4 40 755 https://www.ssmp.mdocs.skidmore.edu/files/original/3bb3b206e5e381132acee1f308941cc9.jpg 59812d17c2a7db28f792ef6f44eb18d8 https://www.ssmp.mdocs.skidmore.edu/files/original/50b5060a3bd5d6785bbf64f21820e83e.JPG 98a2d119707b5a752f2087068fe2e172 https://www.ssmp.mdocs.skidmore.edu/files/original/70903b6bc1abac7c49d8b5947a2d2073.JPG 8fbb937b48ea226959e118886381dd19 https://www.ssmp.mdocs.skidmore.edu/files/original/2507b6ca7f3524622634830965835149.JPG a5e26c02b791042f782016d6b7949bef Still Image A static visual representation. Examples include paintings, drawings, graphic designs, plans and maps. Recommended best practice is to assign the type Text to images of textual materials. Record Contributor Individual who prepared the item and/or edited it. Margot Hahn Record Creation Date Day/Month/Year of record creation/edit 19/4/18 Original Format The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data Photo essay Date Published (Numeric) Date the item was printed. This will be set as a date field, accommodating only numbers. The field will be able to handle single dates or date ranges. This will not display, but will be indexed and searchable. 4/19/18 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource The Chapel Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource February 2018 Medium The material or physical carrier of the resource. Photo essay Language A language of the resource English Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Hahn Margot Description An account of the resource The Chapel is a collection of photos taken in and around the Wilson Chapel on Skidmore's campus. Photographer Margot Hahn was influenced by elements of nature, shadows, still life, and the physicality of space and place. Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource Digital photograph Bibliographic Citation A bibliographic reference for the resource. Recommended practice is to include sufficient bibliographic detail to identify the resource as unambiguously as possible. Hahn, Margot, "The Chapel", Skidmore Saratoga Memory Project Hahn MDOCS Principles of Documentary Skidmore College Spring 2018 The Chapel This Place https://www.ssmp.mdocs.skidmore.edu/files/original/0f8168909edb305c1c0fd1c2c2c6c293.JPG 123671d48fad6789bc7eece71d558d2c Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Saratoga Springs History Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1706- Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Record Contributor Individual who prepared the item and/or edited it. Jillian Seigel Record Creation Date Day/Month/Year of record creation/edit 43270 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Home to provide group living for elderly Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 3/6/82 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Halbrook, Sherry Provenance A statement of any changes in ownership and custody of the resource since its creation that are significant for its authenticity, integrity, and interpretation. The statement may include a description of any changes successive custodians made to the resource. Saratoga Springs Subject The topic of the resource Urban Renewal Description An account of the resource The 1980 Census showed more than 14,000 people age 65 or older in Saratoga County. Home services can be costly and so group housing might become a possibility. Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource text SaratogaSprings UrbanRenewal https://www.ssmp.mdocs.skidmore.edu/files/original/1d66c05d3a9f195503fb89b4d8e9ce8f.jpg 96ee4841cc92ce3d1e5e773a1f96616b Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Saratoga County Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Original Format The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data sheet Repository Name of the repository that holds the original item. Brookside Museum, Saratoga County Historical Society (Ballston Spa, N.Y.) Creator - Individual Name of the person or people responsible for creating the item. Smith, Ellis D. (Town Clerk) Creator - Organization Company, government agency, or other organization responsible for creating the item (the publisher should not be listed again here unless the same organization had a role other than that of publisher in sponsoring or creating the map). Halfmoon (N.Y.), Town of URL Brookside Collection record, <a href="https://brookside.pastperfectonline.com/archive/CCA0CC46-932E-4635-801E-863792311339">https://brookside.pastperfectonline.com/archive/CCA0CC46-932E-4635-801E-863792311339</a> Abstract (& Historical Note) Natural language description of the map itself, providing a general summary of the map and noting significant features. This is the place to introduce keywords and proper names that might be of interest to researchers, but do not warrant a separate subject heading of their own. Inset maps should also be described here, with their full titles given. Whenever historical or explanatory information is available, it should be included here as well. This includes information about items or events that are larger than just the map itself; for example, information about cartographers, a description of the map's historical significance (for example, "This is the first printed map of Saratoga Springs"), notes on the laws leading to a map's creation, descriptions of changes in state or county lines, information about the organization that created the map, how often maps were updated, and information about the map's creation and publication. Many State Archives maps have historical information in the catalog record -- that should be captured in this field. Town Board of Halfmoon notice of a public hearing to be held o 29 October, 1951, at 7pm to review the preliminary town budget . The sheet includes the proposed salaries (per Section 113 of the Town Law) for the Supervisor, Justice of the Peace, Tax Collector, Town Cler, Town Superintendant, Town Welfare Officer, Town Health Officer and Town Assessors. Record Contributor Individual who prepared the item and/or edited it. J. Dym Record Creation Date Day/Month/Year of record creation/edit 29/4/2021 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Notice of Hearing Upon Preliminary Budget (Halfmoon) Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1951 Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived Brookside Museum Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Charles E. Houghtaling, 24 Beaver St., Albany, NY Description An account of the resource A handbill announcing a hearing on the budget for the town of Halfmoon on October 29, 1951. It includes the salaries for town officials and is signed by the town clerk Ellis D. Smith. (Brookside record) Language A language of the resource eng Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Halfmoon, Town of Subject The topic of the resource Halfmoon (N.Y) Type The nature or genre of the resource handbill Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context 1990.071.0008 https://www.ssmp.mdocs.skidmore.edu/files/original/7a67d3f153fee4fa3d2bed0fa3e1e220.JPG 8c6df13febacd3bd7d9dc43e6f7b15d6 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Saratoga Springs History Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1706- Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Repository Name of the repository that holds the original item. Saratoga Room, Saratoga Springs Public Library Record Contributor Individual who prepared the item and/or edited it. Jillian Seigel Record Creation Date Day/Month/Year of record creation/edit 43270 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Drink Hall May House Spa Bus Terminal Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 26351 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Harmer, Cindy Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived The Daily Gazette Provenance A statement of any changes in ownership and custody of the resource since its creation that are significant for its authenticity, integrity, and interpretation. The statement may include a description of any changes successive custodians made to the resource. Saratoga Springs Subject The topic of the resource Urban Renewal Description An account of the resource James Tarantino, the 37-year proprietor of the central bus terminal which is designated for Urban Renewal demolition, is currently negotiating a lease with the Saratoga Springs Youth Commission for temporary occupancy in Drink Hall, although settlement remains indefinite. Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource text EnvironmentalJustice SaratogaSprings UrbanRenewal https://www.ssmp.mdocs.skidmore.edu/files/original/ff404b1a1d4014e7c046dc157ffd3fff.jpg d917641d740cecb35df71e8523699de2 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Saratoga County Still Image A static visual representation. Examples include paintings, drawings, graphic designs, plans and maps. Recommended best practice is to assign the type Text to images of textual materials. Original Format The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data photo Record Contributor Individual who prepared the item and/or edited it. Zack kouli Record Creation Date Day/Month/Year of record creation/edit 8 May, 2021 Repository Name of the repository that holds the original item. Brookside Museum, Saratoga County Historical Society (Ballston Spa, N.Y.) URL Brookside Museum, <a href="https://brookside.pastperfectonline.com/photo/A2642E39-B2CD-4820-BF9B-780610883474">https://brookside.pastperfectonline.com/photo/A2642E39-B2CD-4820-BF9B-780610883474</a> Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Hathorn Spring House, in State Reservation, Saratoga Springs, N.Y. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1949 Description An account of the resource Colored view of Hathorn Spring House with customers in front. Caption: Hathorn Springs No. 3 is one of the many natural Saratoga mineral waters owned by the State of New York. Situated on the Saratoga - Ballston Route, it is easily reached and crowded Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Harry B. Settle https://www.ssmp.mdocs.skidmore.edu/files/original/9ff93143e067786a77e7f379b709a9f6.jpeg 934962f7061576d556551d18c0f4043a Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Life and Death Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2018 https://www.ssmp.mdocs.skidmore.edu/files/original/cabaf7c8ca0342af64e646f97fb7fa06.jpeg 32b159d4be8d7df4d994f31b85cac168 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Eat Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2/18 Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Sean Heaney Medium The material or physical carrier of the resource. Photograph https://www.ssmp.mdocs.skidmore.edu/files/original/20a197e03c25a80b28d0e378d6849d76.jpeg 9fc358edc6e8fe73115dd1b0c4af00ed https://www.ssmp.mdocs.skidmore.edu/files/original/a23a677a0a358c9e7cac9df78e573de8.jpeg ecfaff34695934d372313cca9ee74ac5 https://www.ssmp.mdocs.skidmore.edu/files/original/e37a9b5a630a2698970f64a51041646b.jpeg cc341820bd269be39e0bd53ad00e9e73 Still Image A static visual representation. Examples include paintings, drawings, graphic designs, plans and maps. Recommended best practice is to assign the type Text to images of textual materials. Record Contributor Individual who prepared the item and/or edited it. Heaney, FT. Sean Record Creation Date Day/Month/Year of record creation/edit 19/4/18 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Life and Death_1 Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2018 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Heaney, FT. Sean Is Format Of A related resource that is substantially the same as the described resource, but in another format. Photograph :0 life and death MDOCS Principles of Documentary Skidmore College Spring 2018 T-Heaney This Place https://www.ssmp.mdocs.skidmore.edu/files/original/29ea983856ca9fc733e86fa60d1dcbad.jpg b2930e6e3674993a2ef15b36015ed4ee https://www.ssmp.mdocs.skidmore.edu/files/original/dc82917cf1a185035bc520e13369585a.jpg 3194985c0b1ea4c8a58ca8a4df7270c9 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Harry T. Burleigh 150th Commemoration Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2016 Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Record Contributor Individual who prepared the item and/or edited it. J. Dym Record Creation Date Day/Month/Year of record creation/edit 27/11/2016 Text Any textual data included in the document NEW YORKERS, !or all their cosmopolitan airs, have some sentimental traditions which they cherish dearly. One or them is going to St. George's on Palm Sunday to hear Harry T. Burleigh sing Tltt: Palms. They have been doing this for the last 46 years, which is something of a record (or both the New Yorkers and Mr. Burleigh. But the sen•ice which really holds a warm spot in the singer's heart takes place a liulc later in the spring-the annual service of Negro spirituals. lt wiill be given at St. George's this year on Whitsunday-May uth-at 4:00 P.M. • Mr. Burleigh disclaims any credit !or either the origin or the success of this unusual service, popular rumor notwith·standing. I am just one or uo choristers," he says. "It is Mr. George W. Kemmer. our organist and choirmaster, who deserves all the fine things that are said about the service. He more than anyone else has taken the spirituals off the minstrel stage, where they were always considered more or less a joke, and put them in the chancel where they belong." Nevenheless, when one thinks or spiri·tuals, one alwaya thinks of Harry T. Burleigh. He has arranged more of these deeply religios songs than anyone else. The list runs well over so, tltrce or which -"Deep river." "Nobody knows the trouble I've seen," and "Go down Moses"-are loved wherever spirituals arc sung. Born in Erie, Pa., where his grandfather was town crier. Hany T. Burleigh act his heart on becoming a singer. He received his lint chance in St. Paul's Church choir (now the Erie Cathedral), and later re ceived a scholarship in the National Conservatory of Music in New York. It was then under the direction of the famous Bohemian composer, Antonio Dvorak, who took a keen interest in the young Colored singer. He was fascinated by the way Mr. Burleigh sang spirituals, a music which was probably unfamiliar to the great man. One of these, "Swing low, sweet chariot," pleased him so much that he incorporated part or it, note for note, into his celebrated New World. Symphon-,. It is the second theme of the first move·ment. "All sorts of tales have cirrulated about my connection with this symphony," Mr. Burleigh told me with a chuckle. "But all I did was sing spirituals to Dvorak, and he liked one of them so well that he worked it into his masterpiece." A milestone in the young singer's's career was his selection from a group or 60 applicats as baritone soloist at St. George's. Mr. Burleigh feels that it was a daring thing for the church to ignore the color of his skin and take him only for his voice. He thinks:s it was very typical of the rector, Dr. Ramsford, and the senior warden, J. Pierpont Morgan. Mr. Burleigh says his love for St. George's will keep him in that choir as long as his.voice lasts. He is now 73 but his face, his qu1ck actions, and his voice aII belie his years. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource New York Highlights Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1940 Is Part Of A related resource in which the described resource is physically or logically included. Layman's Magazine of the Living Church, 1940, p. 26 Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived Google books Description An account of the resource An article which describes the spirituals, including the Psalms, sung at St. George's on Palm Sunday, a service performed by Harry T. Burleigh for 46 years. The article includes a brief biography as well as an interview with Harry T. Burleigh. The article includes a photograph of Burleigh seated at a keyboard. Language A language of the resource eng Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Hertell, E. Sinclair https://www.ssmp.mdocs.skidmore.edu/files/original/18ae2d491b77acbad468b17e13cd3585.jpg 6ae00b0cd4778b0813aed049bcbf36ad Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Saratoga Springs History Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1706- Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Repository Name of the repository that holds the original item. Saratoga Room, Saratoga Springs Public Library Record Contributor Individual who prepared the item and/or edited it. Jillian Seigel Record Creation Date Day/Month/Year of record creation/edit 43270 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Saratoga's trails on the map Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 12/22/11 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Hornbeck, Leigh Provenance A statement of any changes in ownership and custody of the resource since its creation that are significant for its authenticity, integrity, and interpretation. The statement may include a description of any changes successive custodians made to the resource. Saratoga Springs Subject The topic of the resource Transportation Description An account of the resource New comprehensive map shows trails and routes not normally listed Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource text EnvironmentalJustice SaratogaSprings transportation https://www.ssmp.mdocs.skidmore.edu/files/original/51b93ce7778b62b0737eac62611df143.jpg 01022ea7d47e1e6a63260f8d24470484 Still Image A static visual representation. Examples include paintings, drawings, graphic designs, plans and maps. Recommended best practice is to assign the type Text to images of textual materials. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Ballston High Theater Production Photo Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1920 Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived Brookside Museum Description An account of the resource Cast of what is probably a Ballston Spa High School theater production, on stage. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Howard L Humes ballston Ballston Spa high school performing arts photo Photography theater https://www.ssmp.mdocs.skidmore.edu/files/original/1706734e3a3f4b51bad7ae9b1f8d05e8.jpg b5826d461b9ac26155f2f35ba7366706 Still Image A static visual representation. Examples include paintings, drawings, graphic designs, plans and maps. Recommended best practice is to assign the type Text to images of textual materials. Original Format The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data Photography Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Ballston Spa High School football team Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1929 Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived Brookside Museum Description An account of the resource Ballston Spa High School football team, 1929. Back row: John Wiles, William Boyce, Charlie DeChants, Tect Peck, Art Straniese, Red Williams, George Hannah Front row: Jack Humphrey (manager), Harold Cull, Jack Hathorn, Bud ____, George McDonough, Jack Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Howard L Humes Ballston Spa football high school sports team https://www.ssmp.mdocs.skidmore.edu/files/original/838efedabf37c8463032d5287a03ed8c.JPG 86a0a7b09e72fbc8afcb809d707e32fd Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Saratoga Springs History Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1706- Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Repository Name of the repository that holds the original item. Saratoga Room, Saratoga Springs Public Library Record Contributor Individual who prepared the item and/or edited it. Jillian Seigel Record Creation Date Day/Month/Year of record creation/edit 43270 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource 6 Million Gut Area Renewal Study Funds Sought Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 24649 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Humbart, Marc Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived The Saratogian Provenance A statement of any changes in ownership and custody of the resource since its creation that are significant for its authenticity, integrity, and interpretation. The statement may include a description of any changes successive custodians made to the resource. Saratoga Springs Subject The topic of the resource Urban Renewal Description An account of the resource The Saratoga Springs Urban Renewal Agency approved a resolution to apply for study funds from the federal government for the proposed $6 million Spring Valley project. Possible delays due to other communities having priority, the Vietnam conflict, and the federal government is predominantly Democratic while this group was predominantly Republican. All Urban Renewal funds rest on the government's approval of the master plan. Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource text EnvironmentalJustice SaratogaSprings UrbanRenewal https://www.ssmp.mdocs.skidmore.edu/files/original/018046e304b9021b56aece67994b6e9d.JPG 3c4fed0512e71e3355a863d6a8200b4a Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Saratoga Springs History Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1706- Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Record Contributor Individual who prepared the item and/or edited it. Jillian Seigel Record Creation Date Day/Month/Year of record creation/edit 43270 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Council nixed UDC housing plan Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2/4/71 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Humbert, Marc Provenance A statement of any changes in ownership and custody of the resource since its creation that are significant for its authenticity, integrity, and interpretation. The statement may include a description of any changes successive custodians made to the resource. Saratoga Springs Subject The topic of the resource Urban Renewal Description An account of the resource The City Council has refused an offer from the state Urban Development Corporation (UDC) to build a $3 million, 150-unit low- and middle-income housing project on Crescent Street, a project which would have cost the city only about $48,000. Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource text SaratogaSprings UrbanRenewal https://www.ssmp.mdocs.skidmore.edu/files/original/825f37bc4dff08106aa7950383db3a33.jpg f81e9e7a2dad51812add01bdbe36f540 https://www.ssmp.mdocs.skidmore.edu/files/original/284769a83d0a17972911fa5b9b217d0b.m4a 465171a6322e81f9b02c1e4fc888a90a https://www.ssmp.mdocs.skidmore.edu/files/original/724ff6655787aefe8f48aed07a0d4a9c.m4a 1549bb5d751b9315ecd569ec7c45ddc0 https://www.ssmp.mdocs.skidmore.edu/files/original/01f584a9570f9cd3768a28587239732d.txt 3d17847ec511800f3a775e8529ea62ff Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Transcript 1 Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource November 11, 2020 https://www.ssmp.mdocs.skidmore.edu/files/original/8867a37639625ca9caf41650e8d4894d.txt a0f8498804e6ff584a66b38160403e96 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Transcript 2 Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource November 12, 2020 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Oral History Description An account of the resource Many people who have worked or studied at Skidmore College or lived in Saratoga Springs or the surrounding area carry the memories that help us tell the stories of our communities. This collection offers a glimpse into our past in the voices of those who have shared their stories. Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Interviewer The person(s) performing the interview Iona Herriott Interviewee The person(s) being interviewed George Koshuta Location The location of the interview Skidmore College (Zoom) Saratoga Springs, New York (Zoom) Original Format The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data Zoom Recording Duration Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.) 45 minutes Record Contributor Individual who prepared the item and/or edited it. Iona Herrriott Record Creation Date Day/Month/Year of record creation/edit 12/11/2020 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Life History of George Koshuta Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Iona Herriott Description An account of the resource a life history of George Koshuta that reflects on his experiences as a human being, an athlete, an observer of political history, and a banker. Language A language of the resource English Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Iona Herriott Subject The topic of the resource George Koshuta Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Saratoga Senior Center and George Koshuta Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource Podcast, audio/ video Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context family, observations of people, advice Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant His life Date Created Date of creation of the resource. Nov. 11 & 12 , 2020 Access Rights Information about who can access the resource or an indication of its security status. Access Rights may include information regarding access or restrictions based on privacy, security, or other policies. Iona Herriott Skidmore College License A legal document giving official permission to do something with the resource. Iona Herriott Skidmore College Rights Holder A person or organization owning or managing rights over the resource. Iona Herriott Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource November 11, 2020 November 12, 2020 oral history fall 2020 https://www.ssmp.mdocs.skidmore.edu/files/original/e7dab351090afd4678110ac7287e69ad.png 990aabf62c6437ee549ffd5f2ae37fee https://www.ssmp.mdocs.skidmore.edu/files/original/01100df398b2011ea8e43869e406baae.mp3 a5a1638e222e2326e0efba87ed8c63e7 https://www.ssmp.mdocs.skidmore.edu/files/original/741e4635f544d36741ea40d4b40558c2.pdf d53727555a1b57c903bd2591255e9ac0 https://www.ssmp.mdocs.skidmore.edu/files/original/caf3ce928db5a10ace0bf5ab9740b8bb.pdf bc3acdd8895bea076fef2cbacbd2ec7b Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Oral History Description An account of the resource Many people who have worked or studied at Skidmore College or lived in Saratoga Springs or the surrounding area carry the memories that help us tell the stories of our communities. This collection offers a glimpse into our past in the voices of those who have shared their stories. Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Interviewer The person(s) performing the interview Isabel M.R. Long Interviewee The person(s) being interviewed Lauren Roberts Location The location of the interview Saratoga County History Office Record Contributor Individual who prepared the item and/or edited it. Isabel M.R. Long Record Creation Date Day/Month/Year of record creation/edit 07/12/2019 Transcription Any written text transcribed from a sound Isabel Long: My name is Isabel Long. Today is October 28th, it is approximately 2:35pm. I am in the Saratoga County History Office. I am here with Lauren Roberts and we've here to talk for the Saratoga Memory Project. Lauren, could you introduce yourself, please? Lauren Roberts: Yeah. My name is Lauren Roberts, and I am the Saratoga County Historian, and I am also a Skidmore alum. IL: Wonderful, thank you. So, just to get things going, what's your earliest memory of Saratoga Springs? LR: Hmmm. Well I grew up about an hour away from Saratoga Springs, so when I was young, we used to come to Saratoga to go to the racetrack and to shop downtown. I was born in 1982, so my memories would be probably from the early 90s of coming, coming to Saratoga. But that's primarily why we would come over here. I grew up in a pretty rural town, so Saratoga would have been one of the closest malls to shop in. But also, my family always went to the race track in the summer time, so we would come for that. IL: Could you describe where you grew up? LR: Sure! I grew up in the village of Northville, actually, let me say, I grew up in the town of North Hampton because I'm actually outside the village. But for all intents and purposes we all it, Northville, which is in Fulton County. And, ah, small town. I grew up in a – I grew up on several acres of land that used to be an old farm, the Simpson farm, which probably started in the late 1700s, so. I lived in a modern house that was built on the farm, but there were a lot of remnants in the woods around that you could tell that it used to be farm land. We had apple trees from the old orchard in our yard and I had a neighbor who was about the same age as I was and we would go in the woods and find old milk pails, and barbed wire fences, and pieces of ceramic in the old stream bed. So, it was a good place for someone who had a budding interest in local history, and I'm pretty sure that's why I was interested in local history. But also, the story of the great Sacandaga Lake was of interest to me because Northville sits on the Great Sacandaga lake and the lake was a man-made lake. It was flooded in 1930. They put a dam in, the Continental Dam to be able to control the flow of the Hudson River downstream, and to prevent flooding. So there were a lot of hamlets that were flooded out in order to do this and I became interested in that because in the fall, when the water levels went down, you could find lots of different artifacts along the shores of the beach: places we would hang out or go swimming, things like that. (3:25) And I went to a very small school. The name of the school is Northville Central School. It was K through twelve in one building. I graduated with about 60 kids in my graduating class. So, but I had a great, what I thought was, you know, a great elementary school and high school experience. I had some really great teachers. I grew up in a really – You know a lot of people will look on small town life as pretty nostalgic, and it has its pros and cons, but I had a pretty good, I had, what I consider, a really good time growing up in a small, rural town. IL: (4:10) Thank you. So, could you elaborate on what you mean by pros and cons. LR: I would say, you know– When you choose to live in a small town you know there are sacrifices that you have to make. I live in a small town now, so I would say commuting, to work, but maybe when I was younger some of the pros and cons is no public transportation. We rode our bikes everywhere. I lived outside of the village so, it was a couple miles to ride to school. No cellphones then, so, you know, we could use the pay-phone to have your mom come and pick you up in the village. (4:47) And you know, maybe there would be less programing offered in the school. Rather than having to play one sport, were people where cut for the team, you really needed all of your friends to go out for the team so you had enough people just to field a full team. I can remember, you know, kind of recruiting people for our sports teams so that we had enough people to fill the roaster. And, you know, I did everything I could. I was in the chorus, and I was in the band, and I was in drama, and I played all the sports. So, you really needed a lot of participation. (5:27) Most of the kids I went to school with I knew from the time I was probably pre-school age. And we grew up, you know, we were like a family. I don't want to make it sound perfect, you know, but that's – you know, it was pretty great, and we spent a lot of time outdoors, you know. We were in the southern Adirondacks there so, you know we lived on a lake. We did a lot of swimming. A lot of my friends – we had boats, beaches, a lot of four-wheelers, snowmobiles. We spent a lot of time hiking. We had trails- miles and miles of trails behind our houses that, you know, even before we were sixteen and had our licensees, we had different kinds of off-road vehicles. But we spent a lot of time outside. And like, you know we didn't have – yeah, we didn't have cell phones, we didn't have a lot of electronics, but I don't even think – I don't think I had cable until I was maybe a junior or senior in high school. We just had, like, the local channels. But it didn't matter, I was busy enough. I didn't have time for that anyway. And, you know, you can still see the way small towns pull together when you have, let's say, like a family has a tragedy like a house fire or someone passes away unexpectedly, and they don't have enough money for the funeral. You know, spaghetti dinners, and basket raffles, and all that kind of stuff the community seems to pull together for, so. Some of those things that I'd say are maybe cliché about small towns were really true about Northville. IL: Thank you. Could you help me understand how your trips to Saratoga fit into that for you. (7:15) LR: So we were about– in Northville, were about 45 minutes to an hour away from either Glens Falls or Saratoga. So doctor’s appointments, like I said like malls, things like that, those were kind of nearby. We played sports – we actually played Spa Catholic because we were a small school and they were a small school, so we would come over here. We played against them in softball, sometimes soccer I think too. So, you know, they weren't like major trips, they would just be – I think when you live in a rural area an hour trip is par for the course. You need to get, to get anywhere that has what you need, it's about an hour. IL: So, em, thank you. Help me understand the role the races played in your life at that point. (8:11) LR: Oh, it was just an entertainment kind of thing. My father's family came from Corinth, which was nearby, and my grandfather and some of his brothers used to really like horses. So, my father would go to the races, and we would go too. We were always backyard people, which is where you bring your own picnic and you sit on the picnic tables. You know, we weren't sitting in the club house but we were walking up to the fence in the paddock watching the horses be saddled before the races, that kind of thing. So, it was just sort of something we enjoyed. IL: Wonderful. So, thinking about, kind of, the next step for you. So, you – coming to Skidmore. Were you the first person in your family to go to college? Or – LR: Nope, both my parents went to college. My dad was actually an RPI engineer. And actually, I didn’t start out at Skidmore. When I was a senior in college [high school], I had planned to apply to several small liberal arts schools. I knew that's where I wanted to go. I applied to St. Lawrence University and they got back to me first because I applied early admit, and they offered me one of their presidential scholarships. And if I accepted their scholarship, I need to agree that I would not apply to any other schools. So, I decided to accept their scholarship, so I didn't apply, I didn't finish my application to Skidmore. So, I ended up, Freshman year I went to St. Lawrence, and it just wasn't a fit for me. There wasn't any one thing in particular except that – I should say I went with the intention of studying anthropology. That was what I wanted to major in. And I liked anthropology, but during that year I was kind of looking around at other programs and I heard about American Studies, which they didn't have at St. Lawrence, and Skidmore did have. And it was a– I thought it was a really intriguing program, and some of the other things, ah, St. Lawrence had a really big sports program, and I didn't play sports, so it wasn't something that was beneficial to me. The other thing I am really interested in is musical theater. I've been involved in musical theater my whole life. We have a – Sacandaga Musical Theater which is our home town musical theater company that I've been kind of a director for a long time, so St. Lawrence didn't really have that and Skidmore did have Cabaret Troupe which was a student run organization, which I really liked. Because I knew I wasn't going to have a career in musical theater, but I still wanted to be involved in it. So, I decided to apply to transfer to Skidmore, and I was accepted. So, I finished the year out at St. Lawrence, and then I started my sophomore year at Skidmore. Started out living in Moore [Hall], which is the old dorm that was downtown. And, my first week at Skidmore was when 9/11 happened. (11:33). So, I can still remember I was in Spanish class, in, ah, Tisch. I think it was Tisch. The first plane hit right before we went into class. And at that point we all thought it was an accident. And then when we left Spanish class, there was kind of like a little lounge area, and all the teachers were watching on TV, and at that point the second plane had hit and they knew it was no longer an accident. And I was on my way to one of my first Anthro classes with Professor [Gerry] Erchak, and we went in, and sat down, and everyone was kind of in shock, and he just said go home. And, ah, it was, ah, a shocking, you know it was shocking for everyone. I was kind of in a group of transfer students cause they put all of the transfer students in Moore for our first semester. I am not really sure why. Hm. But there were some transfer students from New York City who were obviously much more affected because they had family members very close to the city. And that afternoon, the president of Skidmore at the time was Jamie Studley, and they called a meeting on the green and I can remember – it was a beautiful day. Warm, sunny, and, you know just trying to figure out how to cope with what had happened and what was still unfolding that day. You know, it was really kind of – it was a terrible way to start my Skidmore experience, but at the same time watching students come together and comfort each other and not really knowing where we'd go from here and how our country was going to change because of this attack you know it was, um, maybe it was a little bit easier to have a community around you that, you know, we were all trying to figure it out together. (13:37) IL: That's sounds wonderful to have that Skidmore community in place. Thinking about that community, how would you define it during your time at Skidmore? Was this moment of 9/11 kind of one of those definitive pieces that you think exemplifies what it means to be part of the Skidmore community? (13:54) LR: I would say, you know, people coming together and thinking about larger context is a way to describe Skidmore. I guess I haven't really thought about my cumulative Skidmore experience. You know that's definitely one of the times that's like a picture in my memory, that I remember being at Skidmore. But there are lots of others also. I think like any time you have like a national traumatic event like that you remember where you were, what you were doing when that happened, and how you felt. But I don't know that it really– that it defined my whole experience there. Maybe it was a good starting point to know how the college was going to be able to bring people together to be able to react to, you know, a common grieving experience. But, you know, overall, my Skidmore experience was, was great. I had a lot of really great professors that I knew on an individual level. That I, you know, I think a lot of college students don't have that. Trying to remember – I had several professors where I actually visited their houses which is kind of a unique, or somewhat unique thing, for I would think, a college student to be able to go to their professor's home. To be welcomed, individually. You know, small class sizes. I was able to – One of the really cool things that Skidmore did was they offered – I was a work study student, and they offered a program where you could work for a local non-profit and Skidmore would pay you to work there. So, um, I – go ahead. IL: Sorry, could you define work-studies as you understand it. Just for the record. LR: So, I believe certain students are eligible to be able to work for– to pay for part of their education. So, they had programs where you could choose a nonprofit and then you would turn in your hours to Skidmore, and Skidmore paid you to work there. So, I choose to work at Saratoga Springs Historical Society, which is now called Saratoga Springs History Museum, which is at the casino at Congress Park. And of course, I lived in Moore for my first semester, so I could walk to the casino. And, ah, I was an intern there, and it was really great to be able to make a lot of connections downtown in the local history community. I was able to work with Jamie Parillo who was the director there, but also, they had a curator and they had someone who administered the Bolster Collection which is an important Saratoga Springs photography collection. So, I worked in the photograph collection, I cleaned exhibits, I helped send out mailings to the volunteers, to the membership list. I worked at their holiday gala, helping. I did research and wrote a panel for one of their exhibits. I got a lot of experience working at a small museum and knowing what it's like to have to wear the many hats that you do if you work for a nonprofit or a small museum, public historian. Ah, so, you know, I thought that, that was a really great thing. It really benefited the community and it benefited me as a student being able to get this experience and figure out what its really going to be like. Because I do think, you know, Skidmore – I don’t know if you still have this terminology, but what we called the Skidmore bubble, you know where people – it's a, it's different than reality when you are at Skidmore because there are really grand ideas. It's a really conducive place to think outside the box and then sometimes when you graduate and you go into nonprofits or small businesses, it’s not always, it doesn't always line up with the grand idea that you think you are going to be able to do. So, having that real-world experience and being, having Skidmore being able to pay for it, because the museum would never have been able to pay you to work. I thought that was a really great thing to do. Trying to think – I ah, after I left Moore, I was there for one semester then I moved to Scribner Village in a drama house. Actually, Cabaret Troupe had their own house. I don't know if they still do it this way but club could live together. You could apply for a house, like environmental – I don't know, I'm trying to think what the other clubs are. IL: Could you, um, explain what Scribner Village are. I am a bit confused. LR: So, Scribner was the old houses, I think they are all torn down now, but on the side of campus that was kind of on the Clinton Avenue side, I don't know if there is any left, but they were apartments, kind of like the ones, I can't remember what they are called now, Northwoods or something like that. IL: Oh, yes, uhm. LR: It was like that but way older and, like, not anywhere near as nice as those apartments. I mean it was like moldy and our pipes would freeze. They, ah, I mean it's a good thing they tore them down, it was not good. But, at the time you could apply to live in a house, especially if you had a common interest like a club. So, at that point I was involved in Cabaret Troupe which was the student-run musical theater organization. So, I lived with a bunch of kids that were in Cab Troup, and that was a lot of fun. Because we spent a lot of time at the theater, and Cab Troup didn't really have a home, I’m not sure if they do now, but we would use the Dance Theater as a performance space because we did a full musical in the fall semester and a full musical in the spring semester. Once I got, I think my junior and senior years the spring musical had to be in Falstaff’s. I think we did two shows there, maybe just one show. Because the dance theater – there wasn't enough – there was never enough performance space on campus. That was before you had Zankel. IL: Yeah. So, thinking about shifts then with Skidmore, I know you were there at a time of change for the president. You'd mentioned President Studley before; it's President Glotzbach's last year, so could you talk about that? Was that something that was, um, part of the campus consciousness at all? LR: I remember going to the ceremony when Glotzbach was inducted. But I don't know that really a – I can't remember anything specifically about it or, I don't remember being either concerned or excited about a change in presidency. I would guess that for your average student, things like who your roommate is going to be the next semester or am I going to change my major, or who's my advisor going to be, you know, those, what I'd say local level kind of changes matter much more in my consciousness than who the president of the univ– of the college was. IL: So then thinking about more local consciousness, could you talk about how you, what your relationship with the town was as a student, cause you were talking about living in Moore, and that is not something today Skidmore students experience. Could you expand? LR: Yeah, ah, I mean I – let me think. So, I didn't like living in Moore because you were far away from the rest of the campus. It was like one lone building in the middle of downtown. And especially because we were transfer students, um, you didn't really get the on-campus experience. You weren't, ah, you weren't really, you know like things that happened – There was a bus. There was a bus that ran at certain time that brought you back and forth. But I have a car there, but parking in Moore, there were like literally ten parking spaces and then you had to park on the street., which was hard to get a parking spot. So, it was not convenient to live in Moore even though I had a car. I would have much rather lived on campus because that was where all the events were happening. The one nice thing about being at Moore was because I worked for the Casino I could walk down there. But it was kind of tough not being on campus, especially as a transfer student. I transferred in my sophomore year. So, it was kind of like starting over. And they did kind of group us in with the freshmen a lot because we did have to do orientation and we did have to take out, not sure what you call it now, but LS1, LS2, do you have that? IL: No. LR: Liberal Studies one, it was like a freshman program that you had to take. They made us take it too as transfer students. So, ah, you know, I loved the community, but I think as far as being acclimated and being enveloped into the college community it was tough to be in Moore. So, I was only down there for one semester. But, you know, I think that the community, because I worked in the community, you know, I was able to form relationships with people that were downtown. The woman who was in charge of the Bolster collection at the time I was working at the casino, her name is MaryAnne Fitzgerald, she was a UWW– what's it called, yeah, University Without Walls? Do you still call it that? IL: Um, – can you elaborate? LR: There was a program for mostly adult students. Yeah, I'm thinking that's what it was called. IL: I think that was, but I'm not sure we have that anymore. LR: Okay. She was able to get her degree though Skidmore as an adult. So, she was a Skidmore alum and she had gone through the American studies program, but much later in her life. And she now serves as Saratoga Springs city historian. So, I work with her all the time now, but I was introduced to her as a Skidmore student and she was a Skidmore alum, so, you know I thought that the connection between Skidmore and the community was a good one. IL: Fantastic. Could you talk about what it was like to then go downtown once you were on campus and removed from that more. LR: Um, I was still downtown a lot. My, my junior and senior years, I worked for– I worked at the library. I was a student supervisor; I spent a lot more time on campus then and because I was working at the library. And I still – I had a job at home. I only lived an hour away. Working for the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation. There was a camp ground on the lake, so I would actually drive home on the weekends as soon as the camp ground opened and work. But, I, I still went downtown all the time. I mean I had a lot of friends who lived Downtown. Cause once you get into upper classmen; they were all moving off campus and living in apartments downtown. So, I spent a lot of time downtown still. And I always loved downtown, um, you know, all the restaurants and shopping, and uh, trying to think. I think my sophomore year there was like a Skidmore community chorus, I don't know if they still do that, but it was members of Skidmore– Skidmore students and members of the community singing together in a chorus. We did that. IL: So then could you talk about how your relationship has changed with Skidmore now that you have graduated. LR: Sure. So, you know, I feel very grateful to Skidmore, I feel like I really got a great education there. I went on to get my masters right after I left Skidmore. I went to U Albany and got my master’s in public history and I started working right way for an archeologist. So I graduated in, May of '04, and in August I got a job working for Curtain Archeology, and the, the two owners of the company, Ed Curtain used to, he would teach – he wasn’t a professor there but he would teach archeology, I think, at Skidmore, and his partner Carry Nelson was a Skidmore alum. I actually got the job, well, I knew about the job because it came through the Skidmore career network, I don't know what you call it now, but I was able to get the notice that they were looking for a researcher. So, and my, I should say, I graduated with a dual degree in anthropology and American studies, so it was pretty awesome that I was able to get a job in my field right away after graduation cause when you get a degree in something like anthropology, the first thing people want to say is [effecting voice] you will never get a job in that! Why are you studying anthropology? Why aren't you in Business? Why aren't you a nurse? Why aren't you a teacher? [drops voice] But that wasn't what I wanted to do. So, I do feel lucky that I was able to find a job right away, in my field, and that job was in Saratoga Springs. They worked, it was cultural resource management, or CRM, so they worked mostly for developers who need to comply with New York State regulation in doing archeological surveys before developers or companies were allowed to build on, you know, mostly develop large sites. So. So I was able to get the job there, and um, I worked there for five years, and in the course of working there I spent a lot of time coming to this office. The Saratoga County Historian’s office, because of their collection here. I needed historic maps and census records, and things like that that weren't always online, so I spent several trips here. I got to be friends with the county historian, and then when this position came open, I left the archeology world to become a historian. And I’ve actually, I've been here for ten years. And I also feel lucky to have this job. It is a great job. And, you know, I've had a lot of interaction with Skidmore since I’ve graduated. I went back to see several of the Cabaret Troupe performances because by the time I was a senior, I was president of the organization. I had a lot of underclassmen that I was friends with and I continued to back. I've seen performances there. I still go back to the library. As an alumni you can use the library, so I still use the library. Any time that any of the professors have asked me to come back and speak about my role in public history, my career, any of that. I've spoken to American Studies classes, and history classes. I served on a panel about public history last year, ah, and actually I was able to get some help through Jordana [Dym] when I was making a documentary on the history of the Great Sacandaga Lake where I had some material – original material – that I was borrowing that Skidmore had the right equipment to be able to scan at a high resolution which I needed for the documentary, and they were able to use an intern to scan all those documents and return the originals to us. They were able to keep a digital copy of the information and I got one for my office and one for the regulating district who allowed me to use the documents. So, I mean I think, I think Skidmore is great for the community. I also serve on, what is sometimes called the Round Table, but is kind of a collaborative historical group that includes Skidmore and the museums in Saratoga Springs and Brookside, which is the county historical society, and my office. And we talk about where collections should go. I did a um – we all worked on a mapping exhibit together in 2015. 2015 was the centennial anniversary of Saratoga Springs becoming a city. We did a mapping through the hundred– through the centennial, I guess. [laugh] I can't remember what it was called but we all used different maps from our collections. And we, ah, were able to put up an exhibit at the casino showing the history of Saratoga Springs through mapping. And it was the Skidmore class that actually put it all together and we just gave our input. IL: Seems like there are a lot of joys in being the county historian. Can you speak to any of the challenges of practicing history in this area? LR: Absolutely. Funding. Funding is always an issue for historians because you are always competing with all the other departments in government. And everyone's always trying to keep the costs down, not raise taxes, um, so you're always scrambling for funding, for getting grants, things like that. We're lucky here in Saratoga county that our elected officials are very supportive of history. We use history as part of our economic tourism base. People are drawn here because we have a significant history, one that's well known. And not just the mineral waters, but there's the racetrack, and Saratoga Battlefield. There are lots of different kind of important events that centered around this area. So, I would say, you know, staffing. It would be great to have a bigger staff so that, you know, there's so much work that could be done here in the collections, in historical preservation, research, writing. There's lots to be done and not enough hours in the day to get it all done. So, you know, I think there's always going to be challenges but I think it's, um, I don't want to say easier, but – I think there's more support for the history community now than there has been in the past. And I think that's a good thing. We are moving in the right direction. IL: [33:53] Fantastic. So, um, one of the things I've understood about Saratoga in general is there has been kind of a historical – a movement for historical preservation. Is that something you feel is still ongoing? You said there's a lot of funding available, or a lot of interest in funding history at least. So, how – could you help me understand how that feeds into the tourism industry. LR: Sure. You know there's a lot of different groups that provide different kinds of historically experiences. Whether you're looking for a cemetery tour, or whether you are looking for genealogical information to find one of your ancestors, historic tours of the race track, visiting a museum. We have lots of different options here, and they all bring in tourist dollars. If they visit the museum, they're going to eat in town. If they're coming to the track, they're going to stay overnight in one of our hotels. If we are interested in our history, you know, people are going to come and see how did you preserve this building, how were you able to fund restoring this cemetery? And then people are more interested in passing on important history to you because they know, or they believe, you will be more able to care for that collection forever, in perpetuity. When you take something on, they want to know that you are going to be open and accessible to the public, and that you are going to continue on caring for the collection. I think the county has done a really good job. There are also several communities and towns and cities in Saratoga county that have historic preservation commissions. They all might call it something different. Historic buildings and structures committee, I think Saratoga Springs is called the Design Review Commission. [cough] Excuse me. So, you know, there are– even in the governments, there are plans and committees in place that are interested in preserving the history so that we don't just wipe out our pasts and start from scratch. And I think that's important. IL: Thank you. Um, so what have – you’ve been talking about your recent project with the Sacandaga Lake. Have there– is there anything you've found while being your time as county historian that you’ve found particularly exciting and that are, kind of, hidden pieces of this history? LR: I mean, I find something interesting every day. I love looking through old documents, you never know what you are going to find. Some of the interesting projects I've worked on – I mean, I think definitely that the Great Sacandaga Lake Project is nearest and dearest to my heart because that's where I grew up. I think that that story really needed to be told, and we told it from the perspective of the people who had to move. Whose land was claimed by eminent domain and they had to leave their homes. So, I think I'm probably most proud of that documentary which hopefully will be on PBS next year. [laughs] IL: Oh, congrats! LR: Thanks. So, there’s lots of other good projects I’ve worked on. I give a presentation about the county– the Homestead which is the Saratoga county Tuberculosis hospital that I think had a lot of myths around it, thank you, internet. And, um, [laughs from both] we were actually able to put together a really good collection. We had some good donations come from that because, you know, when you get the truth out about something – and it’s not always easy to do because a lot of times people don’t want their history debunked. They want to believe what they have always been told in the past. There’s always more clarity to be added to those stories. And we continue to do that, right? I mean this is not the defining moment of history. From twenty years from now there’s going to be more information to add to those stories also. So, I am not of the mind that you just are able to say well that's not true, this is the real story. There'll always be interpretation connected to the past. But you know a couple different county institutions that are able to get information out about – the other is the county court poor house. That's really important to our past and the way we treated people who didn't have the money or the means, or maybe the ethnicity that we valued at different points during our history. Right now, I'm actually co-hosting a podcast with a New York State Historian called "A New York Minute in History." I was actually at WAMC studio's today recording our script for that. That's Northeast Public Radio. So, you know, there's lots of different projects. And even here, just looking through documentation, I keep finding lots of really interesting cases all the time. And I get hundreds of inquires a year with people looking, either at their house histories, their property histories, a farm, genealogy absolutely. There's tons of questions about genealogy. Quaker history, all those different kinds of things like that. You know, there are small gems everyday that you are able to help people find or add to the collection, so. There is no typical day. It's different all the time, and I really like that and the county has given me a lot of support with being about to choose which direction I'm going day-to-day. And of course, 2020, we've got some pretty important anniversaries coming up including the centennial anniversary of the nineteenth amendment and women getting the right to vote. It's also the seventy-fifth anniversary of end of World War Two. We still have some WWII veterans alive here. Few, but some of them. But being able to celebrate that and their generation is really important too. IL: [40:40] So, thank you, that's very illuminative of your interaction I think with the broader county