Season 4: Introducing StudioDH!
Exciting news: a $2.2M gift sparks the launch of StudioDH, boosting student support in digital humanities!
It’s been a while since the last issue of the Irregular in January 2023.And it’s amazing what can happen in the space of… twenty? already? Twenty months. Well, it’s not called the ‘Irregular’ for nothing.
In fact, as I dig through my email, twenty months ago I find an invitation to a conversation with the Dean for January 18 2023.
I turned up (with some trepidation, because no matter how long I’ve been in this game, it always feels like Going to the Principal’s Office when I visit the Dean) in the boardroom that day, and discovered folks from the Advancement office at the table.
“A former student has made a gift to the university. When they were a student here, a prof helped keep them afloat financially when they ran into some trouble. They’d like to give back. They really believe in the power of digital art and other technologies to make a difference in a student’s life and in their community, and so they’ve made this gift, but we’re having trouble finding a good match between our programs and the Donor’s vision. We wondered if you could see a connection with the DH program?”
And I said, yes! Yes, I can!
This was the first of many meetings, including meeting the Donor and getting to know and appreciate their vision for how they wanted to support students, which ultimately culminated in StudioDH:
StudioDH is envisioned as a public focused, inside-out community-based research and art collective that will allow students to work closely with public- and private-sector partners via a physical ‘pop-up’ style laboratory, located in the community and open to the public. Identified partners will be organizations that rely heavily on digital media, including those in the art and entertainment, media production, library and archives, museums and gaming sectors.
Student projects will cover a breadth of cross-disciplinary topics and will seek to identify community needs and present creative solutions […]
StudioDH has been created thanks to a $2.2M gift from a generous Carleton donor. This donation will support StudioDH activities and related experiential learning through the creation of three funds: a Student Experience Fund, which will provide students with opportunities to learn from experts in the field and network with peers from other institutions by attending national and international conferences and events; a Student Support Fund, which will provide financial aid to students participating in the Digital Humanities program and; an Equipment Fund, which will bolster research activities. The gift will also enable the creation of a post-doctoral fellowship in community-based digital humanities. [Carleton]
As I said: Amazing, right? As far as I know, this is the single largest gift ever given to the Faculty of Arts. And as far as I know, this is a unique vision for what a DH program can be doing. Each year the plan is to use the income from the gift to support the various ‘funds’; this will enable us to support students meaningfully into the future and signals an enormous vote of confidence in what we’re trying to do around here.
Yesterday, I had the pleasure of telling this year’s cohort about the Student Support Fund. (The class started on October 1st and meets every other week, so that students can get grounded in their ‘home’ program and weave DH in and around all of their work).
To paraphrase the feeling in the room:
I can’t tell you how relieved this makes me feel; I work full time to support my MA. - student 1
I’m so thankful for this fund and the generosity of this donor. - student 2
Oh! I’m so excited! I’ve never had this sort of financial support framework before, does that mean we can do... ? - student 3
Yes! Yes we can!
Today, I completed the paperwork to give each student their portion of the Gift for this year. It was a wonderful feeling, let me tell you, to be able to support eight students so fully!
Postdoctoral Research Fellow in Community Based DH
But wait there’s more!
The initial idea of StudioDH being some sort of inside-out pop-up community based research initiative is obviously not completely fleshed out. We needed someone who understood community engagement, pedagogy, and digital humanities. The Donor agreed that having someone who could devote 100% of their time and energy into figuring out what that could be, would be a good idea. Earlier this year we advertised for such a person and had world-wide interest in the position (which was amazing). Eventually the process worked itself out and we have a wonderful new colleague with whom to collaborate: Dr. Amanda Montague.
Amanda Montague received her PhD from the University of Ottawa in 2019. Her dissertation, Mobile Memories: Canadian Cultural Memory in the Digital Age, considered the impact of mobile technologies and locative media on everyday experiences of memory and place. From 2019 to 2022, Amanda held a postdoctoral fellowship in Digital Storytelling at the Sherman Centre for Digital Scholarship at McMaster University. In this role she collaborated with librarians and information specialists to advance digital scholarship activities across the McMaster campus through course instruction, pedagogical consultations, and digital tool training workshops. After completing her postdoc, Amanda joined McMaster’s Office of Community Engagement as an Educational Developer for Community-Engaged Teaching and Learning.
Amanda has extensive experience developing community-engaged courses as an instructor, collaborator, and consultant. Since 2016, she has designed experiential learning courses in digital humanities and developed classroom-based partnership projects that promote creativity, collaboration, and community-building. As an instructor she has supported students in co-designing community storytelling projects using a variety of digital tools including hypertext, podcasting, digital exhibits, mapping and GIS, and social media. In her current role at Carleton as the Postdoctoral Fellow for Community Engaged Digital Humanities and StudioDH, Amanda brings experience in building capacity for interdisciplinary, community-driven digital scholarship and an ongoing commitment to creating equitable co-teaching and co-learning spaces that effectively support students, instructors, and community members.
So… as I said. Amazing. We’re just getting started, and we’ll be using the Irregular to keep you posted on StudioDH and its development… watch this space!
And we would like to thank Pauline Rankin, Diane Chea, and the friends and fellow travellers in Advancement and ODFASS who made all this happen. And to the Donor: thank you; the Gift is already making a difference.
DH Program Nuts and Bolts
For students in the program, a few nuts and bolts follow.
If you’re interested in a dh practicum or dh directed study (digh5011, digh5012) in the winter or spring, you must clear such a thing with me first.
There are some neat events coming up that you might want to participate in. These can be counted under the DIGH5800 rubric:
the Montreal International Games Summit is happening soon;
a hybrid conference on ‘Technology and Techne in Receptions of the Ancient World’ looks interesting;
and our friends down the Canal are offering their ‘DH Toolbox Series’ again this year. You can join them in person on Tuesdays from 11:30 to 13:00 in the CreatorSpace (Pérez Hall, room 302) or register on Zoom. On October 8 the discussion will be on ‘“What gets counted… counts.” Data feminist approaches to digital humanities research’.
Please feel free to share! This edition of the DHCU Irregular was written by Shawn Graham to whom all blame obtains; shawn.graham@carleton.ca