutional Archives
Richard Sacher, Associate Director, IT-Client Support & Services, UD
Katelyn Uehling, Art Conservation Department, UD graduate 2009.
Office of Undergraduate Research and Experiential Learning, UD.
Office of the Vice President, UD.
Community Partners:
Newark Town and Gown Committee
Newark Historical Society
UAW Union 1183
302 Stories, Inc.
The many good people who shared stories, photos, thoughts and information with us.