history. Can you talk about your interaction with Saratoga as a private citizen? So, do you go into town still, often? Do you– is it a less frequent thing, are you more over here in Ballston Spa, or with your family? How's that kind of evolved for you as time's gone on? LR: You mean Saratoga Springs, the city? IL: I mean, kind of generally I guess, yes. LR: Hmm, yeah, I still go to Saratoga Springs all the time. It's a great community. I am in Ballston Spa a lot, because that's where my office is. I still go back to Skidmore, and I still visit the track. Yeah, I mean Saratoga Springs is a great place, and I’m still very involved in some collaborative groups up there. As far as historic preservation, we actually have an oral history group that's lead up by Laurie Weese of the Saratoga Springs public library. She works in their Saratoga Room, which is their local history room. We're actually working on some collaborative oral history group projects, including digitizing what we already have in our collections, and hopefully soon, phase two will be adding more oral histories. So, yeah, absolutely, I'm still there all the time. IL: So, of course, this is part of an oral history, so that living memory. It's a very valuable part of how we understand things. Do you feel that the con– How– Let me rephrase that. How continuation of memory – How has that factored into your experience? LR: I'm not sure what you mean. IL: So the fact that there's institutions that have been set up to preserve memory, but then also working with people to capture, whether oral histories and thinking about sustaining these institutions as you were talking about having a place for people to deposit their histories. So that sort of continuation. LR: So, do I think it's important to continue capturing oral histories? IL: Mmm, more, how have you personally engaged with preserving memory beyond, ah, physical paper records? LR: So, yeah, I've done a few oral histories, and I do think they're important to take. I actually am working on a project right now. I have someone in my family, my grandfather, was one of five brothers form the same family who served in World War Two, and when I was at Skidmore, two of those brothers were still alive. And I took a class from Professor [David] Eyman, in History, about WWII, and my final paper was about these five brothers and their rolls in WWII. And I have their oral histories that I did when I was a Skidmore student that I have digitized and added to the collection here because they lived in Saratoga County. So, I think it's really important. We did lots of oral interviews for the film, The Great Sacandaga Lake. And we did both people who had their own memories and then we also did historians in the area who had collected information from other people. And then we also had some modern programs that are going on today, like invasive species stewards, people who check for water quality, things like that. So, you know I think it's really important to capture that, digitize it. And, you know, obviously you have to take– [paused] Marian Fitzgerald who’s the city historian always says we have to call them oral narratives, rather than oral histories because you're talking about someone's memory. You're not talking about a fact, a published fact of history, and sometimes they get it wrong. And I'm sure there are somethings in here that I'm getting wrong, but it’s what– it’s my narrative. So, that being said, I don't think it takes away from what those memories are and the including bias that you are getting as part of that interview– I think it changes, for instance, what pieces of the interview you include in the film or you'll include in whatever piece you're putting together. But I don't think that by any means that takes away from what those memories are. In fact, I think it adds more to what they believe was happening at the time, what their perception of that history is, or what it has become. Evolved. Because a lot of times, you know, we were asking people – we were asking someone who was in their nineties to remember what it was like when she was five years old. ... IL: So then to circle back a bit. So, one thing I am interested on hearing your perspective on is Cabaret Troupe. So, they've been struggling recently to have the number of members to make musicals. LR: Really. IL: Yeah. So, this is one of these on-going stories on the Skidmore campus. So, can you talk about what Cabaret Troupe was during your time. LR: Yeah, mmm. Cab Troupe– Cab Troupe was student run, which was different than the department. So, we didn't get credit for what we did. We always had to fight for performance space, we had to fight for a budget. And it was a ton of work. But there was really no other place to perform musicals because the department never did musicals, they did straight plays. And– but we pulled in, we had a lot of people, that– department kids that were also in Cab Troupe, and we usually had an orchestra that was taken from Skidmore's orchestra. [IL: Yeah.] A pit band, I should say, from the orchestra. So, we had other people that were not just musical theater geeks. But it was a ton of work that you didn't get credit for, but we did it because we loved doing it. And we – you know, we had to hire people for sound, and [laughs] and set construction. But I'm surprised to hear that because we always had a huge group of people. IL: So then could you elaborate on the relationships with the departments. So you said you had people from the orchestra and the theater, so this was kind of outside of the department, and just students who came in, or was this partly department, I’m going to say– not told to do, but the departments would kind of express support for. LR: I would say it was pretty separate because we were completely student run. We did have some, you know fighting for performance space was really tough because the dance theater– I mean, the dance department at Skidmore was really big, and they were, there were always other groups that wanted to be able to perform at the dance theater and we always ended up getting into conflicts with other groups because, I'm sure you know to put on a musical you need a lot of rehearsal time. And you have a set- [phone rings in background] Sorry. I'm going to wait till it’s over. IL: Okay. LR: So, we need a lot of rehearsals time there, and it was tough to fight for, and that's why I think my senior year we ended up coming to the compromise that we would have one musical at the dance theater and one at Falstaff’s. Because Falstaff’s was not an ideal performing space. In fact, in I think my senior year the heat broke there, and it was broken while we were rehearsing. We had to wear like hats and gloves and coats inside the building. It took forever to get the part they needed. Definitely less than ideal and we couldn't fit a lot of people in there. And we used to sell out most of our performances in the dance theater. So, I don't think the departments were against us, but it was difficult, we really had to work at being able to find our way and find support. I don't want to say there was anybody that wasn't supportive, and we did have help from the theater department at times. But we were really kind of our own entity. IL: Thank you. Um, so thinking then about, your experience with the American Studies Department. It seems like it was very formative for you. Could you talk more about what the program was while you were at Skidmore? LR: Yeah. I liked the interdisciplinary approach because I had a lot of different interests. And I think that probably goes back to growing up in a small school where you had to be involved in everything, to make it work, to have enough kids to participate or make a go of it. So, I had already said I was interested in anthropology. That's kind of how I started out my freshman year. So, I already had some classes in anthro, and then when I started with American Studies, I took an intro class with Professor Greg Pfitzer, and I just, I fell in love with the class. I thought it was just great. there were so many different aspects to it, and the idea that you could take classes in the history department, or women's studies, or English and have them count towards your American studies degree, I thought was a really innovative approach. And there were some students in my class that had – I can't remember what it was called – where you – self determined major. So, you know, it was, kind of Skidmore's idea that you didn't have to fit your studies into a box and have a single degree that said this is what I know how to do. But that you could in cooperate all these different pieces to fit into the puzzle of, you know, how you could be a well-rounded researcher. Because you know that's something that is very interdisciplinary. So, I just, I really liked the classes. We had a lot of decades classes. I don't know if they still do that, but I had one on the 1930s which was kind of like our methods class. I took one on the 1950s. And then senior year, the class that everybody wanted to take was the seminar on the 1960s with Professor Pfitzer. It just, you know – really understanding in our country where we came from. And when I was– when I was little, elementary school, I think probably fifth grade and seventh grade, my parents decided we were going to take these road trips. It used to be you had two weeks off at Easter instead of one week off for President's week and then one week for Easter, we had two weeks off at the same– put together. And, um, the first time we had a minivan. And I have a brother who’s two years older than me and my parents drove us across country, over two weeks, in the minivan. And we got to see all of these American history sites first hand. Things like the Indianapolis speedway, the St. Louis Arch, and the museum of westward expansion. Mount Rushmore, Custard's Last stand, intertwined, like, with Americana. Like the Corn Palace which is a building made completely out of corn. So, you know, there were all of these things. we did like a northern route the first time we went, and two years later we kind of like a southern route that include like Oklahoma, Texas, New Mexico. And I really think that those trips and seeing what the country was like in all the different areas, ah was, really helped form what I was interested in as history goes. And I think taking those decades classes of, you know, what the country was going through, not just east coast, the whole country at different times. I think that was really formative in helping me figure out, you know, what is America? How did we get here? What is important about our past? How we place value on different things we've done, accomplished. Or maybe things we haven't done, or things that we want to sweep under the rug and not talk about. So, so I think American studies helps you explore that and come to terms with being an American and studying our past and, you know, I just– it was really a perfect, a really perfect fit for me. IL: That sounds amazing. Um, before we're get to the end here, is there anything we haven't discussed that you'd like to bring up? LR: Not that I can think of. I'll probably think of it you know ten minutes after. IL: Of course, of course. LR: That's how it works. [laughter] No, I think that's it. IL: Then is, ah, I'd like to just kind of reflect for a moment on, sort of, your journey, and it seems that Skidmore offered you a place to have a different way of thinking about things. How do you think that's a, kind of, been something that you've taken with you? LR: Hmm. I mean I think Skidmore really allows you to think not within a certain constructed box. And, you know, the idea of being interdisciplinary is something everyone can benefit from. And I think that's kind of been a theme through my life. You know, I'm thinking my senior seminar in American Studies, I dealt with reenactors, so, um, and kind of the bad rap they get, but also what they do to push historical study, historical interpretation. You know, places like colonial Williamsburg, or you know, or just pop-up reenactments, Civil War reenactments, things like that. And I think that probably reflects my interest in history with my love of performance, musical theater. So, I think– And that's something that I continue today. I'm still am– I co-direct drama club for my kids at school and I'm in musical theater all the time. But I also am still interested in local history– history on a local level, stories that haven't been told. So I think, you know it just allows you to develop those skills that– Here's Skidmore that’s like a really, I'd say, well-funded institution. They've got a lot of equipment and resources at their finger tips. They allowed me to work for a small museum that didn't have any of that. You got to see both sides of how that kind of works. And I'm somewhere in the middle, I guess, today. Cause I do– I'm employed the government, but I, you know I do a historian's job. So, I guess maybe it gave me confidence that it can be done. You can find a middle-ground, and you can pull from different areas of your interest, and um, and your talents to be able to make whatever that journey is that you're on to try– to make it work, to make it successful, and accomplish whatever it is you set out to do. IL: Thank you. I've just one quick thing you've mentioned, and I'd just like to elaborate on quickly. You mentioned that you co-direct for your children's elementary school. Could you help me understand what your kind of being a parent in the community is like? LR: Sure, so I actually live in Edinburgh, which is a tiny little town on the Great Sacandaga Lake. It's within Saratoga County, but it's ten minutes from where I grew up. So, my kids, I have a nine-year-old son and a seven-year-old daughter, and my kids go to a very small school, only pre-K through six, and my son has like nine kids in his grade, and my daughter does too. So, I am able to help co-direct their drama club that was started just a few years ago in their elementary school. So, it's just kind of giving back to the community, letting the kids have the same kind of opportunity I did when I was little, to be able to perform. And hopefully instill a love of theater in them too. IL: Wonderful. Thank you very much and thank you for agreeing to do this interview with me. It's been really wonderful talking with you Lauren. LR: You're welcome, thank you. Original Format The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data MP3 Duration Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.) 58:41 Bit Rate/Frequency Rate at which bits are transferred (i.e. 96 kbit/s would be FM quality audio) 44.1 kHz Time Summary A summary of an interview given for different time stamps throughout the interview 00:00:00 Header 00:00:51 " used to come to Saratoga to go to the racetrack" 00:01:28 Grew up in Northville 00:02:40 budding interest in local history from exploring as a child 00:02:46 Great Sacandaga Lake 00:03:23 School growing up 00:04:12 Life in a small town 00:07:13 Trips around the area 00:08:10 Races at 00:08:56 going to college, first St. Lawrence, then transferring to Skidmore 00:10:41 musical theater 00:11:30 Experiencing 9/11 at Skidmore College 00:13:52 Reflection on the Skidmore community. 00:15:52 Work-studies 00:17:36 " and knowing what it's like to have to wear the many hats that you do if you work for a nonprofit or a small museum, public historian" 00:19:02 old Scribner village 00:20:09 Cabaret Troupe 00:21:12 Glotzbach's induction was not especially significant to the students 00:22:11 Living in Moore away from campus in town with other transfer students. 00:24:33 University Without Walls 00:25:35 Work 00:26:45 Community Chorus 00:27:03 Post-grad 00:31:21 The Round Table discussions in Saratoga county about history. 00:32:22 Funding of history in the area. 00:34:22 Historical tourism in Saratoga. 00:38:18 Practice of history 00:40:58 Still come to Saratoga Springs and Skidmore, as well as being part of a historic preservation group. 00:41:32 "Collaborative oral history group projects" between the Saratoga Library and the county. 00:42:44 "I've done a couple oral histories" as an interviewer. How she personally is engaging with oral history, including oral histories done as a Skidmore student. 00:45:36 Defining Cabaret Troupe her time at Skidmore. 00:47:34 Departments and Cabaret Troupe "pretty separate." Eventually compromising on fighting for space by using Falstaff's. 00:49:36 Liked the "interdisciplinary approach" of American Studies. 00:50:41 Self-determined major "Skidmore's idea that you didn't have to fit your studies into a box." 00:51:16 "Decades classes" on each decade of US history. 00:51:45 Family road trips when she was little, seeing sites of American history and American. "seeing what the country was like in all the different areas." Shaped her interest in history. 00:53:54 American studies "helps you come to terms with being an American and studying our past." 00:55:00 "Skidmore allows you to think not within a certain constructed box." 00:55:27 Senior seminar in American studies "dealt with reenactors." 00:56:08 "I co-direct drama club for my kids' at school," and her application of things she was involved in at Skidmore in her life now. 00:56:36 Experience while at Skidmore prepared her for job today and reflecting on the journey. 00:57:40 Being a parent in her community and doing drama for her children's school. 00:58:41 END Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Interview with Lauren Roberts Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource October 28, 2019 Language A language of the resource Eng Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Isabel Long, '21 Type The nature or genre of the resource Oral History Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Lauren Roberts https://www.ssmp.mdocs.skidmore.edu/files/original/e09c8c9e5a17fce2b2b4a5743d84386b.png 5f059df335ed5c0f08fcd3ed9080109a https://www.ssmp.mdocs.skidmore.edu/files/original/18ad9c7c7702d732e925be72caa0c9fe.m4a 805ec005958fae1e659dbca4db796ea7 https://www.ssmp.mdocs.skidmore.edu/files/original/80ffce96906a10dced5adbf6af2f08a8.pdf cb172e4b674b31e9e2e4f3e0ee1bc200 https://www.ssmp.mdocs.skidmore.edu/files/original/2417b8ef23f3ccb8833084604b2c22ed.pdf 0cbf5152ff698803da0b600fffb94f3b https://www.ssmp.mdocs.skidmore.edu/files/original/44b850fe3c23f3027a8ba647ccecec3f.m4a 87fdeb2781e84c2fde326bcefd615c28 https://www.ssmp.mdocs.skidmore.edu/files/original/94785925a3b6f1a435d2070b99e719db.pdf 96ccc0fcbd3ec1ef48fbae86d2356e0d https://www.ssmp.mdocs.skidmore.edu/files/original/239344656eb93a2c5a1f82fcfc6904ff.pdf 0d2da0cec4811662d3c0187c46a5f5aa Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Oral History Description An account of the resource Many people who have worked or studied at Skidmore College or lived in Saratoga Springs or the surrounding area carry the memories that help us tell the stories of our communities. This collection offers a glimpse into our past in the voices of those who have shared their stories. Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Interviewer The person(s) performing the interview Isabel M.R. Long '21 Interviewee The person(s) being interviewed Sandra Welter Location The location of the interview Scribner Library, Skidmore College Transcription Any written text transcribed from a sound November 23, 2019 Interview Isabel M.R. Long: So, my name is Isabel Long. Today is November 23rd, 2019. It is approximately 12:05 in the afternoon. I am in library room 128B, here with Sandra Welter. Sandy has been a– is a retired professor from Skidmore. She worked here for many decades in many facets of the college. So, Sandy, could you introduce yourself? Sandra Welter: Great, thank you, Isabel. It's actually a pleasure to be part of this project, and I was very glad to be asked to be involved. I came to Saratoga Springs as a Skidmore wife back in 1971. So, I've been connected to Skidmore for many, many, many years. I was a graduate student at that time, finishing my graduate work, I finished that work. My husband at the time was working here at Skidmore, and I then spent seven years teaching in the high school. I was an English teacher in the high school – junior high school and high school. We had our children. I left public school teaching and then, when my children were young – three, four, five years old – I decided I would like to do some part-time work. The public schools at that time, in the late 70's, were not as modern in their thinking about people working part-time in positions like teaching. So, I was– I approached Skidmore and asked if there were any opportunities. I actually began my teaching and administrative career at the University Without Walls. The University Without Walls is no longer functioning here at Skidmore, but it was a very important aspect– branch of the educational opportunities at Skidmore for non-traditional, adult students who needed to complete their undergraduate degrees. These are men and women who began their college career and were unable to complete it for a number of reasons, or never started college at the traditional moment. At age eighteen. The University Without Walls was a fabulous introduction for me into the Skidmore community. I was an advisor to many of our UWW students. I taught basic English composition as independent studies for many of our students that were off campus, for which many of our UWW students were. And then I worked with a lot of faculty as I administered putting together programs, curricula, for some of our UWW students. So, I got to know a lot of our faculty. One of the aspects, one of the branches of UWW that was vibrant in the mid-70's, all through the 80's, and into the early 90's was the UWW prison program. The prison program was a full academic bachelorette program that we brought to two correctional facilities in upstate New York, about an hour from Skidmore. Every night, at four o'clock, a cadre of twenty – fifteen or so, twenty – Skidmore faculty would finish their work here at Skidmore with the undergraduates, get in their cars and drive up to Comstock, New York, and teach their series of courses to a select group of inmate students who had applied to Skidmore, who had been accepted, and who had received funding – both federal and state funding ¬– to support their college education. So, I started teaching in that program because I could be home with my children during the day, and when my husband got home, I could be off doing my teaching at night. So, it worked out perfectly for me, I taught in the prison program for ten years. I became the director of that program, the last four years of it. I unfortunately– When we lost funding– both federal and state funding – I then, with the help then of the faculty here at Skidmore, we had to close the program down. But those ten year were the most vibrant teaching experience I had ever had, to date, at that point. And I met and worked with so many faculty that were so giving of their time to a population that didn't have access to education at all. And it changed lives radically. I say that with complete confidence. It's not like I imagine that they changed lives, I knew that this program changed individuals lives, and families lives, communities. Everything, these men would go back into their communities a much more viable source of positive influence, both on their families and on their communities. But unfortunately, in 1993 the funding for this program was pulled, both at the federal level and at the state level, and we had to close our program down. we graduated many hundreds of students. I worked in that program even after the program was closed. We volunteered. We had a group of volunteer faculty that would go up for no pay that would do reading groups, study groups, in order to talk with former students. We kept that going as long as we possibly could. At that point I began teaching part-time in the English department and moved to what the college had, at that point, was a master’s program. So, I moved from just part0time work teaching in the English department to full-time administrative work in the master of arts and liberal studies program. That program, again, was like UWW but at the graduate level. I was the administrator. I was the director of that program for some years and advised many graduate students as they put together these interesting interdisciplinary graduate programs. That program also was closed. And, so at that point I began teaching full-time in the English department, and that is what I did until I retired two years ago. And met wonderful students. like you, and students– the first time I had ever deeply embedded myself in the residential program. Many of my experiences at Skidmore were with our non-traditional students, our UWW students, our prison students, our graduate MLAS students, all of whom were off campus. They were not necessarily residential. So, that gave– this last ten year of my career gave me a wonderful experience of embedding myself in the residential community where I was working full-time with freshmen, sophomores, juniors, teaching English 103, English 105. I worked with our international students in a course numbered English 100 which was for international student for whom English as not their first language. So, I worked with them preparing them to begin doing the work that was required of them at Skidmore. So, I've had a really varied experience of teaching at Skidmore, and I one I couldn't possibly replicate any other place. One of the wonderful things about Skidmore is they were, historically were so open to new ideas about how to educate people, who could be educated, who should be educated. And Skidmore as a place that had a very open mind about that, those questions. IL: Fantastic, thank you. You were taking about UWW, so I would like to go back that first [SW: Sure.] before kind of revisiting the different moments in your career. [SW: Sure.] So with UWW, you have set up kind of the who and when for me, can you tell me a bit about the how? SW: Sure. Men and women would apply to the University Without Walls program, they would be reviewed through an admissions committee. They would be interviewed. We would determine what their interests were and whether or not Skidmore had the capacity to fulfil their undergraduate requirements. Historically, if a student came to us and said they wanted to become an electrical engineer, we would probably advise them to go to another institution. That was not a good fit for us. But, for those who were interested in the liberal arts and sciences, those we could accommodate. Once the student was accepted at UWW, he or she got two advisors. One was a major advisor, and one was a UWW office advisor. Someone who oversaw the compilation of the student's curriculum. That was my job. And so each semester, and in some cases not ever the semester, because in some cases the students were doing independent study and might be working on a course for six months rather than a regular, traditional semester-long experience. UWW would pair that student with an appropriate faculty member. So, my job was to talk to the student, listen to his or her desires of a particular course in environmental studies with a focus on land management, or on sustainability, or on water quality. I would then go to the department, like the environmental studies department, and I would talk with the faculty. I would say I have a student who is interested in land management, or water quality, and he or she wants to do an independent study or many if they were local, take a course with you. Would you be available and willing to work with that student? SO my job was to pair students and faculty in their learning. That was a hundred and twenty credits, so that was a lot of hands-on work. It was very labor-intensive process of getting a student through an undergraduate degree at UWW. But, we had an amazingly energetic faculty who were willing to work with our UWW students independently. They often invited local independent UWW students into their classes too so they could hear the lecture right on campus. So, it was a very useful kind of collaboration. That's how it worked. Students worked through their courses at their own pace. All of these UWW students were working men and women. They were not eighteen-year-olds, they were not living on campus, they were not full-time students. So, we had to balance– they had to balance their work life, their family life, and their student life as they proceed to get their undergraduate work done. Not an easy task. And so, for many years in working with these UWW students, I was incredibly impressed with their energy, with their commitment, with their focus because you know how hard it is to get your courses done, imagine if you had a family and a job to balance. And that's what these UWW students were doing. So my job was to facilitate that process and make sure their course work was appropriate, that their degree was balanced, that they had 120 credits, that they had correct distributions, that they had all the components of the major – all the things that your advisor does and your registrar does here on campus, that's what the UWW staff did. IL: That seems very helpful to a broader community interested in pursuing their higher education. SW: Exactly. And UWW was a national forum. Skidmore was not the only campus that ran a UWW program. It was actually a concept that was designed at the federal government level, offering opportunities for adults to go back and finish their degrees. And many campuses across the nation designed UWW program, and Skidmore was one of them. We were one of the earliest ones, and we were one of the latest ones to close. In the meantime, many other colleges across the county also had UWW programs. IL: So then taking the UWW to the prison program, you were talking about faculty going there later in the evenings. So were they doing lectures, or was this again, kind of an independent study type? SW: Yeah. Good question. The prison program looked very much like a residential college program. In other words, the faculty when in, they had a class. They had a class of ten, fifteen, eighteen students. They went in, they sat in the class, they gave lectures, they– the students had their textbooks, they did all the stuff that you would do, that any undergraduate student would do in a class. It was organized by semester, very traditionally. They started and ended in a traditional way. They started, they ended, the students had exams, they received grade. IT was very, very tradition looked because we had the structure. The students were there. It was easier to design that and run that that way than it was for independent adults who were working and living in places all over the country. Our prison program could follow a much more residential pattern, which is what we did. So, the students received transcripts. Their transcripts looked just like our undergraduate residential student's transcript, it's just that it said Comstock on it rather than just plain Skidmore College. It was Skidmore College Comstock Program, which mean that it was offered at the Comstock facilities. IL: Could you help me understand what your personal experience was with that? SW: Well, I had various experiences. Going in– The reason that I got involved in the prison program actually, was that I had a friend who was teaching up there. A colleague, an English professor. And he said to me, one night at home, at my house, we were having a dinner together with a group of friends, and he said "you know, Sandy, I think that you would really like teaching in the prison." And my then-husband looked askance, and said "really," and my friend Bob said "yeah. I think that you would like that. You're the kind of person that I think would be really good. It's not everybody who can do this. Any faculty go up, and they observe, and they say 'Not for me. I don't like the gates; I don't like the feeling worried about being in a prison.'" And he said, "well how do you feel about that?" And I said, well I need to go up and see how I feel. One was a maximum-security prison, and one was a medium security prison, and they were all-male. So of course, there was major concerns. I had major concerns. So, but I said, let me go try. And I walked– I went in with him. I got permission; I had a pass as a guest. I went in with him one evening, and I observed the teachers teaching. I observed the classrooms, I participated in teaching a class with my colleague, and he was right. It was a– it was instantaneous for me. The students were, one, incredibly prepared. Everybody had done their reading, everybody had done their work, everybody came in with hundreds of questions. Some of which were off the wall, but some of which were incredibly insightful. They were like sponges. They were so eager to get this learning and to participate in this exercise. It's like an adventure. This was not their life, imagine, living in a prison. So, at night they could come up and walk into a classroom which had windows and desks. They were with other people, there was a professor there. This as for them lifesaving. And I could tell. I could tell. So, the next semester I taught a class, and I never turned back. I just, I just loved it. I taught composition to mostly freshmen. I then became an advisor, so I was putting together curricula. So, I was making sure the students were developing their majors in certain good way. So, I was working as an advisor, and at the very end I was the director of the program, until we closed. So, lots of great experiences. We had full graduations at the camp– at the prison. We would bring up faculty in their full regalia. Their families could come up, observe their graduation. we would have cake and cookies afterwards. It was as close to normal as we possibly could create given where we were. IL: Wonderful. You wrote a monograph about dealing with behavior. SW: I did. IL: Could you talk about what lead to that, and what you were dealing with? SW: Yeah. One of the– Obviously as a woman, I was always approached by women faculty and men faculty who would say "aren't you afraid? Aren't you threatened? Isn't it dangerous?" Obviously, all appropriate questions. The fact is, I never once – in ten years – never once felt personally threatened. Not once. Now, were there moments? There were maybe, out of ten years, there were maybe three or four moments where there was a scruff. Where there was something that went on– not that had anything to do with me, but was with something in the hallway, or something was going on. But it was immediately shut down, it was immediately– the guards were right there. They're not in your classroom, but they are right in the hall. But personally, I was never approached by a student, by an inmate student, I was never spoken to inappropriately. The students knew that the health and the veracity of this program was on their shoulders. If they screwed up, the prison would close this program down immediately. Skidmore would want to keep coming, but the prison would close it down. So, they knew, if they wanted this program to work, they had to mind their manner. And they did. In fact, they go so wrapped up in their learning there was no time. There was really no time for that. But that being said, a colleague of mine who worked in another prison in the western part of the state, she and I were talking at a conference one time. A prison programs conference that was, happened across the state of New York, and we were talking about, yes, our colleagues were always asking us, you know, what about the behavior? What do you do? And we said, you know, why don't we write a little how-to. Because, yes, of course, there will be situations were a student will overstep, wither knowingly or not knowingly, overstep the line, what do you know. So we decided to put our head together and write a monograph, which we did and we distributed to all of the prison programs across the state for women instructors so that they had a kind of game plan. Or a kind of guidebook. Or to read to decide if they even wanted to do it. And it was great. It was very useful, and the state was very happy that they had it. I gave it to the officers to so that the officers could see what we were saying. And they approved. They said yes, this is appropriate instruction. So we had good cooperation with the prison administration as well. IL: Wonderful. Was there anyone in the program, both with the prison program and with the University Without Walls that was particularly impactful for you personally? SW: Woah. Hundreds, actually. [laughs] Yes, there were some amazing, amazing students. I remember a middle-aged man in the prison program. He was a philosophy major, so he wasn't– he was my advisee. And Michael was– loved to write poetry. And many of the men used to write poetry, and most of it was pretty horrible, but Michael’s was astonishing. It was absolutely publishable. And I can remember when he graduated, he handed me a collection of some of his writings, and I still have them. He's passed away, and he died of AIDS, I believe in the late 80's or early 90's. But he was a very brilliant man and had a really horrible life. But his mind was– just, always remember thinking, anyone looking at this man would think he was just this thug, but all you need to do is just let him speak. Listen to what he had to say, and look at what he was writing about, and you would realize that he had a heart and a mind that was quite beautiful. And so I do remember that. My UWW, not prison students, many students– what I loved about them, they went on to do great things. One on my UWW graduate students is currently directing the economic opportunity program in Saratoga. And she did her degree at Skidmore UWW and was one of my advisees and so she's making a huge difference here in our community here in Saratoga. And that makes me feel great. When I see her name in the paper, and her picture, and the projects that she's doing, I feel like we did the right thing. IL: Well that's wonderful. Another program that I know has been impactful in the community is the Master's of Liberal Studies program. How– could you help me understand your involvement with that, and what that mean to you? SW: Well, we realized that after many years of running UWW, we realized that so many of our graduates kept asking us "we want to do an interdisciplinary master's program. We loved the fact that we could put together our own programs here at UWW. We could create these interdisciplinary, these programs that saw the synergy between different disperate academic inquires. And that by allowing, you know, science and art to talk to each other, we get something bigger and more." And they kept wanting to know where there were graduate programs like that. There weren't very many. There were only, in the country, there was a master's of liberal studies at Gerogetown, there was one in the mid-west, there was maybe one out in Oregon. There weren't very many. And we thought, you know, we should really think about whether or not we the capacity to offer – we being Skidmore. Because of course all these programs need the energy and support of the faculty, and the faculty are [cough] – excuse me – [cough] The faculty have a fulltime job teaching the undergraduate residential students. So, we started small. And I was on the ground floor of this program. Once the prison program closed, I came over. The director of UWW had begun, became the director of MALS, he and his secretary were beginning to put the idea together, and they hired me as the advisor, as the person to help work with the students and put course programs together. It took a while, and we knew that we had to keep it small, cause again, it taxed the energies of the faculty. A graduate student needs more work, needs more attention, needs more intellectual stimulation than an undergraduate. And so we understood that starting a graduate program would mean a real commitment on the faculty's part. So, I worked with the director. We also had a faculty advising committee. We had a group of faculty who came on board and looked at what we could do. It felt like it was workable, so we went forward and designed it pretty much looking like UWW, but instead of 120 credit undergraduate program, it was a thirty credit master’s program. And it was interdisciplinary, so the students had to have at least two disciplines represented, they had to write a thesis, and/or a final program. Some of the performing arts students did photography exhibits, they did creative writing programs, but it was– they had to do a thesis at the end. And those were all to be reviewed by a team of readers. So again, it was very intensive faculty advising, which was on of the reasons why it eventually closed. I mean, it needed so much energy on the part of residential faculty, and the residential faculty was also needing and experiencing more and more with their residential students, their undergraduates, that the college really felt it couldn't sustain it. Which I thought, was probably a reasonable decision on the part of the college. If we are going to do it, we want to do it well, and to the best of everyone's ability. And I think the faculty were feeling very pulled in many directions. IL: Thank you. With this, you were teaching, at the same time a couple classes? SW: Yes. Every semester, while I was doing all my off campus UWW or MALS work, at least one course a semester I would teach in the evening, in the English department. I liked to keep connected– I liked to feel connected to the residential students. IT helped me to make sure that the work I was doing with UWW students and masters students was in line with what the college was doing with its residential students. So, the English department– I as an adjunct faculty member was hired for at least one or two courses in the evening, per semester to teach. And I taught English 103, English 105, and then I worked with the international students. So that was on going. I did that for decades, but it was always quiet, and it was always a smaller part of my Skidmore identity, the most being my work in the non-traditional programs. When both of them closed, UWW and Master, I was not quite ready to retire. I was, I really felt that I had more that I wanted to give, and more, more projects, more opportunities I wanted to offer. I also had a couple of classes that I'd never taught before that were in the back of my head. The most recent being my travel writing course. I'd never taught this, but I's always, always been an avid traveler, I'd always been an avid travel-writing reader, and I kept thinking this is a vehicle that could be a good one to teach freshman comp. The 103, I mean the one-oh-five courses have a topic base, and therefore I kept feeling like there was a real desire and possibility that this could be a great course. So I put together the course, and I proposed it to the English department the last couple of years of my tenure at Skidmore, and that was kind of what I finished my career doing, was teaching my travel-writing courses, which actually were almost another highlight of my career. So, I started with a great highlight in UWW and I ended with a great positive highlight with my travel-writing students. They were, it was a great course. I think they loved it; I learned a lot. We read wonderful writing from travel writers from all over the world, and since retirement I have tried to follow some of their footsteps, and so I have been to many of the places in which we read narratives. So, it's been great. IL: It's fantastic that you were able to kind of move into a second-high point in your career. SW: I did. And it wasn't more of the same. I really wanted to do something different. And I thank the English department very much for allowing me to do that, because they could have said no, keep doing what you are doing, it's fine. And it was fine, but this was a great plus for me, and I was very pleased to do it, and I had terrific students who still stay connected and are always contacting me and letting me know where they are, and where they're going, and were they are traveling, so it's always good. IL: Wonderful. I remember you saying in a previous conversation, maybe a year, maybe two years ago that you taught in Chine briefly. SW: Oh, yes! Yes! I forgot about that, didn't have that on my list! [both laugh] How could I forget?! Yes. When I was working in the master's program, I had done many years at UWW. We were in eh master's program, I was feeling– I was feeling a little stale. I was not doing as much teaching, as much one-on-one teaching. The UWW program offered me lots of really wonderful teaching opportunities. Once that program closed, then the prison program closed, I was doing almost all administration. And I was fine with that, except I really missed the communication and the connection with students. So, I applied for a sabbatical. As an administrator Skidmore does offer, occasionally, an administrative sabbatical. I was not a tenured faculty member, so I wasn't due a sabbatical, but I applied. I gave them a proposal in which I said I would like to teach for a year in China, at the university Skidmore had a relationship with. And my proposal was approved, I was given a nine months sabbatical, and I went to China. [Laughs] I took off. I did not speak Chinese; I did not need to speak Chinese. My students were all English majors at a teaching university in Shandong province, which is provincial. It is not near a big city; it is not near Beijing or Shanghai. It was in one of the oldest– it was one of the oldest universities in China, and one of the oldest communities. It was in the hometown of Confucius. It was were Confucius was born and were his family and he is buried. And around this very old community, they built a university, and it was a teaching university. So off I went. I left for a year. I lived at this university. I had an apartment on the campus. I taught six courses a semester with thirty-five or forty students in a class, so I taught three hundred students in the course of a year. And I taught composition. So, I was teaching – and they were – their reading English was actually quite good. They understood their reading quite well. Their spoken English was not very good because they had no access to native English speakers. The people who taught them oral English were Chinese teachers. Lovely, very lovely people, but their English was not very clear, and so the students' English was not very clear. So, I taught– I did a lot of informal, come to my apartment, let's practice our English. So, at night, I would teach all day, and then at night I would have twenty-five or thirty students for tea, and we would just talk, and practice our English. So, and then I did that for a year. But then I did composition. The year that I was there our students published a literary magazine. I was very proud of that. The only time they've ever done that. We out it together in the Spring semester. We had an editorial board, we had submissions. The students read the submissions, they made selections, they did editing, they did layout, they did artwork, and we put together a literary magazine for the whole junior class. The junior year was when they did their composition writing in their curriculum. So, I was very proud of that. I had it published, and every student got a copy, which I signed before I left. It was great. It was a good experience, a really good experience, and I have still stayed in contact with many of those students who are now middle-aged at this point. Cause I was there in 2001, 2002, so many of them are adults either working in teaching or working in cooperate situations where they are using their English as translation. IL: That sounds really, really formative experience. SW: Yeah. Well it also was– I think it was one of the impetuous for me wanting to do the travel-writing course. When I got back, I thought, there's so much wonderful writing that goes around travel, and new experiences that I really felt– that began to make more interest. And the reason I ended up going – let me share this with you – the reason I really wanted to go to China was that Skidmore was accepting many more international students at that point in the late-90s, early-2000s. And they were in my classes. They were in my one-oh-three classes, or my English one hundred classes, and I was so impressed with their work ethic, and their diligence, and how hard it was for them to work in an environment where this was completely not in their native language. And I thought, I would really like to know more about the Chinese educational system because they are producing these really interesting, smart, thoughtful, fun students that are coming to Skidmore. So that's really what got me started. And when I found out we had a relationship with a university in China that we could send faculty there to teach, I jumped on that opportunity. So Skidmore, the undergraduates were actually my stimulus for me going to China. IL: That's fantastic that the courses here fed nicely in, and then the experience in China fed into your next [SW: Right, exactly.] set of courses. So in working with these international students in EN 100 and EN 103, I know you taught EN one-oh-three for, what, twenty-two years? SW: Right. A really long time. [both laugh] IL: Just a bit. SW: Yeah. IL: [both laugh] Could you talk about, sort of, what that meant to you as an adjunct professor? SW: Yeah. Yeah, I mean, it's unusual, a little unusual for a faculty member to teach a course for that long. There are many more opportunities, with tenured faculty, for them to do more courses. The English department has to provide, kind of, nuts and bolts necessary writing instruction for every student that comes here. It's our responsibility. Obviously, as you know, every student is required to be a competent writer from the get-go. They walk on this campus and every faculty member expects them to be able to be a thoughtful, competent writer. That is true for most of our students, but not all of our students. And certainly, our international students have a much steeper learning curve. And so, I– I was always a teacher, I am a teacher who likes to work with students who are challenged. I find that absolutely so stimulating. Whether they are adult students coming back and need to work around family, or whether they are prison students who have to deal with their life in prison, as well as their education, or international students who have to deal with a new language, or students, regular residential students who are coming out a high school experience that was maybe not as absolutely basically fulfilling as it could have been. And so, they are here at Skidmore because they are smart. My students are really smart. They are so capable, but their skill level, the stuff that they need to know, the nuts and bolts – the kind of tools that they needed – they may not have them all in their toolbox yet. My job as a 103 teacher was to give them the tools that they may or may not have gotten in high school. And, for me, every student that walked into my class – even though I am teaching the same course – every student who walked in was an individual challenge. And for me that was so stimulating because I had to figure out a way to help each one of these students, in whatever way I could, to get him or her to the place where they could be fully successful at Skidmore. So, I loved that. I loved the idea that helping a student– especially writing. Writing is not a discipline that has right answers the way maybe biology does. Either this is this enzyme, or it’s that enzyme. Or history: it's either this year or that year. You have to know the facts. In writing there's a path to getting better at this skill, but that path is not a single path. Everybody chooses the path that works best for them. My job was to help each student find his or her path to becoming a competent writer. And a confident writer. So many times, my students were really fine writers, but they lacked the confidence. They kept saying, well I'm not a good writer, I'm not a good writer. I said, how do you know that? Somebody told me. I said, well, let's forget that. We're not going to worry about that voice, we're going to start a new voice which is you are a competent writer, and you can get better, and our job is to get you there. And that was how I approached English 103 for twenty years. Or more. IL: This is a wonderful philosophy. Do you feel like you have a set– a guiding philosophies or principles that you've followed? Wanting to help people who have challenging perspectives and challenges that they are overcoming. SW: Right, right. I don't know if I– other than the fact that my first– my basic point is that every student can do it. You can do this. This is not impossible for you. It may feel impossible and it may take twice as long than someone else, but you can become a better writer. Writing is not– Writing is a process, it's not a product, and if you think about that then you are going in the right direction. Students always say look at this piece of writing. My writing is not as good as this piece of writing. That's a product. I'm not interested in the product. How did that writer get to that product? That's what we all need to understand. So, if I can help students realize that the best writers edited, and edited, and rewrote, and rewrote, and rewrote, if I can have students figure that out and understand that their writing can always get better, then I've done my job. Because then the student realizes they're in control. They have the capacity to become a better thinker, a better writer, a better reader. All those three things go together. So, that would be my philosophy, that it's a process not a product. Don't look at the product. IL: That's a wonderful philosophy, and thinking about then, the process, you've been– or were at – Skidmore while technology was changing. SW: Right. IL: That effects many– SW: Huge! Yes, yeah, great question. Yeah, I'm thinking back over my early years. In fact, I always used to tell my students about using a typewriter, and of course they would look at me like I was crazy. They would– I would tell them about the card catalog in the library, where you would have to go an actually look at a piece of three-by-five card to find the book and go in the stacks, and that there was no electronic databases at all, these kinds of things. But, yes. And writing has been incredibly impacted by all the technology. Research, for example, was a– used to be a big frustration for me. I always wanted the students to get into the library to understand the notion of searching out information using, what I considered the old way of thinking about knowledge acquisition. The students taught me so much more because they are so much more facile with the electronic databases, with accessing information. My job for them was to always help them sort out what was the value of the information. It's not quantity, it's quality, and so my shift– I had to shift my focus from here's how you get information – research, etc. – to how do we know this information is valuable, it's correct, it's been reviewed. That's critical nowadays because there's too much information out there and it make students crazy. They grab the first ten things they find, eight of which are bogus. They have to figure out, let's make sure they understand how to validate the data they are gathering and the information that they're reviewing, and to realized that more so now than ever before, the author has to be validated. What is the author's point of view? Who is the author? Is there an agenda behind the author's point of view? Are we getting a balanced approach to the information? So, technology has made students, faculty lives, both more helpful, more easier, but also there are much more responsibility that come along with this huge availability of information that we must be responsible for figuring out what's valid and what isn't. IL: That's a great– That's really interesting for me to hear about the shift in research, because that is such a big part of student life now. SW: Exactly. I mean, huge, huge amounts. Students do their research in their dorm rooms. That's not the way I did any of my research as an undergraduate or as a graduate student. Or as a teacher! Even as a professor I would be in the library, I still an in the library. It feels right to me to be in the library, but I'm becoming a relic. And students who are– the young faculty who are coming on board, they do their research just like our undergraduates do now. So it's becoming a little more seamless. We older folks are fading away [laughs] and moving into– we understand that times are changing. IL: So we're wrapping up the interview here. Is there anything that we haven't covered that you would like to cover? SW: No. I'm glad you asked about China because I totally forget about my China experience which was amazing. As I said at the beginning, I think that my profession trajectory is so uniquely a part of the Skidmore philosophy. I don't know of another institution that would have allowed me, encouraged me, championed me, to do the kinds of things I have done at Skidmore over thirty-three years. It's a testament to Skidmore's creative thought matters slogan that they allow an individual like me, a faculty like me, to do, to think, to work with students, to incorporate, to invite different populations of students into the Skidmore learning experience. And I can't thank the college enough for that. It's been a terrific experience for me. My children, who did not go to Skidmore, they think very, very warmly of this place, and understand how much it's meant to me and it has affected them too as they've watched me do my teaching the way I have. So, I thank Skidmore a great deal for that opportunity. IL: wonderful. So thank you very much Sandy. SW: You're welcome, you're welcome, Isabel. This has been a great pleasure, and good luck on the project. IL: Thank you very much. February 5, 2020 Interview Isabel M.R. Long: My name is Isabel Long. Today is February 5th, 2020 and I'm here with Sandra Walter in library 126 – sorry, 128C. We're on Skidmore College campus. We are here to do interview two of two in our series for the Saratoga Skidmore memory project. So just to give a brief overview of what we previously covered, we talked about the prison program that ran at Saratoga, in– with the local prison for a while, and we talked about graduate programs which Sandy was head for a while. We talked about her time teaching EN103, and traveling to China and working in China, and then teaching her travel writing class. Sandy Welter: All good. [Both laugh.] All right. Thanks for reminding me. IL: You're welcome. It was a fabulous conversation. SW: It was, I enjoyed it very much. IL: I'm glad, I did too. So, I have just a couple things to follow up with [SW: Sure.] that I'd love some clarification. So, one of the things you mentioned very briefly right at the end of our conversation was your sons' connection with Skidmore. You mentioned they felt very connected to college even though we did not attend here. SW: Right. IL: Could you elaborate on their connections with Skidmore? SW: Well, as you know, I live right in Saratoga Springs. They were born and raised here in Saratoga. And in the early days of Skidmore, both my husband, at that time, and I were affiliated with Skidmore, he in the counseling center and me– I was, at that time, teaching in the public schools, but was involved with bringing my kids to campus for various projects and activities that happened here on campus. It was a much smaller community back then than it is now, and so the kids, my children, felt very much as though Skidmore was a sort of home away from home. When I started teaching here full time, they, um, they use my office as a great after school drop off place, sometimes, to stop in on their way off to a soccer game, or practice, or a bike ride with some friends. And so, while they did not necessarily participate, um, educationally in the activities, they did- they