Author: Andrew Kutchka Major: History
Andrew Kutchka
At the beginning of the Spring 2021 semester, I was approached by a friend and fellow history major Avery Hasten who asked if I would like to be part of a research team. I was quite hesitant as I was already stretched quite thin with other extracurriculars, but I knew this was an opportunity that I could not pass up. We soon got into contact with Dr. Todd Cleveland and were welcomed onto his team with open arms. The main focus of Dr. Cleveland and his project is to have Honors History students sort through and document boxes relating to Africa found within the special collections archives. This documentation will be used to create a research guide that can be used by students, professors, and all researchers alike to much more easily locate documents pertaining to their studies. Special Collections is in fact a very special place. It was such a wonderful experience getting to sort through historical documents in such a research-oriented place.
When I first began, it all felt quite overwhelming, but I quickly got into the research groove. The biggest challenge with this research was having to find the big picture. The majority of documents that I have sorted through so far have all been in relation to the Fulbright Scholar Programs. When reading through all the telegrams, it can be easy to get lost in the details, but it was such fun piecing the story of the times together telegram by telegram. The American Embassies in all the African countries each had their own stories to tell, and it was up to me to dig through and pull the snippets of news from minor remarks in outgoing and incoming telegrams. Another great thing that my history courses had completely skipped over was the existence of the United States Information Agency. Created in 1953, the USIA was an agency dedicated to public diplomacy. They existed to put the United States in the best public relations light as possible. It surprised me that I had never heard of such an organization before now and surprised me even more to be reading telegrams from that organization. This organization was in charge of the Fulbright Scholarship Program and I got to see the exchanges of much of the selection process for this program.
Once I reached the documents where certain Fulbright candidates had been finalized, I took much joy in taking a little bit of time to quickly search up their names to see where their experiences in the Fulbright Program had brought them. So many wonderful scholars were brought together for this program and I certainly felt pretty lucky to be able to see their accomplishments from a distance over 25 years after their exchange period. There is so much more out there that I would love to learn, and it seems like Special Collections is a wonderful place to start. I fully intend to continue my research into the next fall semester, and I hope that Special Collections will have much more expansive hours of operation. I have been very fortunate to have been a part of this research team and I am very hopeful for the future.