A Model to Follow
The sense of accomplishment is palpable for Derek Webb.
Just out of arms reach, nestled on a stand in a bookshelf to the right of Webb's desk, sits the 2019 Spring/summer issue of The American Archivist. The cover features a painting by Mississippi University for Women associate professor and co-foundation Webb coordinator Alex Stelioes-wills that tells the story of the “Fabulous Six,” the first Africanamerican students to enroll at then-mississippi State College for Women in 1966. The three undergraduate and three graduate students were celebrated in 2016 as part of the 50th anniversary of The W's desegregation.
The efforts of Webb and many others was an integral part of The W's commemoration of the anniversary. The final piece of that work is titled “The Virtuous Circle of Student Research: Harnessing a Multicourse Collaborative Research Project to Enhance Archival Collections.” The 10page article is about the integration project from 2014-2017 that uncovered the historical sources that informed the anniversary events.
“There is that sense of accomplishment of having published, of having published in that journal and the validation from peers,” Webb said, “but also there is validation of the project that we did. That was several years of labor on the parts of lots of people on campus. To be able to show what we do and, maybe, hopefully, see that appear as a sort of model for other places, would be great.
“There also is a good feeling in having publicized that history itself and what had happened and the students – the alumni – who were essentially heroes who had desegregated the university. That is an important part of this, too.”
Webb, special collections librarian at Fant Memorial Library and The W's archivist, did a couple of presentations about the research at conferences prior to deciding there was enough information to write an article. After the work for the initial project, Webb said it took several months to do additional research and another year or so to complete the writing and the revisions. Webb said three people participated in a blind review of the article as well as the editor at The American Archivist. This is the first time he has been published in a peer review journal. Webb had an article published in the Journal for the Society for Mississippi Archivists in 2013 prior to it being a peer-review publication.
“It is very helpful (to go through the writing process),” Webb said. “It is at times unpleasant. Reviews are a roller coaster on one hand hearing that the article is potentially in and they like the topic, but then when you get the comments and they are frank (it can be tough). But I think it was a much better article because of the peerreview process.
“It's very nice to have done it.”
Webb said he was interested to find a lot of other institutions also are digging into their archives to find their history of desegregation and using oral histories and their students to do that. He said he was a little surprised to find there hadn't been anyone he could find who did a project like The W did it in that there were students from multiple courses over multiple semesters involved as well as numerous disciplines, not just history classes. Webb said Dr. Beverly
Joyce, professor of art, and Dr. Erin Kempker, department chair, professor of history, played key roles in the research into The W's past.
He added there were countless others who were involved in the project, which makes it even more special to share the work and to contribute to the discussion.
Established in 1938, The American Archivist is a biannual peer-reviewed academic journal and the official publication of the Society of American Archivists. It covers theoretical and practical developments in archival science, particularly in North America.