did fully appreciate the community that Skidmore offered all of them, the faculty and staff that lived- that lived and worked here. They used the library regularly, they loved to the library, and, uh, you know, they had many friends whose parents were also involved at Skidmore, and so it was a sort of a mini community. So that's sort of what I meant, was I think Skidmore was an extension of– they felt as comfortable here on the Skidmore campus as I would downtown, or at the high school, or the other places that they were active in. IL: Wonderful, thank you. One of the things you mentioned is that your former husband worked at Skidmore. SW: He did. Yep. IL: Yeah, so, from my understanding from our last review you joined the working body of the Skidmore community later on. SW: Right, exactly. I came to Skidmore as a new bride, actually. My husband, at the time, he and I got married right after– I got married right out of college, actually. He got the first– the job as the first director of counseling center here at Skidmore. Skidmore didn't have a counseling center in 1971. They were about– they had just started to accept men. There was a clear need for a network for support for students. The student body was moving to the new campus. When I first came in 1971, my husband's office was in downtown, in the old– on the old campus. Many of the activities of course we're still here at the new– I called the new campus, the campus. And, so, I came, as a new bride. My husband was working at Skidmore and I was in graduate school. I was doing my graduate work at SUNI Albany. So, I did my graduate work and finished. After finishing my graduate work, I got a job teaching in the Saratoga Springs high school, and taught there, and was tenured there for the next six– five or six years. At that point I had two small children and did not go back to teach full-time. And by the mid 80s, the early 80s my children were two and five. They were starting to go off to school or school in kindergarten, and I was anxious to get back to the workforce. I had many friends here at Skidmore, through my husband, and I was invited to come and work at UWW, and then in the English Department. So, it was an interestingly slow transition to Skidmore for me. I started actually as a faculty wife, as an employee's wife, but then came on as a– as a full-time employee and faculty member. IL: Thank you for elaborating. SW: Sure. IL: There's several pieces of your comments I really want to touch on. SW: Yeah. IL: We're going to go back to a couple of the them. SW: Sure. IL: But first that I think is relevant– kind of in chronological order, working backwards, is the transition to a co-educational school for Skidmore. SW: Right. IL: You were here right as that was happening. [SW: Yeah, yes.] Was there a culture shift that was going on? SW: Yeah. IL: Could you help me understand what the campus atmosphere was like? SW: Yeah, yeah. It was– it was a huge culture shift. I came from my undergraduate school, Elmira College in western part of New York State, went through exactly the same transition when I was an undergraduate student. So when I started at Elmira it was in all women's college, when I graduated it was a co-educational institution, so in four years at had transition to a co-educational institution. When I got here to Skidmore, right after I had graduated from my undergraduate school, it was also in that exact same transition. So, both Elmira and Skidmore were probably transitioning to a co-educational institution at exactly the same time. And there was a huge cultural shift. I guess the funniest story that I can share with you which I think encapsulates exactly the problem– actually two small stories. The first was, I can always remember my husband coming home and saying, 'Well the men are in the counseling center all the time.' I said, 'Oh dear are they having a terrible time?' He said 'No, actually the problems are fairly soluble. And I said, 'What do you mean?' I said, 'I mean are they are they having major emotional problems?' He said 'No, no.' He said, 'The first problem is that there's no options except ballet in terms of physical education for them, and they were having difficulties explaining to the phys-ed department that they needed more options. And the second was that they couldn't get enough food. That the cafeteria was not serving them large enough portions. That they kept going back, and back, and back and that the cafeteria ladies were used to feeding women, you know young women, and not used to feeding eighteen-year-old boys.' So, he said, 'Once we get those two things straightened out, I think that the mental health of the entire community will probably be a whole lot better.' So that gives you a sense of sort, the small problems that could go in co-education, you know, provided or presented to the college. Obviously, dormitories and space, and those kinds of things. But really, they needed to think about their curriculum, they needed to think about their support services, and I think they've done a great job of doing that over the years. IL: Thank you. So, you mentioned, Elmira going co-ed, and being at Elmira. Could you help me understand what your time at Elmira was like? SW: Sure! I was– I came from a fairly– a very blue-collar working-class community in southern Connecticut. Going– I was the first member of my whole family to go to college. And so, going off to college for me was huge, and the idea in the early 1960s, for me to go off to college, to really have a completely different experience would be to go to a girl school, for me. I don't know why that I was convinced that that was an important thing, but somehow, I was convinced that that was a good thing to do. And so, I started applying applied to many of the women's institutions at the time, and I got into a lot of them. I selected Elmira not because it was the best. Because in retrospect, probably in terms of just in terms of academic caliber, it probably wasn't the strongest of the ones that I had gotten accepted into, but it was the one that was the farthest away from home. And so, I chose that. Because I what I needed to do at that moment, was to prove to myself that I could be a college student and live in an environment completely different than when I was used to. And so, I went to Elmira. It actually was a wonderful, wonderful choice for me. I met some, some fantastic faculty who have– who remained supportive of me for my entire career, and beyond. I met some lovely, lovely women who have remained friends my whole life, in fact just had a reunion with a couple of them, over 50 years of reunion with a bunch of them recently. I went junior year abroad, and so I went to the University of Leicester in England for an entire year, which was an amazing experience for me, and was– and it probably fed my latent desire to all– to travel, to see the world, which I have continued to feed throughout my entire life. So, Elmira was a wonderful experience for me. It prepared me well for graduate school. I went to SUNI Albany and got my degree there, and felt well prepared, and was very happy to be trained in the early 70s to be a teacher, and so I felt as though I had gotten a very good education, even though I think, the reasons I ended up– I initially went there were probably not the best. [Chuckles.] IL: You ended up being there, and then a transitional moment for Elmira. SW: Yeah, yeah it was– of course, anywhere you were. If you were in college in the late 1960s, you were in the midst of a huge revolution, cultural revolution in terms of, of identity and educational opportunities, and politics, and countercultural definitions. This was all so embedded in a college experience at the time. I mean, I started college in 1967, I was at Woodstock in 1969. I was in– I was at the University of Leicester in 1969 and '70, and then I graduated in 1971. So, it was right in the in the heat of all of the activities that were going on campuses across the country so, you couldn't avoid, it is great. IL: If you had to pick kind of a definitive moment of your college experience, what would it be? SW: Well, I think it was the opportunity to go abroad. That was– I mean Elmira is this small little sleeping community in western upstate New York. It doesn't necessarily provide the kinds of– even the simulations that Saratoga does. Saratoga Springs is a culturally rich environment beautiful, beautiful geography. Elmira is not that. Didn't have that kind of opportunity, both visually, geographically, and culturally. So, for me to go abroad and to study, and to be there for a year, was life changing for me. And that– I worked with some fantastic faculty at the university. I met several of them later on, after I finish my degree and have– and stayed in touch with many of them. Most of them are gone now, by now. IL: Could you help me understand the wonderful experience of being at Leicester? SW: Yeah, yup. It was– well it's– it's not– it's a red brick university, that's one of the quality characteristics. It's one of the universities that grew out of the push to enlarge the university system in Britain after the Second World War. It was well, well known for its English literature faculty. Many of the universities of Britain had a particular strength, and so if you were interested in X, Y, or Z you would think to look at, to go to those institutions. Leicester had a very strong English literature and culture department, and I, I was lucky enough to get accepted into that. And so, that to me was life changing. Their educational system, which is much different than United States, in which we took classes once a week, didn't have exams except at the end of the year, met in one on one tutorials with the faculty every week, so you were always had to be prepared, you always had to be ready to be able to speak what you had in your mind well face to face with a full professor, and then, and then prepare for an exam that you would have only at the end of the year. So, it was a very difficult, very different way of learning than I was used to here in the United States. And that taught me a lot about pedagogy, which I put to work when I came here to work at Skidmore. IL: Fantastic. If you could only pick a couple individuals who defined your time at Leicester, who would they be and why? SW: I think that the uh– I think that the Shakespeare professor was particularly wonderful. And I’m not going to remember his name, sorry. [IL: No worries.] I could've– I also took, I took an American history course. Because I was intrigued at the time to see how, how the British taught American history, and that professor also was absolutely fabulous. And showed me a way of looking at history in general, and history of my own country in relationship to Britain that I never had had been given before. So that was exceptionally fine. The third component– the third really important part of my experience at Leicester had really nothing much to do with my faculty as much as it had to do with two groups of students. One was a group of international students that we formed. There were six or seven of us. Two of us from United States, one from Australia, three from Germany, two from Japan, etc. So, we had this group of international students who were international students at Leicester at the time, all studying either in the foreign languages department, or in the history departments. And so, we ended up taking classes with each other and gathered in very informal friendship group throughout the year, because we were the– we were the foreigners, we were the outsiders. And it was– it's fairly small university and so they weren't a lot of us. We've stayed in contact with each other over almost– over almost 50 years now, so I just, in fact, two days ago spoke with the German student who friend of mine, and he's on his way to Japan to meet with Hiroshi, one of our other students. It has been over 50 years. So that group of students has were really influential and showing me how the rest of the world thought. How they think. How do other people in other parts of the world think. And again, that really informs that well how I teach. The other group of students that helped me a huge amount where the women in my dormitory. We lived in a hall, called College Hall, and we were– we ate together. It was part of the system. We would be at least once or twice a week we would eat together and have high tea together. We studied together, often. And again, we have stayed in close contact with each other over all these years. A group of us just had a reunion last year. And went I went back to Britain and saw them for the first time in almost 50 years. And we had a lovely time. Picked up right where we left off. [Chuckles.] IL: That's fantastic. SW: So those kinds of experience, both friend friendships, were as much– as much a influencing force on who I am as a, as a teacher and as a, as a person as my faculty were, and they were also quite wonderful. So. IL: Thank you for sharing. SW: Yep, sure. IL: In your time last year, did you travel elsewhere, were you mostly based there? SW: I did travel. I came at the end of August. Our term started in September. We studied until December, and then they have a big long break. During that break, I traveled a great deal. I visited German students in Germany, I went to Austria and Switzerland, and did some skiing and– I did a lot of traveling. And then, in the– after the break in May, that was after my exams were over, many of the foreign students went home. I had– I, luckily, had saved enough money and then I could actually stay for another couple of months. So, I stayed through August. So, I was gone almost twelve months, and during that time I traveled to Spain, and Italy, France and did more of the southern European traveling, and again met up with many of the students and friends that I had met during the year. I did, I did hike in April. I hiked the Lake District with a with one of my college friends, in Britain. I went to Edinburgh; I went to Glasgow I went to Wales. I did see a great deal of Britain, because it was easy. It's easy to do so because of the train, trains, and it was inexpensive if I had a student pass, I could get anywhere, and I backpacked the whole time. So, I stayed in hostels and it was really inexpensive. I could, I could get around easily under $5 a day. So. I was able to do that as well. IL: With being on campus and involved in student culture in Britain, you define some of the Elmira culture as having the counterculture movement super characteristic [SW: Right.] of the late 60s, early 70s. Was that something that [SW: No.] was distinct? SW: No, yeah. It wasn't– we did not see that as much. I did not see that, at least I don't remember. It's a long time ago. [Chuckles.] I don't remember that at all. And it was funny because, because I was gone in 1969, 1970, I kind of unplugged from the height of the activities that were going on in my country at the time, and I didn't– I was gone a full year from August to August, and that's, that was a long time. That's a lot of– a lot of events occurred during that year that I was not in the in, you know, in my country, to experience. In Britain, it was much less– I was, I was very involved in my local life, and did not necessarily, feel a sense of that counterculture movement at all. IL: So, you went to Woodstock, left for Britain– SW: I did. IL: Was away for a year, and then came back. SW: Exactly, exactly! In fact, I got– I went to Woodstock, and two and half weeks later I left for Britain. And when I got there, everybody at the university said, 'did you go to Woodstock?' And I said, 'I, I did.' And they could not believe it. They said, 'no.' I said 'yeah. I was there.' And I was. [Both laugh.] I was. So, that was– I kind of became sort of instant celebrity for a few weeks. [Laughs.] And then classes start, and then everyone was busy. IL: Was it like a story you told them to, kind of, share what that experience, since they were so interested? SW: Well, well yeah, they asked because it had just happened. I mean, literally just happened, and here's two Americans arriving on their university not, you know, two-and-a-half or three or three weeks after they watched all this on their, on their telly. And here we are, and my friend Jackie and I, Jackie was not at Woodstock, and I arrive at Leicester. And, you know, that's what they wanted to know. Well, what was it like? And so, all I can remember telling them was it was very muddy, 'cause it rained the entire time. I said it was very muddy, and there were lots and lots of people, and it was the most peaceful group of half, quarter million people I've ever seen in my life. Ever. So, you know, it was– of course the music was fabulous. And they wanted to hear did you here so-and-so, and did you hear so-and-so? And I– yep, yep, yep. IL: So, in learning about their culture, they also very– SW: Yes, absolutely. Yeah. IL: So then, when you got back to the US– SW: Yeah. IL: How had your perspective on Elmira, for example, or your life in the US changed? SW: Yeah, and it had changed a great deal. Really good question. You know, I– I realized how–I mean there was a part of me that realized, because I wanted– 'cause I decided to go as far away from home as I could, that staying at home was small. That there was something– it was loving, and wonderful, and I loved my hometown, and my family but there was something about it that was a little stifling for me. And– because nobody ever left. It was a kind of place where everybody was happy being right where they were, and that southern Connecticut was just fine. Just a fine place to be born, and raised, and work, and die. And I'm thinking, no, no I don't think so. Not for me. And so by going off to Elmira and then going to England, that way– it was like, it was like I lit a fire, and that's, as you can imagine, as you know as one of my former travel writing students, you know that I continue to constantly desire to see more and more of the world. This interview had to be postponed because I was in Africa just until a couple of weeks ago. So, I have continued to be just enthralled with the variety and the complexity and the beauty of this world. And that's certainly what Elmira and my experience at Leicester started way back when I didn't know, I mean, didn't know a thing. I was so naive, and so young and so inexperienced that I give– I gotta give myself credit for trying as much as I did even back then, 'cause I think I didn't know what I was doing at all but, it will worked out fine. IL: I'm glad. SW: Yep. IL: Could you kind of describe sort of an average day in your hometown? SW: Ah! An average day my hometown. Well, my hometown was a working class, pretty much exclusively– not exclusively. About 80% Italian, first generation Italian Roman Catholic blue-collar community. Most of the men went off to New Haven and worked as tradesmen or as factory workers. Almost– most of the moms stayed home and took care of their families. I lived in a small post-World War Two little house in a little development where all the houses looked about the same. I walked to school. I walked home for lunch. I walked to my high school. It was– it had a very old downtown center, which of course, because it's Connecticut, it had some pieces of early pre-revolutionary notes– old stone church and an old green and area. But, and there was an old neighborhood. But the large portion of my day was spent in these kind of post-World War Two developments of young families. There were in every house in my neighborhood there was two to four children. And when you– when we walked to school, the whole street was filled with kids. When you walked home, it filled with children. You went home, you put your play clothes on, and you went outside. And you were in the neighborhood playing with friends until your mom called you for dinner, and dinner, homework, and in bed, and then off to school again. My parents owned a little tiny cottage on the shores of Long Island Sound in the town next to where I was, where I grew up, called Branford, and in the summers we would go there. So, I would unplug from this kind of intense, you know, kind of dense family community, kid-oriented, to a much more relaxed, out– get more or less about doors community, where I stayed all summer, with a whole group of families and friends that were not part of the group of neighbors that I grew up with. But I stayed– we stayed in that community. My sister and I grew up in East Haven, we both went to East Haven high school, graduated. My sister actually bought my parents' house when they graduated, and so she stayed there her whole life. She stayed there her life. She never, again, she never left. And that's was not at all atypical. She was friends with all of her high school friends. I was not. I mean, I didn't see my high school friends much 'cause I never– never was home again. And we had different– we had different interests. They were happy to be where they were, and I was not. You know, I wanted to see more. But, I mean, it was it was a lovely childhood. It was lots of fun, and lots of activities. I remember learning to roller-skate on the streets, and interesting things that people can't even imagine. That you rake your leaves. All the families would rake their leaves into the– into the edge of the street, and then you'd burn them. Which of course, God forbid you can't– but never do that now, and that you'd come home, and you'd play in the leaves, and they'd be these little fires in these little embers, and it would get dark and you can remember seeing the embers along the side of the road, and you come in and you smell like, like leaf smoke. These are, you know, these wonderful memories that kids don't have anymore. It's just not a– it's a different life, it's a different environment. But kids have other wonderful things to think about now too, right, so. IL: Do you– is there, kind of, one memorable meal from your childhood you could tell me about? SW: Well, I’m a– I'm from– my grandparents on my mother's side were both Swedish. They were first– they were born in Sweden, came as younger, young people, both my grandfather and my grandmother. My grandmother was a wonderful cook. I can always remember my grandmother making a roast– and they didn't have very much. They were– they had large family, not very much money, and we would go over to my grandparents' house on Sundays sometime, or certainly on a holiday. So, if it was a holiday like, I don't know, Easter, or Christmas, or something, she would make a roast pork. Some kind of a piece of large piece of meat. And there'd be hundreds of grandchildren, seems to me, there wasn't hundreds, but there was a lot of grandchildren, lots of children around. And she would be cooking and baking, and there'd be potatoes and, and she would make– always have– so this, this big piece of meat would come out and I will be sitting in my grandfather would cut it up, he was a carpenter. He built a lot of Yale University in his, in his active years as a carpenter. So, he would take the trolley from Branford, his hometown, to New Haven, work on the buildings at Yale, and then come home again. So, he always remembered– I remember as a child him telling me– we'd take the bus into New Haven, and he'd say, 'you see that? I built that, I built that archer, or I–’ ‘cause he built all the woodwork, he did all the woodwork. Anyway, so, we were at this, at this– he was cutting up the meat, and everybody got a piece of this meat, and then we had roast potatoes and vegetables, etc. And I looked at my grandmother's plate, and always, this was always the case, on my grandmother's plate were all the bones. Just the bones. And I said, 'Grandma, you don't have any meat.' She said, 'Oh, I don't want any of the meat.' She said, 'This is the best part.' And she would pick up and spend the whole meal just nibbling, and sucking, and chewing off all of the good parts of the bones. Now, I can– you know, as a child, I kept thinking, well she just doesn't want to give– she wants to make sure that everybody get some meat, and so she's giving it all to all the children, and she's just being generous. But I think she was right. I actually think she was right, that probably that was really delicious, all of the good roasted bones. The other, other thing that I always remember– my grandmother was really the center of my meal remembrance. My mother was not a very good cook at all, and once I got to be a teenager, I ended up doing a lot of the cooking in my house 'cause my mother really was not, did not like to cook. So many, many of my memorable meals were at my grandmother's. Whenever you walked into my grandmother's house day or night, 8:00 o'clock in the morning, 10:00 o'clock at night, there was always a big pot of coffee perking on her stove. Didn't matter what time it was, it was always hot. and just perking. Hear that little blurp, blurp, and the whole house smelled of coffee. And the other thing you'd always smell is Swedish coffee cakes. She would bake Swedish coffee cakes every morning, and you could smell the cardamom, and the other in– clove, which you put in the coffee cakes, and so there was always, always coffee and always coffee cake in her house, whenever you walked in the house it didn't matter. And you, and you– and Grandma would always let us, the grandchildren, even as little as we were, taste a little sip of coffee, we could taste some. So that was always exciting. IL: Sounds really lovely to have that– to know that you could go and get some coffee. SW: Yes. Grandma was– she always had coffee going, and there was always a coffee cake that she had just taken out of the oven. She was a great cook, and she taught me how to cook. She was the one that taught me how to cook. I remember as I was in college, I went and visited her, and knew or realize that she was getting very old, and so I sat down and asked her to give me her recipes, some of her recipes. She of course, she never measured anything. And I said, 'Well Grandma, show me how you make the rice pudding.' She'd say, 'okay,' and then she would sit there, and she would say, 'Well first you take some rice.' And I said, 'Well, how much rice?' 