Public engagement is the collaboration between institutions of higher education and their larger communities, to enrich scholarship, research, and creative activity; enhance curriculum, teaching and learning; prepare educated, engaged citizens; strengthen democratic values and civic responsibility; address critical societal issues; and contribute to the public good.
Launched in 2016, the Institute for History and Public Engagement seeks to build on the university’s strengths in the humanities, broadly defined. Our programming explores two interrelated questions: How can we make historians more accountable to the present? How can we make non-historians accountable to the past? We explore these questions with campus partners and community stakeholders, enhancing faculty research and student opportunities through interdisciplinary dialogue and experiential learning.
During the past year, the Institute has completed a planning project supported by the National Endowment for the Humanities. The project, “Building the Study of History into Professional Programs at a Public Research University,” integrated the study of history into undergraduate professional programs in homeland security, informatics, and public health. To learn more about this grant, and the Institute's other activities, please read our 2022 Annual Report.
In the News:
NEH Grant Supports Efforts to Integrate History into CEHC and SPH Undergraduate Courses
Joint CAS, CEHC & SPH project explores the past, reimagines the future
From 2016-2022, the Institute funded a dynamic Community Fellows Program, open to any full time UAlbany faculty member within the College of Arts and Sciences whose work embraces the humanities, broadly defined. Our fellows completed a project that connected directly with the community.
The year 2022 marks the bicentennial Harriet Tubman’s birth (1822-1913). Dr. Hobson is guest editing a special series commemorating this anniversary for Ms. magazine’s online and print pages, curating work by key scholars, writers, artists and educators. In addition, she will work with Ms. on an interactive feature for the series, which will serve as a prototype for a digital project that integrates aspects of the routes that Tubman took to freedom. She will also be working with her spring graduate class to develop a “Harriet Tubman Syllabus,” to become part of the series. This project continues the work from a local “pop-up exhibit” on Tubman funded by a Humanities STAR grant in 2019 and will be shared with the UAlbany community.
To better integrate place-based historical inquiry into the courses at the University at Albany, and to involve fellow faculty members and community organizations in designing and implementing these curricular initiatives. Focusing on two main projects: Environmental Justice in the Capital Region & Beyond; and Centering on First Prize: Community Life, Industry, and Environment in the Shadows of the Tobin Meatpacking Plant.
For his continued work on 98 Acres in Albany, which chronicles the biggest story in the history of Albany since its founding by the Dutch—the state’s 1962 appropriation of 98 acres in the city center for construction of a futuristic state capitol complex. The making of the Empire State Plaza demolished about 1,200 buildings and displaced about 7,000 people, making it one of the nation’s largest urban renewal projects in proportion to a city’s population. (Visit the project website, https://98acresinalbany.wordpress.com/.)
To extend and expand upon her earlier research on aging in place with a special focus on minority and immigrant elders in Albany, a growing segment of the older population in New York State and nationwide. This project also has an oral history component, as interviews will not only probe present-day experiences of aging but also inquire about long-term residents’ experiences of living in their communities at different parts of the life course.
Focusing on the work of the folk and blues musician better known as Lead Belly, in the context of the post-Reconstruction South, and exploring his short-lived but critical collaboration with Library of Congress music collector John A. Lomax, including a 1935 performance tour in Albany and other areas of upstate New York.
Experiential learning activities at UAlbany allow students to complement classroom knowledge and acquire relevant disciplinary and professional skills by participating in substantial, hands-on activities. Experiential or applied learning opportunities typically include planning, training, monitoring, reflection, and evaluation.
Examples where UAlbany students “learn by doing” include: