University Senate Proposed:
Sept. 21, 2007
Adopted:
RESOLUTION
TO ESTABLISH A MASTER OF ARTS PROGRAM
IN ORAL HISTORY
WHEREAS Columbia’s
Oral History Research Office is the largest organized university-based oral
history program open to the public in the world, with nearly 8,000 taped
memoirs and nearly a million pages of transcripts, and
WHEREAS the
Oral History Research Office attracts scholars from around the world, and
WHEREAS the
Oral History Research Office can serve as a foundation within the University
for preparation in the methodology of oral history of practitioners in a wide
range of professions in the arts, humanities, and social sciences; and
WHEREAS the
program has the support of the Executive Committee of the Graduate School of
Arts & Sciences, and the Education Committee of the University Senate has
reviewed and recommends this program’s approval;
THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED that the Senate establish the MA program in Oral History, with
the proviso that the Education Committee will review the program in five years,
and
BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that the Senate forward this resolution to the Trustees
for appropriate action.
Proponent:
Committee
on Education
Oral
history is an emerging field that centers on the documentation and
interpretation of historical and sociological phenomena from the perspective of
first-person interviews. As a genre, oral history is defined by its attention
to the ways in which social, political and cultural change is measured over
time, through interviews that focus on self-understanding in relation to larger
social and political dynamics as well as the phenomena of individual and
collective memory. Interviews are read
and interpreted in relation to each other, as well as against other primary and
secondary sources.
Oral
history is also a writing genre that is defined by the dialogic nature of the
interview encounter, the temporal nature of the interview narrative, and the
interpretation of the form and subject matter of the interview narrative. Oral history as a field bridges the social
sciences and the humanities in a common examination of how individual memory,
and the construction of narrative, impinges on historical and sociological
research and writing.
The purpose of the Masters of
Arts in Oral History is two-fold: 1) to teach the theory and methods of oral
history as an interdisciplinary means of the production and analysis of
sources, and the interpretation of research contained in those stories in
aural, visual and written form; and 2) to teach the professional standards
and methods of oral history documentation and research in order to prepare
students to conduct intellectually and professionally sound
interviews, create files for
deposit in traditional and online archives, maintain ethical standards in
research and interviewing and prepare multi-media documentary productions based
on life history narratives.
The student body is expected to
consist of: 1) students and scholars in disciplines such as sociology,
anthropology, history, and literature who seek to use oral history fieldwork
and theory in their research, 2) professionals and recent graduates in fields
such as human rights, journalism, social work, and healthcare, whose work
involves interviewing and fieldwork and who seek to incorporate oral history
methods and theory into their professional work, and 3) professionals and
recent graduates in library science and archives who wish to work and/or teach
in an oral history program, who would have an M.L.S. or a degree in Museum Studies.
Examples of degrees that students and scholars might hold include masters in
anthropology, sociology, history, public history, writing and journalism.
The degree program will
require that students successfully complete a minimum of 30 credits of graduate
coursework, including a master’s thesis.
Five required courses and three or four electives will be required for
the degree. The required courses are
method and theory, fieldwork and documentation, analysis of narratives, a
workshop series, and a master’s thesis.
Elective courses can be taken in theory and practice of oral history and
its applications and/or in the student’s subject area of interest.
Career options for graduates of the program are
varied. Academics in history and other
fields will be able to use the oral history training to improve their job
prospects, as many academic institutions are incorporating oral history into
their existing curriculums. OHMA
graduates will make an ideal pool of professionals ready to work in existing
oral history archives, research offices, and institutions. Journalists, human rights and humanitarian
workers, and other documentarians will be able to
apply the training in oral history directly to their area of work. Those working or interested in the field of
criminal justice, especially those who compile life histories in preparation
for legal appeals, would find this program of great use.