'You know, enough.' [Laughing] And I say, 'This isn't going to work.' I said, 'I'll tell you what, you make the rice pudding, and let me watch you, and then I'll be able to figure it out.' So as she was making it, I would make her– I would ask her to stop, just before she would pour the milk in, or pour the rice in, or pour the seasoning in, and measure it. I would measure it because she didn't– it would be this is how much it is, whatever it was. I said, 'Okay,' and so I would measure it and then write it all down. I had to cut some of the recipes still. IL: Do you have a favorite recipe you made? SW: I like her rice pudding. That's what we– she always made the best rice pudding. And it's– again, that they were very poor, and so they used everything up. So rice, if you made rice, you always made rice pudding with it. And she would make oatmeal, oatmeal cookies because she'd make oatmeal or porridge for the, all the kids and then whatever was left she would make something. She would make delicious dumplings. She was a good dumpling maker. So these are some of the things I remember. Easy, inexpensive meals. IL: It– food's always a really wonderful, I think, part of family life generally. SW: Yes, yeah. IL: Is there kind of a, memorable meal you've had with your kids since then? SW: My own kids. Well, you know, we– yeah. I, I like to cook. I'm, I very much like to cook. And because I had two sons, and no daughters, I just taught them how to cook this, because why not? And they were interested. So, and they are now in their 40s, and so. One of the things I had– one of my sons, when he was seven, after having done a research paper at elementary school or kindergarten about animals, you know, and realizing that people ate animals, he decided he was going to be a vegetarian, at age eight, or so. And I said, 'That's fine, you know, that's fine. If that's what you want, and then we'll do.' Then the other son, he was like, you know, 'No I’m not going to do that.' So, I was making– I tried to make a vegetarian option for, for my– for Josh, the younger one. The problem was of course, is he didn't like vegetables. [IL laughs.] So, I said, 'Sweetie, if you're going to be a vegetarian you have to eat vegetables, and you have to figure out how to get some protein.' So, he said, 'Well, I like pasta.' So, I mean– and he liked peanut butter. So, there were many years, I think, in his life where he subsisted on pasta with tomato sauce, which had some vegetables, and peanut butter sandwiches. He's now, you know, six-two, and you know, is perfectly well, well-endowed in terms of a healthy strong man, and his– I think one of our favorite meals was we used to make homemade pasta. And with a with a roller, with a machine hand-cranked pasta rolling machine, and he was, got very good at– now he has twin seven-year-olds, little girls, and he, every month, every Sunday they make homemade pasta together. So, it's carried on several, you know, several generations now, homemade pasta which is one of the twins' favorite meals. And pizza, lots of pizza. They love pizza, which of course Josh makes from scratch, so. So, that kind of shaped our, our meals a lot. IL: Meals are always prepared in kitchens. That's always something– I found now, being in college that that's very important [SW: Yeah.] space sometimes. So, with your home, would you define the kitchen– how, how would you define your kitchen? SW: Yeah, it's the center of our house. And still is, even without the kids there, still the center of our house. When I entertain, we all end up in the kitchen, for some reason, because I have a big kitchen, I have a cooking and working kitchen, 'cause I like to cook, and I liked other people to be in my kitchen with me when I'm working and cooking. My kitchen is also an open space into a family room. So, there's a, a couch and a TV, and bookcases, and things to read and do as well as the kitchen area which is kitchen-y. So, it's a wing of my house that's probably the most used. My kids, when we did– my house is a 1791 farmhouse. This is this old farmhouse. When we first bought it, the kitchen was kind of an old Victorian 19th century add-on to the original revolutionary-time farmhouse, and it was not in very good shape. So, we tore it down very soon after we bought the house and built this bigger space, and in that space we made the kitchen area, but we made it because we knew that we wanted, also, the whole family to be part of it. So we made this larger space for the family living. And when the children were small, it was their play area. There was nothing in there with a big rug, and all their toys, and so that they could play, we could talk, I could cook, they could come over and help me cook, or go back and play. So, it was a good space for when they were younger. When they got older, and moved in my books, and a TV, and things like that so we could use it in that way as well. So, it's a big part of my– it's still a big part of my– big heart of, the heart of my house. So you've been to the house, so you, you remember what it was like. It's a– it's a working, it's a good working kitchen. IL: It's very beautiful. SW: Oh, thanks. [Chuckles.] IL: So, I'm thinking that about, your house that you very much made your own, making the kitchen the way you want it. SW: Right. IL: That's– How would you say that's defined your experience in Saratoga? SW: Yeah. That's a really good question because in 1971, we'll circle back to my graduating from Elmira, and getting married, and my then-newly-minted husband saying, 'I just got this job at Skidmore College in Saratoga Springs. We're going to move– we have to move there.' And I then change my graduate work to SUNI Albany, rather than other places. And I came up here, and Saratoga in 1971 was not a very attractive city. Skidmore was struggling. It was just starting to try to get its feet on the ground, in terms of co-education. It was changing its location from the old campus to the new campus. It was, it was struggling, it was. And the city itself was really struggling. It was very depressed, and depressing. I just got here and looked around and said, 'Oh my gosh. I really have to love this man to come and live here [laughs] because I don't know about this place.' And you know it– and it was, it was difficult at first because it was a difficult place, but within a year we made wonderful friends. We lived in several houses in the community before we moved to the farmhouse that I currently living now. I loved working in the high school. I met wonderful community leaders and friends, and other teachers. My graduate work was excellent at SUNI Albany, and I ended up lot starting to love the upstate New York area. I got to know the Adirondacks, so I got to understand lake environments, 'cause I was so used to being near the ocean that I missed the saltwater. I missed the ocean. And the lakes seemed to be not an adequate substitute. But in fact, it– they were. And I learned to really love this area. And Saratoga, at that time, was then beginning to really open up, and grow. It was a time when opportunities to do interesting things within the community were available as well. If you were young, and energetic, and had ideas, people were around that said, 'Well let's try it,' because there was– We needed to do something. So, I met a group of women, both faculty wives and community women. We did things like starting the gifted and talented program out of the high school in elementary school. We worked on art festivals where we took all of the abandoned, that, not abandoned, the for lease, vacant storefronts on Broadway, and there were many, if you can imagine. You think about Broadway now, it's absolutely chockablock with wonderful opportunities for businesses. There were places in blocks of Saratoga, of Broadway that were empty. That these businesses were just empty. And we put together things like an arts festival where high school kids could come in, and we would, we would display their artwork. We would have– we would bring in local artists to do demonstrations and classes. We started working with Historical Society. So, there was stuff that we could do, that young– if we were young and had energy, they were willing to have us do, and we did. And so that was lovely, and it was a way of, again, validating my interests and my energies, and my children could see their community really growing. And it was a lovely place to live. I mean, they're just nice people here. Just, just really nice people in this community, both here at Skidmore as well as in the, in the town itself. IL: Is there any particular project in town that you're proud of? SW: Well, I– you know, I'm very proud of the– I worked, early days, with the, with the gifted and talented program. Phyllis Aldridge, a wonderful friend who's still alive, still here in town, organized this project where we were able to take, present after school opportunities for talented young students in many of the elementary schools, and we would meet at the library, the library which was downtown, and we would do courses. I did a poetry writing course, I did a journal writing course. There was art classes, there were music classes. That I'm very proud of. We did, I did a journalism course where we put together a newspaper. We visited the Saratogian which was the local newspaper, is the local newspaper, and brought all the kids there. So this is the kind of thing that I'm very proud of, and it's still going. That, that's great. That kind of grassroots effort, I think, is so, so satisfying. And the town is big, much, much larger now and much more complex, but still, I think, it still has that kind of heart of wanting to do the best for its citizens. IL: That's fantastic, thank you for describing that. I'm– have covered most of what I have on my list here. SW: Sure. IL: But I have one question that kind of jumps a little bit away from what we were discussing. SW: Sure, yeah, yeah. IL: When did you first realize you liked writing? SW: Ah! That's a great question. I want to make sure I'm very honest and clear about this, I'm going to think. Well, I was always a reader. So that's first, first and foremost. And I, as you know, and as I've told my, all of my writing students, you can't be a good writer and less you're a good reader. You have to read because the word on the page becomes your models, and becomes your image– the images and the, and the cadences of the other writers as they write on the page become the voices in your head, and that's really, really terrific. So, I was always an avid, avid reader. I think that I never thought of myself as a writer primarily because it never was ever encouraged. It was again, if you think back, I've lived in this kind of community where it was not that sort of writing. Oh, you know, that's, that's fancy stuff, you know, that's writing is fancy stuff. I think I started writing in elementary school because I got a diary, for a gift, like a Christmas gift or something, or birthday present, and I, and I got a pen pal. And so, the idea of having a pen pal in another city– I got two pen pals when I was little girl, one was in another city in New England, someplace. I guess one of my teachers hooked us, you know, hooked the students up with a pen pal, and another was a pen pal in India. Don't ask me how I got that pen pal in India, but I got one, and I always remember loving to write letters to her and getting her letters back 'cause the stamps were so fabulous. The stamps were the best. And the paper felt so different than the paper that I had in the United States. So, those experiences of having a pen pal and having a diary actually probably were the things that started me off on writing, for myself. When I started teaching, I was always involved in, in student newspapers. Forever. From elementary school, to junior high school, to high school, to when I was in college, I was always on the newspaper staff. So, when I started teaching, although I wasn't a writing teacher, I was always teaching all the optional experiences of either journalism or being the newspaper club advisor. So that pushed me in that direction. As I started to do that, I realized that no one was actually teaching these kids how to write at all. It was just by osmosis that they were writing. That they were in English class, but writing wasn't really what was described. When I went to graduate school, I spent a lot of time learning pedagogy around, or, or theory around writing. Writing theory. How does– how do people think about writing, and how do they plant, how do they train themselves to be writers. Which is– what are some strategies. And that turned into some really interesting projects that I did with my high school students. That's what got me started in working with college students. So it was a kind of gradual process, both for me, and then through my early teaching experience to, to the needs of the Skidmore community, and I– because I like working with international students, I started working with international students first with my writing has a tutor, and then transitioned into teaching, working with the larger campus community with writing. IL: Thank you for sharing. I'm– I have a follow-up question with that. You mentioned that your community was fairly dismissive of an interest in writing. SW: Well, yeah. It was– I didn't– I don't remember in my high school, I'm thinking about my high school, my own high school, I don't remember, I mean, I think– the teachers that I remember encouraging me to, to love language was my Latin teacher. My Latin teacher was the person who really inspired me to love language. My English teachers were great, and I remember writing, and they all said, 'That's great, that's great,' but I don't think anybody ever gave me any actual constructive criticism. I don't think anybody sat down with me and said, 'You know, you could make this better.' It was always like, 'It's fine, it's good.' I was an A student, I was always. But I thought, well that doesn't help me. That isn't helping me. If I want to get better, you're just telling me that this is okay, and I'm done. And so, that's what I meant. I didn't– I don't, I don't remember my high school as being a place where creative writing, and in writing in general was encouraged. I could, I could be missing 'cause it was 100 years ago, so, I don't know. [Laughs.] But I'm remembering it mostly as a, something, a love that was nurtured mostly inside of me, and not from an external source until I started working with other students. Then I realized, oh I really love this. IL: Thank you. But, I– Before we kind of wrapped things up, [SW: Yep.] is there anything you'd like to share? Things that have come up in this interview? SW: When you have– you know, you know more about me than, [laughs] than anybody in Saratoga Springs right now! No, it's been a pleasure, actually a pleasure, Isabel talking with you about both my career at Skidmore and my life in Saratoga, and my life as a, as a youngster, and how I got to where I am. And it was, it's actually great fun to think about this because right before I came in here for, to have our conversation, I was FaceTiming with one of my children and my grandchildren, and as I was describing some of these stories I was telling you, I was thinking of them and saying, 'I should tell these stories to these kids. These kids don't know any of these stories.' And they need to know them, I think. So that's– you've peaked my interest ant gotten me excited about sharing some of this with, with them as well. IL: Well I'm so glad, and thank you so much for sharing this with me. SW: You're welcome. IL: It's been an honor and a privilege. SW: My pleasure, and I hope your project in this larger project continues to go as well as, as it seems to be going. IL: Thank you very much. SW: Okay, thank you. Original Format The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data Oral history interview Duration Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.) Interview 1 – 54:04 Interview 2 – 54:03 Bit Rate/Frequency Rate at which bits are transferred (i.e. 96 kbit/s would be FM quality audio) 128 kbit/s Time Summary A summary of an interview given for different time stamps throughout the interview November 23, 2019 interview 00:00:00 Header 00:01:55 University Without Walls 00:03:20 University Without Walls prison program 00:05:20 "it changed lives" 00:06:40 Master's program at Skidmore 00:07:24 Master's program closed, and Welter started full-time at the Skidmore English Department 00:08:11 Last ten years of Welter's career 00:09:23 Question on University Without Walls (UWW) 00:13:34 Welter's job with UWW 00:14:09 UWW national forum 00:14:58 Prison program set-up 00:16:36 How Welter became involved in the prison program. 00:18:33 "They were like sponges." 00:19:52 "As close to normal as we could create" for the prison program. 00:20:12 Writing a monograph on behavior, she never felt in danger. 00:23:00 "game plan or guidebook" 00:23:42 Amazing students, hundreds positively impacted by the program. 00:25:12 "All you need to do is let him speak" [on a student of the prison program]. 00:26:18 Master of Liberal Studies (MLS) program 00:28:16 Welter hired as an advisor. 00:30:01 Why the MLS program closed. 00:30:49 On-campus teaching 00:32:00 Not ready to retire, travel writing course. 00:33:40 "Since retirement" 00:34:40 Teaching in China 00:38:26 Literary magazine in China 00:40:00 Welter wanted to go to China because of international Chinese students at Skidmore. 00:41:40 Teaching EN 103 00:42:39 Welter likes "working with students who are challenged." 00:44:30 On the discipline of writing. 00:46:33 "Every student can do this." 00:47:51 Changing technology, writing incredibly impacted. 00:50:48 Technology added ease and responsibility. 00:52:25 Her professional trajectory reflection and in connection with Skidmore philosophy. 00:53:32 How Welter's children think of Skidmore. 00:54:02 END February 5, 2020 interview 00:00:00 Header 00:00:24 Summary of previous interview. 00:01:14 Sons' connection with Skidmore. 00:03:12 Came to Skidmore "as a new bride." 00:04:36 Teaching in the Saratoga Springs High School. 00:05:04 "[A]nxious to get back to the workforce." 00:06:00 Going co-educational, Skidmore and Elmira. 00:08:25 Choosing Elmira. 00:11:27 Cultural revolution in the 1960s. 00:12:18 Going abroad. 00:13:15 University of Leicester. 00:16:06 International students at Leicester. 00:17:37 Women in her dormitory. 00:18:46 Traveling while studying abroad. 00:20:53 Missing events in 1969-70. 00:21:56 Experience with Woodstock. 00:23:39 Returning to the US and "staying at home was small." 00:24:37 "...lit a fire" of interest in seeing the world. 00:25:54 Talking about hometown and childhood. 00:30:14 Her maternal grandparents, eating a meal at their house. 00:32:58 Grandmother's house. 00:34:17 Cooking with her grandmother. 00:36:17 Cooking with her sons. 00:38:44 The kitchen is the center of her house. 00:41:00 Coming to Saratoga and being involved with happenings in town. 00:45:15 The gifted and talented program. 00:46:57 How Sandy's love of writing grew. 00:52:49 Closing comments. 00:54:03 END Record Contributor Individual who prepared the item and/or edited it. Isabel M.R. Long Record Creation Date Day/Month/Year of record creation/edit 7/2/2020 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Interviews with Sandra "Sandy" Welter Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource February 5, 2020 Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Skidmore College Language A language of the resource Eng Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Sandy Welter Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Isabel M.R. Long Description An account of the resource This life history interview shares the story of Sandra "Sandy" Welter, who worked as director of University Without Wall (UWW) prison program, administrator for the Master of Arts and Liberal Studies (MALS), and English professor at Skidmore College from the early 80s, until she retired in 2017. After a childhood in in East Haven, Connecticut and studies at Elmira College that included a year abroad at Leicester University (UK), Sandy came to Saratoga Springs in the early 70s as a Skidmore College spouse, and worked at Saratoga High School. When teaching in and advising students of the UWW prison program, Sandy supported non-traditional, non-residential graduate and undergraduate students and taught EN 103 (Writing Seminar) for many years. She ended her tenure at Skidmore teaching a travel-writing course, reflecting her own love for travel. https://www.ssmp.mdocs.skidmore.edu/files/original/eb92d7dcc1c2c812a9e6fa1876dd0958.mp4 9031f78cb8d8af947955acd649ff74f8 https://www.ssmp.mdocs.skidmore.edu/files/original/5eaa129b65bb3ae359350118c56061a6.pdf baf863f7e37ca4fc41db23eacbdeee3e https://www.ssmp.mdocs.skidmore.edu/files/original/20d795144eb6938acc7b6b6e3e1a719a.pdf 0b11420b6f22cdcc6575d695a9c11410 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Saratoga County Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Interview with Anne Clothier Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource April 27, 2021 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Isabelle Jaber Abstract A summary of the resource. Anne Clothier is a historian who works as the Director of Education at the Brookside Museum, home of Saratoga County History Center in Ballston Spa. In this interview, she discussed. maternal medicine, medical history, and its connection to the COVID-19 pandemic (Cholera, Chickenpox, Spanish Flu), and the role of women in establishing formal healthcare in the County. She also discussed the importance of framing and agriculture, and the roles of various demographics, Native Americans, Native American-Quebecois people, objects related to medicine, Native Americans, and industry, women in religious communities, and religion and history in Saratoga County. agriculture chickenpox cholera hospital medicine native american native american-quebecois obstetrics reproductive health spanish flu women women's health https://www.ssmp.mdocs.skidmore.edu/files/original/a0a36b1e4b2db6720be52c5119d633ef.jpg c02ded014d6ef7b5b3cc9b2963d68ce8 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Saratoga County Still Image A static visual representation. Examples include paintings, drawings, graphic designs, plans and maps. Recommended best practice is to assign the type Text to images of textual materials. Record Contributor Individual who prepared the item and/or edited it. Mattie Saulnier Record Creation Date Day/Month/Year of record creation/edit 5/5/21 Repository Name of the repository that holds the original item. Brookside Museum, Saratoga County Historical Society (Ballston Spa, N.Y.) URL https://brookside.pastperfectonline.com/photo/2DEFC327-04CA-4795-935F-329318531371 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Portrait of Conductor Description An account of the resource Formal portrait of conductor, possibly a member of the Haight family, dressed in Boston & Main railroad uniform. Scribbled note on the back includes " Victory Mills Express" Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource J. W. Gibson, Hoosick Falls Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Mattie Saulnier Provenance A statement of any changes in ownership and custody of the resource since its creation that are significant for its authenticity, integrity, and interpretation. The statement may include a description of any changes successive custodians made to the resource. Brookside Museum conductor railroad transportation https://www.ssmp.mdocs.skidmore.edu/files/original/9f7fbbcc921625ac5f6d9fa9f975a123.png 38da98a10e6e83e899d1846c55c67fec Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Saratoga County Still Image A static visual representation. Examples include paintings, drawings, graphic designs, plans and maps. Recommended best practice is to assign the type Text to images of textual materials. Original Format The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data Photograph Record Contributor Individual who prepared the item and/or edited it. Miles Herman Record Creation Date Day/Month/Year of record creation/edit 5/7/2021 Date Depicted (Display) Text version of the date field -- can handle non-numeric characters (ca. 1850s, [1844]). This is the content date field that will display. August 13, 1964 Abstract (& Historical Note) Natural language description of the map itself, providing a general summary of the map and noting significant features. This is the place to introduce keywords and proper names that might be of interest to researchers, but do not warrant a separate subject heading of their own. Inset maps should also be described here, with their full titles given. Whenever historical or explanatory information is available, it should be included here as well. This includes information about items or events that are larger than just the map itself; for example, information about cartographers, a description of the map's historical significance (for example, "This is the first printed map of Saratoga Springs"), notes on the laws leading to a map's creation, descriptions of changes in state or county lines, information about the organization that created the map, how often maps were updated, and information about the map's creation and publication. Many State Archives maps have historical information in the catalog record -- that should be captured in this field. Golf - Arnold Palmer - Gary Player - Exhibition - Nashville - Fundraising - Reopening - SPAC - Saratoga Spa Golf Course - Health - Wellness URL https://www.tennessean.com/picture-gallery/sports/2016/09/26/arnold-palmer-in-middle-tennessee-over-the-years/91107828/ Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Arnold Palmer Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource August 13, 1964 Is Part Of A related resource in which the described resource is physically or logically included. The Tennessean Description An account of the resource This is photo of Arnold Palmer and Gary Player at the Richland Country Club prior to an exhibition in Tennessee. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource J.T. Phillips https://www.ssmp.mdocs.skidmore.edu/files/original/51c8260a65b6b6bee5980b67e8d7f8d6.pdf 34032a5313d227bdef5c135d6dd8ca9c PDF Text Text ������ https://www.ssmp.mdocs.skidmore.edu/files/original/fdae4f240246aa185c4b10712f8c7f29.png 61c1f4072a4548952ab8fb7e6c30bbb1 https://www.ssmp.mdocs.skidmore.edu/files/original/ea4b5bd54bb299d48f872ab8616cc253.png edc6a65b3f698c89fe1df6ca94093606 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Mapping Saratoga Springs Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1700- Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Original Format The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data Letter Repository Name of the repository that holds the original item. Private Collection Theme For browsing purposes, we are borrowing and adapting themes from the Library of Congress's American Memory project. Manuscript Maps Education Civic Life Record Contributor Individual who prepared the item and/or edited it. Allie Smith Record Creation Date Day/Month/Year of record creation/edit 10/10/2014 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource First-year student B. Jaeger's letter to friend C.K. (Charlie) Lonsdale, 09/28/1947 Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1947 Language A language of the resource eng Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Jaeger, B. Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource manuscript letter, 4 sheets + 1 sheet https://www.ssmp.mdocs.skidmore.edu/files/original/748554e93a20a2c92cf3b21a9dfba295.png 4913b70da521bd9c0072cdee7b2152ec Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Dora Daley https://www.ssmp.mdocs.skidmore.edu/files/original/4dd06166e4e45cf7afed7dbb313f5a76.mp3 27d5f2ba820b87c7eb64ee444859a8af https://www.ssmp.mdocs.skidmore.edu/files/original/bfb881fa70c9843716140ed8b872531c.mp3 86ef23ce24c783fa402d5fcd4d31bab9 https://www.ssmp.mdocs.skidmore.edu/files/original/d9eb2795d37e727f80b23ec32338b447.pdf 47e25a35b5e2dea45a1d84dd936edbb1 https://www.ssmp.mdocs.skidmore.edu/files/original/1d3049984c6f7c8be345c4f28661637b.pdf 44d424a573dddf552f141de620f16d61 https://www.ssmp.mdocs.skidmore.edu/files/original/10cfb0c43b48723d4dc861b03c41508f.pdf 7570344b29b17da9f088284b63e9b1b9 https://www.ssmp.mdocs.skidmore.edu/files/original/4e0a60a9553c61ed801200073a0cecb8.pdf bef3040bab495d4811821378145c0b54 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Oral History Description An account of the resource Many people who have worked or studied at Skidmore College or lived in Saratoga Springs or the surrounding area carry the memories that help us tell the stories of our communities. This collection offers a glimpse into our past in the voices of those who have shared their stories. Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Interviewer The person(s) performing the interview James Eason, Lois Celeste Interviewee The person(s) being interviewed Dora Daley Original Format The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data Zoom meeting Duration Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.) 1:12:84 Location The location of the interview Skidmore College (Zoom), Saratoga Springs (Zoom) Transcription Any written text transcribed from a sound Attached Time Summary A summary of an interview given for different time stamps throughout the interview Attached Record Contributor Individual who prepared the item and/or edited it. James Eason Record Creation Date Day/Month/Year of record creation/edit 11/18/20 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Interview with Dora Daley Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource October 30, 2020 November 14, 2020 Language A language of the resource English Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource James Eason Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource James Eason Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource Mp4 Type The nature or genre of the resource Oral History Abstract A summary of the resource. This is a interview with Dora Daley through the Saratoga Springs Senior Center about her life spanning from childhood to recent years. Description An account of the resource Dora Daley is a lifetime resident of Saratoga County. In this interview, she describes how In her youth she worked at a newspaper and as a young adult she worked at the paper mill in Mechanicsville. She left work to raise her children. Dora has then surrounded herself with a large, close, and caring family. oral history fall 2020 https://www.ssmp.mdocs.skidmore.edu/files/original/5928f507b5fe722557c16b9ff5ef67dc.jpg 38418ca06c69db005390199d3cc0ef66 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Saratoga County Still Image A static visual representation. Examples include paintings, drawings, graphic designs, plans and maps. Recommended best practice is to assign the type Text to images of textual materials. Record Contributor Individual who prepared the item and/or edited it. Grace Beneke Record Creation Date Day/Month/Year of record creation/edit May 7, 2021 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource The Finish at Saratoga Race Course Now Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2019 Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Saratoga.com, <a href="https://www.saratoga.com/race-track/dress-code/">https://www.saratoga.com/race-track/dress-code/</a> Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Jeff Nudi https://www.ssmp.mdocs.skidmore.edu/files/original/cbc82ce88c5b21d8e9a78f3950396b6b.jpg 33b1f7a7f02f95030ca6551d3bd8af82 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Photo: Trish at Arches National Park, Moab UT https://www.ssmp.mdocs.skidmore.edu/files/original/af2d61a9aa474a3b66da98ca7292879c.mp3 59e8e837133886fd596a6c1eca6cb52f Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Interview with Trish Miller Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource The Flurry Festival Description An account of the resource The Flurry Festival is a three day music and dance Festival that takes place in Saratoga Springs in February. The festival holds workshops, performances, dances, and jam sessions in the city center and throughout the town. The Flurry first started as a dance festival for contra dancing but has expanded to musicians and spans all genres of music and dance as well as encompassing family friendly events such as storytelling. Language A language of the resource English Subject The topic of the resource The Flurry Festival Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Jennifer Davies, Clara-Sophia Daly, Dustin Foote, Amanda Muir, Tess Olcott, Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource Original recording wav file, 16 bit 44.1 khz Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Interviewer The person(s) performing the interview Jennifer Davies Interviewee The person(s) being interviewed Trish Miller Location The location of the interview Lucy Scribner Library, Room 128b, Skidmore College Original Format The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data Digital Audio Recording Duration Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.) 