Recruiting underway for 2013 Navajo Oral History Project

Plans are in the works for the 2013 Navajo Oral History project, the fifth year of the successful collaboration between Winona State University of Winona, Minnesota, and Diné College of The Navajo Nation.

Dr. Tom Grier (tgrier@winona.edu) of the WSU Mass Communication department, and Dr. Miranda Haskie (mhaskie@dinecollege.edu) of the DC Social and Behavioral Sciences department are already meeting with students and getting a list together in preparation for the class which begins in May 2013.

Each summer, students from both educational institutions are placed in collaborative teams and spend most of a month working on documentary journalism projects focused on Navajo elders.

The students first meet each other via interactive television classes in May.  Then the WSU students travel to Tsaile, Arizona, on the Navajo Nation for three weeks of field work with their DC counterparts.  The students research a Navajo elder, do a service project for the elder, and interview the elder three times over an 18-day period. Finally, the student teams, edit and produce a documentary film about the elder's life.

The class is focused on students learning a variety of journalism skills while creating meaningful, accurate and culturally significant documentary films which are archived at the Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of the American Indian as well as at the Navajo Nation Museum and Library and the libraries at Diné College and Winona State University.

Students interested in participating in the 2013 Navajo Oral History project should review other pages in this blog, look at some of the previous year's completed documentaries, then contact one of the project director faculty members (listed above) via email to indicate interest. There's a limited number of seats available.