OHP at 20: A Look at the Pioneer Class, '97-'98

After all, it was the final year on the Bradmoor Campus and the school would be moving to a new home in a few months.

 

What the community didn’t know was that one of its signature programs was about to begin. That year, a new St. Andrew’s teacher named Glenn Whitman began the Oral History Project with the goal of turning students into preservers of historical information.

 

Now, with students about to begin work on the 20^th Annual Oral History Project, we are taking a look back at each year in the project’s history.

 

That first year, 27 students worked on the Oral History Project with Vietnam and World War II being the most popular topics, followed closely by the American Presidency and the Civil Rights Movement. Notable that year was an interview conducted by Sarah Kmieciak. Her topic was World War I and her subject was Preston Williams. Mr. Williams is the only WWI veteran interviewed for the Oral History Project.

 

“When I began my teaching career, I wanted to empower students to be and think like historians with what was for me the most authentic, enduring, and meaningful work I ever did as a student: the opportunity to be a practicing oral historian,” Whitman said. “Fortunately, when I arrived at St. Andrew’s in 1997, I was met with like-minded colleagues equally committed to having students be preservers of historical information, not just passive absorbers of historical fact.”

 

The Oral History project has all the students in the junior class creating context papers, conducting and transcribing interviews, creating displays (many of which have evolved over the years) and in some cases, presenting to the students and parents in their class.

 

One student impacted for life by the project was Mara (Stringfield) Holiday ’99. She interviewed Ron Nessen, Gerald Ford’s press secretary.

 

“I remember sitting in Mr. Nessen’s living room as he spoke about President Ford’s decency and goodness as a human being,” Holiday recalled. “I remember he said that Ford had never aspired to be president, and when Ford was thrust into the role he made the best decisions that he could in the moment given the difficult circumstances facing the nation. 

“As an adult now, I am a bleeding heart liberal. But hearing about President Ford’s life that day in Mr. Nessen’s living room so many years ago—listening to him talk so passionately about how President Ford (a Republican) was just trying to make the right decisions so that the country could heal, really moved me. I have had a fondness for President Ford ever since.”

 

Melissa Levin ’99 interviewed Roger Wilkins about the Civil Rights Movement. Wilkins became assistant attorney general during the Johnson Administration and helped push through the Civil Rights Act of 1964. He later became Director of Community Relations Service and, as a White House emissary, helped to resolve the 1965 Watts riots in Los Angeles. Wilkins was one of four men to win the Pulitzer Prize for exposing the Watergate Scandal.

 

“The Oral History Project is one of the most memorable experiences of my academic career to date,” Levin said. “The opportunity to learn about the history (and ongoing struggle) of the civil rights movement from Mr. Wilkins was life changing.”

 

“Thinking back on that project, the OHP was by far the largest research project I completed as a high schooler… and well into college for that matter,” Holiday said. “The entire process from securing an interview subject, to researching the interviewee and the broader context of the discussion, to drafting salient interview questions, to conducting the interview and transcribing the manuscript, and finally writing the analysis and making a presentation was quite an undertaking! The process was foundational in preparing me for the many research projects I would undertake in college and graduate school.“

 

The Oral History Project had a lasting effect on Levin as well.

 

“In the end, we all learned that people are happy to share their stories,” Levin said. “All you have to do is ask!”