43 minutes Record Contributor Individual who prepared the item and/or edited it. Jennifer Davies Record Creation Date Day/Month/Year of record creation/edit 06/12/2016 Time Summary A summary of an interview given for different time stamps throughout the interview Log: Interview with Trish Miller 0:28 – Discusses her early background with music and dance, how she first became interested in dancing and folk music 2:55 – Becomes a member of touring dance troupe The Green Grass Cloggers, which is how she met her husband John Kirk because he was one of the troupe’s musicians 4:20 – Trish discusses what brought her to Saratoga Springs, and what the town was like when she first came here, Paul Davis 7:00 – how Saratoga Springs has affected The Flurry and vice versa 9:20 – how interest in folk music has evolved over the past few decades 12:00 – Trish’s first experience at the Flurry Festival, Paul Rosenburg 15:50 – Ways that the festival has changed, Hudson Mohawk Traditional Dancers 18:35 – sense of community from within and beyond the festival 21:55 – what a participant/visitor of the Flurry could expect to experience (both positive and negative), the energy/atmosphere of the festival’s environment 28:06 – discusses some various styles of folk music and dance at the festival, Jay Ungar, Pierre Chartrand 32:00 – discusses some of the international participants in the festival 34:20 – discusses Bosnian performers at festival and speaks a bit about the Bosnian culture present in nearby New York state 35:35 – discuses hip-hop stomp dance group from Albany and how the group expresses ideas of social justice and politics 37:55 – recollects on the year that Saratoga lost power due to snow right as the festival was starting and how the dedicated participants overcame this obstacle 41:20 – Trish’s hopes for Skidmore to become more involved in the Festival Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Interview with Trish Miller Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 12/05/2016 Language A language of the resource English Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Jennifer Davies Date Created Date of creation of the resource. 12/05/2016 Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available DS 113A: Storytellling Interviewing, Skidmore College Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource Original recording wav file, 16 bit 44.1 khz Description An account of the resource Trish Miller, dedicated Flurry participant and teacher of banjo at Skidmore College, describes her background in folk music and traditional dance and discusses her experiences with the annual Flurry Festival in Saratoga Springs. Subject The topic of the resource Saratoga Springs -- Flurry Festival -- History dance music oral history The Flurry Festival https://www.ssmp.mdocs.skidmore.edu/files/original/a050dd6fd87b98ad4e13682703be54b3.jpg b0046eab2b5c04a10808b8e60985366d Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Saratoga County Still Image A static visual representation. Examples include paintings, drawings, graphic designs, plans and maps. Recommended best practice is to assign the type Text to images of textual materials. Record Contributor Individual who prepared the item and/or edited it. Mattie Saulnier Record Creation Date Day/Month/Year of record creation/edit 5/5/21 Repository Name of the repository that holds the original item. Brookside Museum, Saratoga County Historical Society (Ballston Spa, N.Y.) URL https://brookside.pastperfectonline.com/photo/4E07954D-1525-4A34-AD94-015139317551 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Batchellerville Bridge Description An account of the resource Batchellerville Bridge across Sacandaga Resevoir from Conklingville Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Jesse Sumner Wooley Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Mattie Saulnier Provenance A statement of any changes in ownership and custody of the resource since its creation that are significant for its authenticity, integrity, and interpretation. The statement may include a description of any changes successive custodians made to the resource. Brookside Museum bridge dam sacandaga lake transportation https://www.ssmp.mdocs.skidmore.edu/files/original/a84715d59234c146f27da82d7e12d1d0.jpg 633192f6f7607a1124c04272bf6c59c4 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Saratoga County Still Image A static visual representation. Examples include paintings, drawings, graphic designs, plans and maps. Recommended best practice is to assign the type Text to images of textual materials. Record Contributor Individual who prepared the item and/or edited it. Mattie Saulnier Record Creation Date Day/Month/Year of record creation/edit 6/5/21 Repository Name of the repository that holds the original item. Brookside Museum, Saratoga County Historical Society (Ballston Spa, N.Y.) URL <a href="https://brookside.pastperfectonline.com/photo/1E96980A-E06B-443E-AF09-454931592154">https://brookside.pastperfectonline.com/photo/1E96980A-E06B-443E-AF09-454931592154</a> Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource President Taft on boat Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1909 Description An account of the resource President Taft on board a cruising boat on Lake Champlain. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Jesse Sumner Wooley Provenance A statement of any changes in ownership and custody of the resource since its creation that are significant for its authenticity, integrity, and interpretation. The statement may include a description of any changes successive custodians made to the resource. Brookside Museum https://www.ssmp.mdocs.skidmore.edu/files/original/ed01966398a5fef77aa4a95fcd42cbb1.jpg 9d18520d0ac9f7eac6796e742301f7b2 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Saratoga County Still Image A static visual representation. Examples include paintings, drawings, graphic designs, plans and maps. Recommended best practice is to assign the type Text to images of textual materials. Original Format The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data postcard Record Contributor Individual who prepared the item and/or edited it. Zack Kouli Record Creation Date Day/Month/Year of record creation/edit 8 May 2021 Repository Name of the repository that holds the original item. Brookside Museum, Saratoga County Historical Society (Ballston Spa, N.Y.) URL Brookside Museum, <a href="https://brookside.pastperfectonline.com/photo/D25BBB53-9D0F-4607-80BE-974085801494">https://brookside.pastperfectonline.com/photo/D25BBB53-9D0F-4607-80BE-974085801494</a> Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Boat Landing, Forest Park, Ballston Lake, NY Description An account of the resource Boat Landing, Forest Park, Ballston Lake, NY Rustic dock, men and women walking about, canoeists Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Jesse Sumner Wooley Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource ca. 1900 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Jesse Sumner Wooley https://www.ssmp.mdocs.skidmore.edu/files/original/5c90a7a81a11d3c53c49a82e1e8a6eab.jpg 34cdbc327ff363a9c26436c620610e77 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Saratoga County Still Image A static visual representation. Examples include paintings, drawings, graphic designs, plans and maps. Recommended best practice is to assign the type Text to images of textual materials. Original Format The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data photo Record Contributor Individual who prepared the item and/or edited it. Zack Kouli Record Creation Date Day/Month/Year of record creation/edit 8 May 2021 Repository Name of the repository that holds the original item. Brookside Museum, Saratoga County Historical Society (Ballston Spa, N.Y.) URL Brookside Museum, <a href="https://brookside.pastperfectonline.com/photo/D2090540-601D-42EC-80B3-763807774847">https://brookside.pastperfectonline.com/photo/D2090540-601D-42EC-80B3-763807774847</a> Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Adirondacks- Hudson River Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource ca. 1900 Description An account of the resource Adirondacks- Hudson River with railroad tracks to left and in foreground Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Jesse Sumner Wooley https://www.ssmp.mdocs.skidmore.edu/files/original/644530cfc267c55700a585bb9cbc4314.jpg 8ce8c31e53bbb21257d8b7ecdc71d549 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Mapping Saratoga Springs Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1700- Map Cartographic document Abstract (& Historical Note) Natural language description of the map itself, providing a general summary of the map and noting significant features. This is the place to introduce keywords and proper names that might be of interest to researchers, but do not warrant a separate subject heading of their own. Inset maps should also be described here, with their full titles given. Whenever historical or explanatory information is available, it should be included here as well. This includes information about items or events that are larger than just the map itself; for example, information about cartographers, a description of the map's historical significance (for example, "This is the first printed map of Saratoga Springs"), notes on the laws leading to a map's creation, descriptions of changes in state or county lines, information about the organization that created the map, how often maps were updated, and information about the map's creation and publication. Many State Archives maps have historical information in the catalog record -- that should be captured in this field. Nineteenth-century Americans moved increasingly into cities. At the same time, lithography revolutionized printing and mapmakers realized that they could profit by turning city plans into decorative wall hangings. By 1848, Saratoga Springs had attracted an outside, city-boosting mapmaker. Surveyor, lithographer and printer John Bevan’s 1848 map features a familiar-looking city center. If read closely, this detailed map reveals the who, what, where, and why of the city’s growth. A list of map subscribers displaying personal and civic pride (on the right) includes prominent town residents like the Putnam family and Chancellor Reuben Hyde Walworth. Building outlines and footprints show the increase in businesses and attractions, such as the United States Hotel, Congress Hall, mineral springs, and the Saratoga & Schenectady Railroad. The eye follows the town’s growth up Broadway, tracking the line of mineral springs anchored at High Rock to the north and Congress Spring to the south, mapping both spatial development and the reason for it. Date Depicted (Display) Text version of the date field -- can handle non-numeric characters (ca. 1850s, [1844]). This is the content date field that will display. ca 1848 Creator - Individual Name of the person or people responsible for creating the item. Bevan, John Record Contributor Individual who prepared the item and/or edited it. (Zach)R. Mooring Jordana Dym Emily Sloan Allie Smith Scope Tiered geographical location (for example: United States, New York State, Saratoga County, Saratoga Springs, Congress Park). This field is here for two reasons: first, to present, at its narrowest level, the scope of the entire item (in other words, not every place name has to be listed here). Second, this field will allow for accurate and helpful narrowing and broadening of geographic searches. City Subject - Details This subject field describes the amount of detail in a map. For maps: (or layers) included on the map itself. This field might denote that the map includes information about, for example, Mountains, Railroads, Soundings, Elevation, or Population. These are controlled-vocabulary terms developed locally. The cataloger should be generous in assigning these terms -- even if only one canal is visible on the map, it should receive a "Canals" subject in this layer. Some of these terms are less specific than others and may warrant expansion in the Abstract field. For example, the "Businesses" term might be included here while the Abstract notes that the map shows mills and stores. Multiple terms can be used in this field. Church-- Baptist Church-- Catholic Church-- Episcopal Church-- Methodist Church-- Presbyterian Circular Railroad (Saratoga Springs, N.Y.) Saratoga and Washington Railroad Type For Maps: This subject field describes the purpose of the map. This is a controlled-vocabulary field using terms developed for this project. It is important to note that Map Theme and Map Type are not hierarchical, thus it is possible to have the two fields overlap or even duplicate each other. In determining the purpose of the map, the cataloger should consider the publisher, and, (if known) original use of the map. For example, a map that shows a wide variety of information might be a candidate for General in the map_type field, however, if it was prepared by the state geologist and contains, in addition to everything else, substantial information about the geology and topography of the state, it would be classified as a Geological map. Multiple terms can be used in this field. City Plan Property maps Road maps Place of Publication The city (and if necessary) state or country of publication. Jersey City, NJ and New York City, NY Caption This field will include transcriptions of text that appears on or around the item, at the discretion of the cataloger. It should include relevant bibliographic information that is not given in the title, for example, "Top of map: 'EXAMPLE NEEDED' Publisher and printer information might also be included in this field: "EXAMPLE NEEDED.'" Note that the location of the printed text is given in the field itself and that the caption information is always included in quotes. Top Left: " Ca 1848" Bottom Right: "21" Publisher Publisher of the item, or of the book or atlas in which it appears. John Bevan Date Depicted (Numeric) Date that the information on the item depicts. In many cases, this will be the same date as that in the date field, but there will be exceptions. For example, a historical map drawnin 1890 might show Saratoga Springs as it was in 1820. Or, the information on the map itself might include detailed information that enables us to extrapolate a date, for example, "based on a survey done in 1841." Many State Archives map catalog records refer to this as the "situation date." 1848 Date Published (Display) Text version of the date field -- can handle non-numeric characters (ca. 1850s, [1844]). This is the date field that will display. ca 1848 Date Published (Numeric) Date the item was printed. This will be set as a date field, accommodating only numbers. The field will be able to handle single dates or date ranges. This will not display, but will be indexed and searchable. 1848 Repository Name of the repository that holds the original item. The Saratoga Springs History Museum (Saratoga Springs, N.Y.) Theme For browsing purposes, we are borrowing and adapting themes from the Library of Congress's American Memory project. Civic Life Property and Development Transportation Subject - Name Names of individuals associated with the item. Last name first. For Maps: People represented on the map itself. In nearly every case, this field will be used when people are pictured on the map (several maps in this project are decorated with photographs or engravings in the margins). Use authorized versions of the name from the Library of Congress Name Authority File where possible. Clarke Walton Putnam Livingston Hamilton Reference If an item is described in any standard bibliographies., we'll note both the title and the number. Articles and relevant books that reference the map should also be listed here. Boston Rare Maps located only four examples in institutional collections. >References OCLC #606022877 (British Library) and #46859539 (Library of Congress, Penn State, Capital District Library-New York). Physical Dimensions The actual physical size of the original image 37.5”h x 27.75”w plus margins (Boston Rare Maps) 73 x 62 cm (LOC) Scale The scale of the item (if known) 400 feet to the inch URL LOC copy is <a href="http://www.loc.gov/item/2001620479/">digitized</a>.<br /><br />Additional information on the map available at Boston Rare Maps.&nbsp; The first published map of Saratoga Springs, and a considerable rarity. - See more description &amp; a zoomable color copy of the at <a href="http://www.bostonraremaps.com/catalogues/BRM1627.HTM">Boston Rare Maps</a>, which sold a copy.&nbsp; Not only does it depict the city’s topographical features, street plan, and rail lines, but it also includes property boundaries and the footprints of individual buildings. The many springs and bathhouses that drove the town’s economy are shown in some detail, including in many places the canals and channels used to move the healing waters from their source to the paying customers. Also shown are the many grand hotels built to house visitors, including the enormous United States and Grand Union Hotels on the west side of Broadway. The race course for which the town is now famous was built along Congress Street in 1863, on a parcel just southeast of the area shown on the map. The visual appeal of the map is enhanced by a fine lithographic vignette of the Empire Springs establishment, an ornate compass rose, and a finely-wrought foliate border. A list at left identifies more than 100 individuals and firms who paid subscriptions to help fund the map’s production. According to OCLC John Bevan published dozens of separately-issued town maps between 1850 and 1860, mostly for towns in New York, but also in Connecticut, Rhode Island, New Jersey, Ohio and Pennsylvania. Though the Saratoga Springs map is undated, the layout and the known dates of Bevan’s other maps strongly suggest an early-mid 1850s date of publication. Most Bevan maps are extremely rare, with OCLC recording but one or two institutional holdings for each and Antique Map Price Record listing none at all offered for sale in the past quarter century. http://www.bostonraremaps.com/catalogues/BRM1627.HTM Subject - Geographic Library of Congress subject headings. For maps: for major geographic locations depicted on the map, followed, in nearly every case, by the "Maps" genre subheading. (For example, "Saratoga Springs (N.Y.) -- Maps.") This field will be especially important when the records from this collection are incorporated into larger databases and catalogs. Columbian Spring (Saratoga Springs, N.Y.) Congress Spring (Saratoga Springs, N.Y.) Empire Spring (Saratoga Springs, N.Y.) Flat Rock Springs (Saratoga Springs, N.Y.) Hamilton Spring (Saratoga Springs, N.Y.) High Rock Spring (Saratoga Springs, N.Y.) Iodine Spring (Saratoga Springs, N.Y.) Washington Spring (Saratoga Springs, N.Y.) Record Creation Date Day/Month/Year of record creation/edit 6/3/2014 6/21/2014 3/26/2015 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Map of Saratoga Springs Saratoga Co. New York Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1848 Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available John Bevan, City Surveyor, Jersey City, New York Description An account of the resource Shows Saratoga Springs, including corporation lines. Map included many businesses, civic institutions, and personal properties. Subscribers are listed on the right side. Language A language of the resource English Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource John Bevan Subject The topic of the resource Saratoga Springs, N.Y. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Subscribers listed on map Type The nature or genre of the resource Map Abstract A summary of the resource. Nineteenth-century Americans moved increasingly into cities. At the same time, lithography revolutionized printing and mapmakers realized that they could profit by turning city plans into decorative wall hangings. By 1848, Saratoga Springs had attracted an outside, city-boosting mapmaker. Surveyor, lithographer and printer John Bevan’s 1848 map features a familiar-looking city center. If read closely, this detailed map reveals the who, what, where, and why of the city’s growth. A list of map subscribers displaying personal and civic pride (on the right) includes prominent town residents like the Putnam family and Chancellor Reuben Hyde Walworth. Building outlines and footprints show the increase in businesses and attractions, such as the United States Hotel, Congress Hall, mineral springs, and the Saratoga & Schenectady Railroad. The eye follows the town’s growth up Broadway, tracking the line of mineral springs anchored at High Rock to the north and Congress Spring to the south, mapping both spatial development and the reason for it. Bibliographic Citation A bibliographic reference for the resource. Recommended practice is to include sufficient bibliographic detail to identify the resource as unambiguously as possible. “Map of Saratoga Springs Saratoga Co. New York,” Skidmore Saratoga Memory Project, accessed March 23, 2015, http://ssmp.skidmore.edu/items/show/27. Temporal Coverage Temporal characteristics of the resource. 1848 Rights Holder A person or organization owning or managing rights over the resource. The Saratoga Springs History Museum (Saratoga Springs, N.Y.) 19th century churches color map Corporation Line railroad schools springs https://www.ssmp.mdocs.skidmore.edu/files/original/8ea2b722eeea8123ac29729740b4b928.jpg 736c25be2ad08a45bfcb22b6fb6c1749 https://www.ssmp.mdocs.skidmore.edu/files/original/9505fd1c09599a7cf16e19d9917a8940.mp3 9d6f079b52609a13d20d047ac10e1810 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Evolution of Beekman Street (20th century-2016) Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 12/13/16 Is Part Of A related resource in which the described resource is physically or logically included. Saratoga Memory Project Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived Skidmore College Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available DS: 113A Storytelling Interviewing, Skidmore College Description An account of the resource History of Beekman street, evolution of Beeekman, artist identities/roles, the future. Language A language of the resource English Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource Original recording wave file, 16 bit 44.1 khz Zotero Interviewee Amejo Amyot, M'elle Pirii-Lee, Cecilia Frittelli, Interviewer Jonah Brenner, Amanda Peckler, Yuelin He, Max Lowe, Dejon Bunn-Constant Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Interviewer The person(s) performing the interview Jonah Brenner Interviewee The person(s) being interviewed Amejo Amyot Original Format The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data Original recording wav Duration Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.) 47 min Bit Rate/Frequency Rate at which bits are transferred (i.e. 96 kbit/s would be FM quality audio) 16 bit, 44.1 khz Record Creation Date Day/Month/Year of record creation/edit 12/6/13 Time Summary A summary of an interview given for different time stamps throughout the interview 00:00:00 Header 00:00:30 I’m Amejo Amyot and I live in Saratoga Springs, NY. I was born in Salamanca, NY on an Indian Reservation. 00:03:08 Discusses art classes in high school and how it was discouraged. 00:04:30 Saratoga Springs in the 1960s. 00:07:50 Discusses the history of Beekman Street before she started the project in 2000. There were 7 or 8 restaurants along Beekman Street. Mostly Italian people. 00:11:05 Urban renewal. They got rid of the historic nature of the city. 00:12:45 Talks about what sparked the creation of the art district and the influence that her time in Florida had on the project. 00:16:46 Efforts she took to get rid of crime in the neighborhood and make the area safe. 00:19:00 Artists were in the 3rd floors of Broadway buildings, but they were getting priced out. Artist did not have a place to go. That was the idea of Beekman. 00:22:00 Goals of the project. Live on the street, work on the street, street fairs, and foster a community. 00:22:45 Discusses how the city council was afraid of Artists. 00:25:25 Evolution of the street since the late 90s/early 2000s. 00:31:08 Artists involvement in the project and the different people that supported her. 00:32:36 Talks about the recession in 2008 and the impact it had on Beekman. 00:38:00 The major setbacks of the project and how the city did not continue to support the arts district. 00:39:50 Why the neighborhood will not come back as an arts district. 00:45:40 Discusses her favorite memory on the street. Jazz bands on the street that played every Friday night. It was the place to be. 00:47:19 End Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Interview with Amejo Amyot Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 12/13/16 Is Part Of A related resource in which the described resource is physically or logically included. Skidmore Saratoga Memory Project Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived Skidmore College Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available DS 113A Storytelling Interviewing, Skidmore College Description An account of the resource Her life, Beekman Street, Reasons she started the project, How the street has changed over the years, The impact of the recession. Language A language of the resource English Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Jonah Brenner Date Created Date of creation of the resource. 12/7/16 oral history https://www.ssmp.mdocs.skidmore.edu/files/original/3c279ca7deebd2c9370fcfd8e2b1371b.png adaa9e2fbf4af005933337525eeb7be7 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Mapping Saratoga Springs Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1700- Website A resource comprising of a web page or web pages and all related assets ( such as images, sound and video files, etc. ). Local URL The URL of the local directory containing all assets of the website URL: <a href="http://worldmap.harvard.edu/maps/4706" title="Saratoga Springs on Worldmap">http://worldmap.harvard.edu/maps/4706</a> Record Contributor Individual who prepared the item and/or edited it. J. Dym Record Creation Date Day/Month/Year of record creation/edit 27/05/2017 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Historic Saratoga Springs Maps (georeferenced) Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2015 Is Part Of A related resource in which the described resource is physically or logically included. World Map Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Harvard University Description An account of the resource A dozen nineteenth century Saratoga Springs maps that are georeferenced in the World Map online database. Includes maps of voting districts, mineral springs, as well as many street and property maps. Maps by Lester, Mott, Cramer, Clarke, and Bevan are included. Original maps come from Saratoga Springs Public Library and/or Saratoga Springs City Historian's Office. Bob Jones, Professor of Economics, has taught GIS at Skidmore College since the late 1990s. He was instrumental in bringing a GIS Center to the campus. Language A language of the resource eng Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Jones, Bob Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource online database Type The nature or genre of the resource map Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant Saratoga Springs, NY https://www.ssmp.mdocs.skidmore.edu/files/original/47a7889981e71eb43a5a5723ef9242e7.JPG 64102add601eded02eefcb26079d76a6 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Principles of Documentary class visits the Print Room at the Tang Museum Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource February 20, 2018 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource J. Dym https://www.ssmp.mdocs.skidmore.edu/files/original/ee2f83d052dd4d1d698c7903a23353b3.JPG e13ec1a5761a4596c84469f0a533ed31 https://www.ssmp.mdocs.skidmore.edu/files/original/91bb9da13d4e9fdcf1345cfd4bc2ddf9.JPG 1e6d17ede0416a37855c99ad94a4e6b8 https://www.ssmp.mdocs.skidmore.edu/files/original/f05125d32973588c21a4ade1f15a1cdb.JPG 0b08e2f7a2e6cb9cda1a57029cea21b7 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Looking exercise, This Place, February 22, 2018 https://www.ssmp.mdocs.skidmore.edu/files/original/dc8457b646a265243303b1321f6cd612.JPG b989da8f568928b6bf9579dc0553953e Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Looking exercise, This Place, February 22, 2018 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Jordana Dym https://www.ssmp.mdocs.skidmore.edu/files/original/cc8e8c4080ab88f3d05c73da4f66aece.JPG 3e3fd475ff266533e073ffce6334b007 https://www.ssmp.mdocs.skidmore.edu/files/original/4979f28a167cf960232917923a0dcaa2.JPG c3ee22cd6834e8d14e9ae4c8e629fd10 https://www.ssmp.mdocs.skidmore.edu/files/original/6e45d5bfdf5fe3dc9cae82fb181db9ae.JPG 5441946470bc31d18cfc6f5080a97148 https://www.ssmp.mdocs.skidmore.edu/files/original/767058b21ee63ab17a80160ede5973e8.JPG 0dbb9d5e2eba57679cac421af7b65cfc https://www.ssmp.mdocs.skidmore.edu/files/original/1f94214338681303e3abff323649aec2.JPG dda9538fc1c44cca22eb31543b034f76 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Photographer Wendy Ewald meets with students in Principles of Documentary Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource February 27, 2018 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource J. Dym https://www.ssmp.mdocs.skidmore.edu/files/original/ae60b245fcb241f8fd9e6bc777914a48.JPG 07d9cad10ed295ac95ee50bdfaec0517 https://www.ssmp.mdocs.skidmore.edu/files/original/669c9afc6e81316d626105f8c442e431.JPG 03b80764d761ff71203a005cae8f951f https://www.ssmp.mdocs.skidmore.edu/files/original/6d415f820f52728c18c364f27ef01543.JPG c2ad497fc78d41f73748a926bbd4f0b5 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Rachel Seligman describing a cuator's role to students in Principles of Documentary Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource April 17, 2018 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource J. Dym Still Image A static visual representation. Examples include paintings, drawings, graphic designs, plans and maps. Recommended best practice is to assign the type Text to images of textual materials. Original Format The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data digital photograph Record Contributor Individual who prepared the item and/or edited it. J. Dym Record Creation Date Day/Month/Year of record creation/edit 24/04/2018 Date Depicted (Display) Text version of the date field -- can handle non-numeric characters (ca. 1850s, [1844]). This is the content date field that will display. February 20 and 22, 2018 April 17, 2018 Repository Name of the repository that holds the original item. Private Collection Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Tang Visit - Principles of Documentary- Spring 2018 Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource February 20, 2018 February 22, 2018 February 27, 2018 April 17, 2018 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Jordana Dym https://www.ssmp.mdocs.skidmore.edu/files/original/16de2cd01480448c035cf71600de013c.jpg 3697f38b7bb64122f54e7a1cf509913a Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Saratoga County Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Saratoga County Board of Supervisors Meeting Room Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2015 Description An account of the resource A photograph of the meeting room of the Saratoga County board of supervisors Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Jordana Dym Subject The topic of the resource Saratoga County (N.Y.) -- Politics and administration Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource Creative Commons Board of Supervisors public space Saratoga County Still Image A static visual representation. Examples include paintings, drawings, graphic designs, plans and maps. Recommended best practice is to assign the type Text to images of textual materials. Record Contributor Individual who prepared the item and/or edited it. Krystle Nowhitney Hernandez Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Josué C. Soto Title A name given to the resource Paso Estrecho/Narrow Passage Alternative Title An alternative name for the resource. The distinction between titles and alternative titles is application-specific. Josue C Soto_2017_1.jpg Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2017 Subject The topic of the resource Saratoga National Historical Park, Stillwater, NY, USA Description An account of the resource Difícil de entender el camino tan estrecho y complicado que de oportunidades que existen para los inmigrantes como este estrecho de agua. It is difficult to understand a path so narrow and complicated which gives opportunities to immigrants such as these narrows. License A legal document giving official permission to do something with the resource. