Hi everyone, my name is Tanya Gardner, and I am a student in George Mason’s Digital Humanities Certificate Program. I am originally from New Orleans but have lived in the Northeast for most of my life. I hold degrees in media production, human communication, and culture and media studies. In addition to my studies in public history and digital humanities, I am a professor of communication studies at Delaware County Community College.
Some of my skills include being a tenacious learner, which I am finding helpful in an online learning program. Some of my key skills in public history include an interest in understanding past events in their historical context. I also enjoy research and find the process of hunting for information interesting, like detective work. I can, and often do, happily spend hours in online archives, physical libraries, and historical societies, searching for and analyzing historical documents.
I have many interests outside of school that I use as healthy outlets to keep me balanced, including gardening (vegetables and flowers), reading (mostly literary fiction), and time with family and friends. I am also the archivist for my church and volunteer on my township’s library board. My research interests range from health communication to community resilience. I view my current focus, the history of Black communities along the Pennsylvania Main Line, as an extension of my scholarly interests, as knowledge is power in building community resilience. One of my goals in this course is to move closer to using all the knowledge I have gained in the program so far to produce a site that executes the design principles and goals of a digital humanities project.
One question I currently have is how to determine which information I have researched will interest the public. I find all the information I uncover interesting, but I need to decide which to share with the public and which to save in my records. I have also come to realize that public history often centers around the history of individuals. As I dig into my research, I see that people’s lives are sometimes complicated and messy. I want to be respectful and not tarnish anyone’s reputation, but I also do not want to perpetuate myths. I am grappling with how to handle information unearthed about individuals that is true, but could negatively affect the public’s perception of their accomplishments.
Brevity is also not my strong suit, so I also want to learn how to keep my writing concise and focused to keep the public engaged. I am interested in adapting my project across multiple teaching and learning environments, including museums, colleges, and high schools.