“Wolf Tales” awarded Diversity Mini-Grant

The NCSU Libraries Wolf Tales oral history project has been awarded a Diversity Mini-Grant from NC State’s Office for Institutional Equity and Diversity for its “Wolf Tales: Capturing Voices of Diversity at NC State” project.

The $1,875 grant helps expand the Special Collections Research Center’s existing archive of 10-20-minute, audio and video narratives from students and alumni by focusing on historically underrepresented groups such as LGBT, military veteran, Muslim, Latinx, and Native American communities. This Wolf Tales project helps to enhance the quality of teaching and learning about diversity, enrich the diversity experiences of NC State students, and create a welcoming and inclusive campus environment. The Libraries will provide 25% matching funds through the devotion of staff time to the project.

Previously, Wolf Tales collaborated with the African American Cultural Center to record participants in Harambee 2016. This new initiative will use that partnership as a model to work with the GLBT Center for Lavender Graduation in April 2017, gathering stories of the experiences of GLBT students and their allies. SCRC staff will parnter with Program Coordinator Andy DeRoin and some of the student interns at the GLBT Center for Lavender Graduation on the project.

Wolf Tales plans to extend this framework to other underrepresented voices through partnerships with other OIED units and student groups to prevent future silences in the archives.

“Oral history brings a more personal, first-hand account of history that we don't get in a lot of the written records,” says Virginia Ferris, Outreach and Engagement Program Librarian. “Looking back into NC State’s history, certain people’s stories were not seen as valuable as much. For African-American students following desegregation, we don’t have a lot of written records that reflect their experience. With Wolf Tales, we were able to go to alumni and current students to talk to them about their experiences at NC State: what they have to say and what they think needs to be added to the historical record that the official documents of the university might not reflect.”

In its first year, Wolf Tales has captured 41 recordings with a diverse range of voices, from current students to alumni of the class of 1943. The Wolf Tales recordings and transcripts are archived and shared online through the Libraries’ Rare & Unique Digital Collections site, as part of the NCSU Wolf Tales Oral Histories Collection. The Libraries has brought Wolf Tales stations to events ranging from annual reunions of the NCSU Alumni Association to “open days” in the Libraries where participants are invited to sit down individually or in groups of 2-3 people to make a recording.

“The act of listening is itself very valuable. Listening creates a relationship and shows a person that their voice is important and that we want to preserve it and make it a tool to teach other people,” Ferris says. “To the students whom we’re recording now, it shows them ‘Yes, we are here now,’ and for students in the future who will be using these resources, it shows ‘We will be here for years to come, and I belong here.’”