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource Digital Photograph, JPEG art bilingual Estamos Aqui immigration Latinx Spanish Still Image A static visual representation. Examples include paintings, drawings, graphic designs, plans and maps. Recommended best practice is to assign the type Text to images of textual materials. Record Contributor Individual who prepared the item and/or edited it. Krystle Nowhitney Hernandez Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Josué C. Soto Title A name given to the resource Recuerdo de mi Infancia/Memories of my Childhood Alternative Title An alternative name for the resource. The distinction between titles and alternative titles is application-specific. Josue C Soto_2017_2.jpg Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2017 Subject The topic of the resource Saratoga National Historical Park, Stillwater, NY, USA Description An account of the resource Hermosos atardeceres me trae a mi mente, cuando la caída del sol penetraba los pastizales crecidos haciéndome sentir la felicidad de estar viviendo al aire libre. Beautiful sunsets come to mind, when the fall of the sun passed through the fields of grass reminding me of the happiness of living outdoors. License A legal document giving official permission to do something with the resource. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource Digital Photograph, JPEG art bilingual Estamos Aqui immigration Latinx Spanish Still Image A static visual representation. Examples include paintings, drawings, graphic designs, plans and maps. Recommended best practice is to assign the type Text to images of textual materials. Record Contributor Individual who prepared the item and/or edited it. Krystle Nowhitney Hernandez Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Julio Cesar Castro García Title A name given to the resource En mi Soledad/In my Loneliness Alternative Title An alternative name for the resource. The distinction between titles and alternative titles is application-specific. Julio Cesar Castro García_2017_1.jpg Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2017 Subject The topic of the resource Belmont Park, Elmont, NY, USA Description An account of the resource Tantos sentimientos encontrados y emociones en un solo pensamiento sin lograr una respuesta, solo la soledad que me acompaña y mi música me hacen relajar mi mente. So many feelings and emotions found in a single thought without reaching an answer, only the solitude that accompanies me, along with my music, ease my mind. License A legal document giving official permission to do something with the resource. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource Digital Photograph, JPEG art bilingual Estamos Aqui immigration Latinx race track Saratoga Race Course Spanish Still Image A static visual representation. Examples include paintings, drawings, graphic designs, plans and maps. Recommended best practice is to assign the type Text to images of textual materials. Record Contributor Individual who prepared the item and/or edited it. Krystle Nowhitney Hernandez Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Julio Cesar Castro García Title A name given to the resource Un Minuto para Mí/A Minute for Myself Alternative Title An alternative name for the resource. The distinction between titles and alternative titles is application-specific. Julio Cesar Castro García_2017_2.jpg Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2017 Subject The topic of the resource Belmont Park, Elmont, NY, USA Description An account of the resource Caminando voy con mi conciencia, tratando de convencerme que el mundo no gira en torno a mí. Caminando voy dejando atrás lo malo que me ha pasado en la vida y pensando en lo bueno que está por venir; Algo bueno está esperando para todos. Walking, I go with my conscience, trying to convince myself that the world does not revolve around me. Walking, I leave behind the bad that has happened to me in life while thinking about the good that is to come; something good awaits us all. License A legal document giving official permission to do something with the resource. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource Digital Photograph, JPEG art bilingual Estamos Aqui immigration Latinx race track Saratoga Race Course Spanish https://www.ssmp.mdocs.skidmore.edu/files/original/b962768874556c2de708c2ba9dc8265e.m4a d46b84b2b2df6cadbe13ffa146eaf136 https://www.ssmp.mdocs.skidmore.edu/files/original/79930eb0c641e7ba0a8c8b2fda1ade4c.pdf fdc46015e6acd5e2f16a50df38aec497 https://www.ssmp.mdocs.skidmore.edu/files/original/59213eb0ac9ef7a29e199eb939664ceb.pdf ba2ebbf2c35e87925a93188eb2000991 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Oral History Description An account of the resource Many people who have worked or studied at Skidmore College or lived in Saratoga Springs or the surrounding area carry the memories that help us tell the stories of our communities. This collection offers a glimpse into our past in the voices of those who have shared their stories. Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Interviewer The person(s) performing the interview Justin Rizzi Interviewee The person(s) being interviewed Johann Miller Location The location of the interview Skidmore College, Saratoga Springs, NY (Zoom), and Milton, NY (Zoom) Record Contributor Individual who prepared the item and/or edited it. Justin Rizzi Original Format The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data Audio recording Duration Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.) 56:44 Record Creation Date Day/Month/Year of record creation/edit 06/11/2020 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Interview with Johann Miller Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Justin Rizzi Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource October 26, 2020 Is Part Of A related resource in which the described resource is physically or logically included. Skidmore Saratoga Memory Project Description An account of the resource In this interview, recording by a student in the Fall 2020 oral history class, as part of the project titled "Preserving Our Past," Capital Region resident Johann Miller describes her life, from leaving her childhood home at 18 to attending Woodstock with her future husband. Language A language of the resource English (en) Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Justin Rizzi Johann Miller Type The nature or genre of the resource Oral History Date Created Date of creation of the resource. December 4, 2020 fall 2020 oral history oral history fall 2020 saratoga senior center https://www.ssmp.mdocs.skidmore.edu/files/original/1acf492f9aa6c42b94f27c8dbccdf8f2.JPG 2c699255242398019fa500edcfd2e61a Still Image A static visual representation. Examples include paintings, drawings, graphic designs, plans and maps. Recommended best practice is to assign the type Text to images of textual materials. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Banana Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived Image of housemate's banana Abstract A summary of the resource. For my exhibition, I took a photo of a ripened (possibly over-ripened banana). This is an item that my housemate finds meaningful to him. I knew he liked bananas because whenever we go food shopping, he always insists on purchasing copious amounts of bananas. I happened to run into him in the library and as usual, he had a banana right by his side. He informed me that he starting eating bananas as a baby, probably in the liquid form. He emphasized how it provides sustenance throughout the day. I specifically asked him what he felt about this banana being overly ripened. He said he had no problem with its color and it was perfectly ok to eat. The exact words he used were” It is overly ripened like my soul”. This may give some insight into the character of my housemate. After asking him a few a more questions, he raised the banana to his left ear and pretended it was a telephone. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Kanengiser, J. fruit POD Spring 2016 https://www.ssmp.mdocs.skidmore.edu/files/original/8db67e735ff753e96e7bbc28ace65b63.jpg b4a9ca3abcd43e8f7239d974c092d082 https://www.ssmp.mdocs.skidmore.edu/files/original/07afd8a62bb886b06666e165efa855b8.pdf c85cab8a986d433b9e431a08a5b79cff PDF Text Text Lawrence Opitz Interview Josh Karen: This is Professor Larry Opitz, professor of theater at Skidmore College, and founder of the Saratoga Shakespeare Company. So first, how did you get involved in the Saratoga and Skidmore communities? Lary Opitz: As far as the Saratoga community goes, it's kind of interesting. I came to Saratoga when I was 26, married and from New York, and I came here ostensibly to spend one year back in 1974. That was the plan because after doing a lot of freelancing in New York in the theater here was this opportunity to get out of New York for a year, make a decent salary where they pay me every two weeks and then come back to New York and go back to work. Ummm the other motivation was a friend was offered a job here or an acquaintance was offered a job here in the theater department and he interviewed, came back to New York and told me you gotta go up there, forget about the job, you gotta see this town, it's beautiful, beautiful Victorian architecture, tree-lined wide boulevards, and they'll take good care of you, they'll wine and dine you for the weekend. So I said "what the hell?". So I came up here. Pouring rain, everything was rushed, they wound up offering me a job. And I didn't make a decision, because Barbara, [his wife], wasn't with me, and I wanted to talk to my friend, to see if either of us or both of us really wanted to come up here. Umm, so. Needless to say, we did. I don't know that for many many years I felt much of a connection to the community of Saratoga. I thought of myself, and in some ways still do think of myself as a New Yorker, meaning New York City. Umm still had a lot of family in New York, went down regularly, a lot of my work was in New York, I would travel back and forth all the time. This was where I worked, but, and here's the tension, I was part of the Skidmore community, and I'll talk about that specifically in a moment, but there was very little connection to the Saratoga community. And through the years, I spent a lotta time traveling, when I was a lighting designer, so, even though I had two kids up here, born in '76 and '79, I wasn't that connected with their lives in school, as activities went, because I was so often away, and Barbara was in charge of that. So I didn't feel any strong connection to the community. That didn't change very much for many many years, I wasn't a member of any organization, I think that so what became important was that six or seven years after we had already lived here, we did join what was then, what still is called the Jewish community center, which was uh then an Orthodox congregation. We did it because it was time for the kids to start religious studies, and we had two choices: we had a lot of friends who were members of the reform congregation, we didn't know anybody who was orthodox, we went in and we wound up joining there, and became very involved very quickly, and that was our community. If it wasn't family, it was the Jewish Community Center. So all community activities were focused there really. Ummm I became active in terms of serving on the board, eventually becoming �president, built a new building, and all of those relate to the community, but not the community at large. One thing that changed that was probably some time in the 80's, joining the local chapter of NAACP, but not getting too involved, and again, not a whole lot of things I'd call community involvement. We lived in a very, we still live in a very neat neighborhood, on the east side, and within a two, three block radius, there were a lot of families with kids our age, kids the age of our kids. So that was sort of a tiny little community. In 2000, I was a founding member of Saratoga Shakespeare Company. That tied me into the community more than anything else had to date, and continued working with Saratoga Shakespeare, and people in town knew me from that, from my performances every summer, and then eventually, about six years ago, Barbara and I took over the company, and we have absolutely necessarily, by force, had to become more intimate with the Greater Saratoga community, because we needed to raise money. And again, we see 6,000 people every summer, many of whom are Saratogians, and so we've become very connected with things that we had never been connected with before. But that's, that's been, you know the past 43, 44 years in terms of the community of Saratoga. Skidmore is very different, but even there it's kind of weird. I came up here as a staff member, not a faculty member, though I started teaching immediately, as a lecturer I guess, and I spent a few years here, and all that mattered was the theater, I wasn't involved in campus events very much. What's interesting is that at that time, I was only six years, seven years older than most of my students, the drinking age was 18, there was no stigma at all attached with hanging out with students at parties and drinking, things were very different then, and there was a lot of partying in the theater department. But it was all about the theater and the work in the theater, and theater students and theater faculty. I had no connection with the rest of the campus, other than the occasional friendship that would pop up either because of our kids or just encounters. In, somewhere in 19-, in the late 70's, I was going to leave here for another job, Boston University, that I'd been offered. Decided to stay partially because they offered me a real academic title, and I became an assistant professor with a nice salary raise, and decided to stay, and that meant I had to be more of a community member. Ummm. It took me a long time in the theater department, in meetings, in the theater department, when I was 26, to really participate and voice my opinions. Then I had the challenge of being a faculty member at large at faculty meetings, and speaking up, speaking my opinions in front of the entire faculty. But that was my responsibility, if I wanted to stay here, the goal would be to get tenure. At that time, tenure was not attached to a promotion, now it is. When you're automatically an associate professor, back then, you could get tenure and then you had to go for promotion. So if I wanted to keep my job, and if I wanted to grow in the job, I'd have to be more connected to the community, the college community, which meant serving on college committees, which is doing service for the faculty, but in the process of doing that, you're meeting new faculty members, and developing new relationships. Governance started �becoming more important to me, and standing up and speaking my mind in faculty meetings became very important to me, and I was developing as something of a leader and something of an impassioned speaker, because I am an actor, meanwhile I was taking leadership in the Jewish Community Center, taking leadership in the department in my first term as chair, so I started taking more leadership in the faculty at large, meeting more people, developing more relationships, developing relationships with administrators, and that led to two of my most important, my most important service as a faculty member, which was serving on CAPT, which was the committee on appointments, promotions, and tenure, which has always been considered the senior activity, and I've been on that for two full terms and I was chair of it, and that put me on a position where I had to take a tremendous amount of leadership, because we're not just involved in those decisions, the administration has always dealt with CAPT for other all college issues. When I took over the chair in my last term, which lasted ten years, I had to put all the focus back into the theater department and continue to function as a full faculty member participating in meetings, but most of my service, in recent years, has been in the theater department. That pretty much covers it. JK: So, going back to getting involved in the Skidmore community, over the years that you've been involved in it since you moved up here, how have you seen the community develop and change and what kind of trends have you seen go through it? LO: Yeah, uh, (laughs) some things have changed for the better, and some for the worse, and when we talk about change on campus, we're talking about three different things in my mind: one is changes in the student body, changes in the faculty, and changes in the administration. Umm... I think our students have gotten stronger academically over the years, and that's partially because we've become more selective, partially because I think Skidmore has improved over the years in its offerings and its commitment to education. So, I think there is strength there in students because 40 years ago, 30 years ago, I found our students far more independent and uhh- independent meaning largely independent of the will of their parents, and there was no such phenomenon as helicopter parents, today I'm dealing with students who seem incapable or unwilling to make a decision without calling home almost every day, if not every day. Those two things, there's a tension there, remarkable change. And I've seen it in the theater too, that um, there was a period, 20 years ago, 15 years ago where rarely would I pick up the New York Times and not see something that one of our students was doing. Now in the past 5 years, that's fallen off a bit, our students are going out and forming their own theater companies, more than they have in the last 10 years. Again, that has to do in part with independence, and taking control of your own life. In the faculty, the, there was a greater sense of independence and strength in the faculty, 40 years ago, 30 years ago than �there is now. There was always a tension between the will of the faculty and the goals of the administration. Now we all were pulling for Skidmore to be the best possible place, but that meant different things in different times to different, to the faculty and the administration. And I felt that there was much more independent thinking on the part of faculty years ago, now it seems that young faculty straight out of PhD programs are concerned primarily with getting tenure, obviously always an issue, but it seems to be the foremost though upon getting here, "what do I have to do to get tenure in six years, seven years", and there's a tendency, in part because of that, to be less confrontational with the administration, to stand up for things, principles when there's disagreement with the administration. So, I think the faculty in general have gotten more sheepish, more willing to deal with the administration as, as, as, as parents, and taking less responsibility for leadership. And in the part of administration over the years, what I've seen, and this is not unusual, it's every college, is what's typically called administrative bloat, where the size of the faculty has only in recent years grown in considerable ways, but nothing compared with the explosion in the size of the administration. Things that were done by two or three people, 30 years ago, now are done by 8 people. Everybody's got an assistant. The work has not... in some areas the work has grown, computers, library, external forces like the demands for assessment have required us to expand administration in various ways, but in general, it just, and as a result of that in part is ore turnover than there ever used to be, 30 years ago 40 years ago, if I needed to borrow a truck from the campus, I'd call up a friend who ran the motor pool, or whatever we called it then, the physical plant, I'd say "Jerry, I need a truck for the weekend, any problems?" "No, pick it up whenever you want!". Now, first of all, now the policy has ended. A few years ago, I would have had to go through a ridiculous amount of rigmarole, now some of that's external, insurance, stuff like that, but, you used to pick up a phone, call somebody and get the person on the phone, not an answering machine, a person who you knew by their first name, and you helped one another. Now, the phone won't be answered, you'll get a machine more often than not, you're calling a person to deal with a problem and you don't know who that person is because they've replaced the last two people since you knew the person, so it's become a less personable place to be, and I have regrets for that, it used to be much more, it used to be much smaller and more of a family, and I miss that. That seems to be at odds with that I was saying about my connection to the community, to the college community, but I was differentiating between you know my job as a professor as opposed to my life in the community and you know, you just knew everybody, and yeah we talked about secretaries then, not administrative assistants, but you knew most of them, and they spent many years here, their families grew up here, they had relatives in the area, they retired here, and those days are long gone, and this is part of society, we've become more mobile, so we move around a lot more, we change jobs a lot more than people used to. But the result of that is, there's a breakdown in community. �JK: And on that note, do you think the general identity throughout Skidmore and its community has shifted over the years or changed in any way since when you first got here? LO: Yeah, again, both good and bad, I think we've become more socially conscious, as has higher education in general, and that's a good thing, but I feel less connected with students, and maybe that's partially because of age, I feel less connected than I used to. As far as the Saratoga community goes, it's grown, but not outrageously. What's changed more than anything else in the demographics is the influx of ummm people who've- this always was something of a bedroom community for Albany, so you had a lot of people whose lives were in Albany but wanted to live further away. About 30 years ago, these multimillion dollar housing developments started popping up around, we started getting people who spent half their week in New York City and half the week up here, so 30 years ago, I'd go out to a restaurant, and we eat out a lot, and I'd know everybody, inconceivable not to see people, know the waiters well, know the owners well, well there's turn over in business too, and, but what's astounding is I go to restaurants now and it's not that often I know people there, who are dining there, that, that affects me, it's changed things, even people on the street, don't see people on the street as often, people that I know as often when I'm walking downtown. And then the most recent phenomenon in town is all of the condos that have gone up, multimillion dollar condos, you know, a twobedroom condo for 1.5 million in Saratoga Springs, just who are these people? Um. So, the community has changed primarily I think because of that, uh thankfully downtown has maintained its identity, and that's a terribly important part of downtown. Summers in Saratoga have always been bizarre, because of the track, because of SPAC, for the past 18 years Saratoga Shakespeare has had its effect in town, the balletamens who come up here, the Touts from New York who come to vacation, who spend their lives at Aquaduct and Belmont and come up here for a week or two in the summer, the owners, unlike you know other tracks, the owners come up here for the season, we have the track hands, who are largely Hispanic, who have their lives in the community, we have the Hassidic Jews who come up here in the summer still on war reparations from Germany, its bizarre! � https://www.ssmp.mdocs.skidmore.edu/files/original/49e05830d484d6edb33e694c02ba61a5.MP3 fb2a9230e4a675d971cfc37c7d723cbf Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Oral History Description An account of the resource Many people who have worked or studied at Skidmore College or lived in Saratoga Springs or the surrounding area carry the memories that help us tell the stories of our communities. This collection offers a glimpse into our past in the voices of those who have shared their stories. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Interview with Lawrence Opitz Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2/28/18 Description An account of the resource Interview with Professor Lawrence Opitz, professor of theater at Skidmore College, and founder of the Saratoga Shakespeare Company. He came to Saratoga from New York City in 1974. Language A language of the resource Eng Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Karen, Joshua, '18 https://www.ssmp.mdocs.skidmore.edu/files/original/7aa01875c544f9ab17ec969d5ea657cb.jpg 7b913f72b0e20e14a9e5539d01dfeb2f Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Saratoga Springs History Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1706- Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Repository Name of the repository that holds the original item. Saratoga Room, Saratoga Springs Public Library Record Contributor Individual who prepared the item and/or edited it. Jillian Seigel Record Creation Date Day/Month/Year of record creation/edit 43270 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Stimulus going to new parking lots Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 10/2/09 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Kerr, Drew Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived The Post Star Provenance A statement of any changes in ownership and custody of the resource since its creation that are significant for its authenticity, integrity, and interpretation. The statement may include a description of any changes successive custodians made to the resource. Saratoga Springs Subject The topic of the resource Transportation Description An account of the resource A pair of parking lots will be made more eco-friendly thanks to nearly $600,000 in stimulus money. This will include installing porous pavement and a natural catch basin. Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource text EnvironmentalJustice SaratogaSprings transportation https://www.ssmp.mdocs.skidmore.edu/files/original/796f9b0046a5d6bfd648fed70ac60dbc.jpg 9d13b84fb478d9802dbf2d724aa4ef8e https://www.ssmp.mdocs.skidmore.edu/files/original/6c7d16034fa3e962141b34f8ff6986e8.jpg 2eea55fc4af1a17e1e946bb0a246c0b7 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Saratoga Springs History Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1706- Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Repository Name of the repository that holds the original item. Saratoga Room, Saratoga Springs Public Library Record Contributor Individual who prepared the item and/or edited it. Jillian Seigel Record Creation Date Day/Month/Year of record creation/edit 43270 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Spa City weighs parking meters Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 12/11/08 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Kerr, Drew Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived The Post Star Provenance A statement of any changes in ownership and custody of the resource since its creation that are significant for its authenticity, integrity, and interpretation. The statement may include a description of any changes successive custodians made to the resource. Saratoga Springs Subject The topic of the resource Transportation Description An account of the resource The plan would generate income but many local businesses are concerned. Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource text EnvironmentalJustice SaratogaSprings transportation