Improving the Research Experience: 
A Workshop for Graduate Students in Western American History

Thursday October 28, 2021
1:30 P.M. to 4:00 P.M.

Location: Hilton Portland (Room TBD)

Sponsored by The Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library, Yale University

Organized by the Western History Librarian/Archivist/Curator Group

ADMISSION BY ADVANCE APPLICATION ONLY: Application Deadline is September 20!

Graduate Student Participants Receive $250 Honorarium

Presenters:

Peter J. Blodgett (The Huntington Library)

J. Wendel Cox (Dartmouth College)

Lisa E. Duncan (University of Arizona Special Collections)

Todd Fuller (University of Oklahoma)

Sam Herley (South Dakota Oral History Center)

Tamsen Hert (University of Wyoming Special Collections)

Anne Jenner (University of Washington Libraries)

Ginny Kilander (American Heritage Center, University of Wyoming)

Matthew Daniel Mason (Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University)

George Miles (Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University)

Suzanne Noruschat (University of Southern California Libraries)

Theresa Salazar (Bancroft Library, UC Berkeley)

Laurie Scrivener (University of Oklahoma Scholarly Services and Research Initiatives)

Benjamin Stone (Stanford University Libraries)

Gregory C. Thompson (J.W. Marriott Library, University of Utah)

Rachel Vagts (Denver Public Library)

Workshop Details

Today’s graduate students in western history confront an increasing array of unyielding obstacles in launching their careers. Each year, they must scramble to keep up with the accelerating pace of changes in everything from the descriptive tools created by libraries and archives to the proliferation of digital resources generated by cultural institutions. Moreover, given the shrinking pool of dollars for projects in the humanities, graduate students face a steadily more ferocious competition for fellowships, research awards and grants in general.  Believing as we do that the graduate student community represents an essential dimension of western history’s future, we have developed the following workshop in collaboration with the WHA as a means of helping to meet what we see as particularly crucial needs for the next generation of scholars.

Workshop Schedule
This workshop will run from 1:00 PM until 4:00 PM on Thursday, October 28 and will consist of two sessions, preceded by a fifteen-minute introduction and incorporating one fifteen-minute break. The sessions will address the following topics:

• Introduction:  overview of workshop goals (15 minutes).

• Session #1:  Fellowships, research awards and grant seeking in general (60 minutes).

• Fifteen-minute break

• Session #2:  Plotting out the research project:  individual/small-group conversations about the dissertations being pursued by the workshop attendees (60 minutes).

Workshop Participation Details:

In order to keep the size manageable for the instructors and to enhance the quality of the experience for the participants, attendance at this inaugural version will be capped at 20 graduate students, selected through advance application; preference will be given to those who are at an earlier point in their pursuit of a Ph.D. so that they will have the maximum opportunity to benefit from what they learn in the workshop. Other graduate students, however, may be admitted on a space-available basis.  In hopes of assisting those who attend the workshop with defraying conference costs, we will be able to provide each graduate student participant with a $250 honorarium thanks to the generous support of the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library at Yale University. You will receive this honorarium at the workshop.

Workshop Application Guide:

Graduate students wishing to apply for the workshop should prepare the following in a single pdf document:

            1. Cover Sheet:

-Student’s name

-Institutional affiliation

-Contact information (email and surface mail addresses)

            2. Description of stage the student has reached in their program

            3. Enumerate the student’s research experience to date

            4. Provide an overview of the student’s dissertation. (The overview should summarize the            topic, including chronological and geographic parameters, collections of original sources            already consulted and all research institutions that the student has visited or will visit while

pursuing the dissertation.)

Send the final, compiled pdf document as an attachment email to wha@westernhistory.org with “2021 Grad Student Workshop” in the subject line. Include your name, institutional affiliation, and contact information in the email message. Applications for the workshop are due Monday, September 20, 2021 to wha@westernhistory.org

Send Questions about the applications or workshop to Peter J. Blodgett at pblodgett@huntington.org