Printer FriendlyThe Project:
Lowell has always been a diverse place with immigrant residents, such as Irish and Canadian. Many of the experiences of Irish and Canadians have already been documented, but not many stories from the last 30 years have been collected. This summer we focused on the earlier immigrants such as Asian, Hispanic and African. This project was part of a bigger project conducted by Bob Forrant, Linda Silka, and Christophe Strobel along with two graduate students.
This project idea was built from the accomplishments of last year’s CITA team which created a documentary about Lowell’s creative economy and economic development, featuring interviews with prominent residents engaged in these areas. Our task emerged from concerns that the University of Massachusetts Lowell and the downtown community share:
- How to increase the numbers of UMass Lowell students and faculty actively participating in downtown
- How UML can increase its links to the growing cultural arts activities downtown
- How to reduce the barriers (transportation, perceptions of safety) to student and faculty involvement in downtown
This project was funded by a Joseph P. Healey and Public Service Endowment Grant given to select interdisciplinary university faculty programs. Our goals were to:
- Develop a “Best Practices” guide of strategies to promote university-downtown involvement.
- Develop a project website
- Present an article on what we have learned in a Lowell Sun article
- Identify downtown partners willing to hold a space for classes or meetings
- Identify downtown partners willing to bring an event or service to the University
- Visit other colleges to learn about their strategies
To accomplish our tasks, we visited approximately 30 downtown businesses and organizations to see if they were interested in creating partnerships with UMass Lowell. We also met with representatives from Clark University (Worcester, MA), UMass Dartmouth (Dartmouth, MA), and the Colleges of Worcester (MA) Consortium, to learn how they promote student interaction with their communities.
Our Team:
Members of the team come from a variety of places including Cambodia, Japan, Ghana, Malaysia and Russia. This gave us a great advantage in identifying immigrants who would share their stories. Events such as the African and Puerto Rican festivals were also invaluable in gathering contacts. We recorded, transcribed and compiled these interviews and used them as the basis for our digital presentation.
The Results:
By the end of the summer we interviewed 22 individuals who provided us with insightful and interesting information concerning their life’s experience in Lowell. The experience interviewing them was wonderful. We were able to learn about their cultures and their lives before and after they came to live here. One of our team members met with musical group One Love which consists of rapper Fee, songstress Ruby and guest MC Lyrical. We are proud of our accomplishments and the experience we had on this project.
top