project update: 8 june 2010

When I spoke with many of you at the time of your interview, my original projection for the completion of my thesis was August, 2010. Since then, a couple of changes in my life -- including being hired for a second part-time job -- have caused me to push back this final deadline to May, 2011.

Over this summer, I will be working on the first draft of my thesis, tentatively titled How to Live?: The Oregon Extension as Communal Experiment in Living, 1975-1980. The three chapters explore the Oregon Extension's faculty community, the Oregon Extension as an academic program and the experience of students, and the Oregon Extension as a space of self-exploration and self-definition, particularly in the context of its institutional and cultural connections to the Evangelical subculture.

At the end of August, I will submit my draft for comments to my primary and secondary readers. Following a hiatus during the Fall semester in order to complete my MLS degree (Master's in Library Science), I plan to write the final draft during the Spring semester and present my research at the graduate colloquium in May.

While I am not actively seeking out additional alumni to interview at this time, since my primary focus is writing, I am happy to hear from any alumni who wish to participate in the project by filling out a questionnaire and/or recording an oral history interview. Please see the how to participate page for more information and contact information.

I am also experimenting with the free transcription software Express Scribe as a means for manually transcribing the interviews I have collected, which represent over twenty-five hours of conversation. As I complete transcriptions, I will give the narrators an opportunity to review and amend these documents prior to making them available, with the digital audio files, online through the Internet Archive.

As always, if you have any comments or questions, feel free to shoot me an email or leave a comment here at the blog and I'll be sure to follow up.

In the meantime, I hope all of you have a restful and creative summer.

In peace,
Anna