Develop a class project with the UW-Stout Archives

The UW-Stout Archives welcomes classes from a variety of disciplines.

We strive to match our resources to course objectives for a wide range of academic programs.

Typically, instructors meet with the Archivist to design coursework that relates to the resources of the UW-Stout Archives and Area Research Center. Then, the class attends an introductory session conducted by the Archivist that provides an introduction to primary resources and an overview of archival resources available for the class's specific assignment.

Following this introduction, students return to the Archives independently or in groups to conduct their research, and Archives staff assists them as they progress.

Since the work of the students investigates material specific to Stout, the Archives offers students the option to donate the final product of their project to the Archives for use by future researchers.

The Area Research Center at the University of Wisconsin-Stout is a cooperative project of the State Historical Society and UW-Stout. The Area Research Center maintains historic materials related to Barron, Dunn, and Pepin counties and provides public research hours for its collections. 

The University Archives preserves the historical records of the University of Wisconsin-Stout and its predecessors. The collection of the University Archives consists of historically valuable records from campus departments, faculty, students, alumni, and organizations. Search University Archives via online databases.

The Archives is located in Room 504A of the Robert S. Swanson Library and Learning Center.
It is open to researchers Monday - Friday, 8:30AM - 4:00PM

A selection of class projects previously hosted in the UW-Stout Archives

Applied Social Science

APSS- 200 Applied Social Analysis

Students developed individual research topics and employed qualitative methods to examine archival resources in the UW-Stout Archives and Area Research Center. They compiled their research findings into final papers and presentations.

Architecture, Engineering, and Construction

AEC- 191 The Built Environment

Students researched blueprints and a variety of correspondence and building documents related to Harvey Hall since its groundbreaking in 1915. Two sections of students completed architectural historic site reviews addressing the building's history, construction details, and architectural character. They compared their findings with the official report compiled by the architectural firm contracted for the Harvey Hall restoration project.

Art

ART- 102 Introduction To Art And Design

Students investigated WPA artist Cal Peters and the murals created in Harvey Hall on the Stout Campus. They created informational exhibits about facets of the art project's history, including projects on similar WPA muralists, detailed descriptions of his art studio on campus, and analysis of how the artwork's messages related to the mission of the Stout campus. Students completed drawings of architectural elements within Harvey Hall.

ART- 217 Printmaking I
Students created cooperative portraits of a mystery person from Stout's past. Each student created an etching plate for a piece of the portrait, and the students learned the individual's identity at print time.
Students also created their own version of currency using images and themes from Stout's past.

ASPIRE

TRDIS- 120 Strategies For Academic Success
Students researched specific historical events from the Stout campus and located archival resources that documented the events in a variety of voices and formats.

Biology

BIO-111   HON  Science, the Environment and Sustainability

Students investigated the original landscaping plans for the Wilson Place mansion in Menomonie, which were designed by internationally renowned architect Frederick Law Olmsted. Students compared the less than optimal plants recommended by Olmsted's East Coast firm with similar, more practical alternatives recommended by Olmsted's contemporaries in Wisconsin.

BIO-355  Entomology

Students investigated ongoing  wasp infestations in Harvey Hall, and researched characteristics of the the species, its nesting habits, and its effects on humans. Students reviewed information including personal accounts of infestations, insect sting counts in student health records, and building structure and planning records.

Computer Science

CS-448 Software Engineering

Students collaborated with Stout Archives and two community partner institutions to design an interface that conveys images of archival and museum collection items and interpretive metadata. The interface balances the ease of searching across distinct collections with display features that differentiate the items by location and origin.

CS-458  Advanced Software Engineering

Students designed an interactive that allows researchers to manipulate three dimensional photogrammetric models of collection items from the UW-Stout Archives while viewing corresponding informational metadata. Coursework included the creation of a non-proprietary program for seamless online interaction with the digital objects.

Design

DES-225 Pixel and Vector Art

Design students analyzed blueprints, photographs, and existing drawings of campus buildings to create a collaborative pixel art map of campus buildings and their surrounding areas. Each student created a segment of the map, and the students agreed upon standards that balanced cohesion and creativity. Students also created animated pixel versions of themselves that populated the map.

DES-373  3D Modeling & Animation III 

Design students created  a virtual Harvey Hall interface that accurately re-created rooms, individuals, and objects from two different time periods in the twentieth century. The resulting interface allows users to travel through the building and participate in gamified missions and activities. 

DES-375 Digital Cinema

Students researched archival collections and created cinematic sequences depicting archival content for the Harvey Hall video game interface. Their final project included a dramatic introductory sequence for the game's interface.

DES-380 Signage And Exhibition Design

Students drew inspiration from archival resources to create concept drawings for construction wrap exhibitions that will surround Harvey Hall during its renovation. Projects employed historic blueprints, photographs, and Chancellors' speeches.

DES-388 Typographic Design

Students designed concepts for a typographic design to be employed as the official logo and font of the Harvey Hall Centennial project. Projects employed elements of historic handwriting samples, blueprints, photographs, newspapers, and yearbooks for interpretive designs.

DES- 570 Comics and Sequential Art

Students created a graphic novel based on a history of the founding of Stout's Art department written by by faculty member Orazio Fumagalli in 1985. Their researched employed archival photographs, publications, and manuscript collections to substantiate Fumagalli's accounts of individuals, buildings, events, and artwork.

DES-870 Creative Thesis in Design

MFA capstone students created a podcast about objects found during the reconstruction of Harvey Hall. Students connected each object and its design elements to their own fields of expertise and conducted archival research to provide context for each object's significance to art programs on campus, apparel design, film making, and interior design.

Early Childhood Education

ECE-426  Children, Families, Schools, and Communities

Students researched archival resources to investigate demographic information surrounding a twentieth century student's ability to be successful in an educational environment. They used their findings to theorize ways that they could facilitate home-school-community relationships that contribute to the educational success of today's students.

Economics

ECON-210 Principles of Macroeconomics

Students calculated a Consumer Price Index (CPI) for the purchases made by lumberjacks between 1855 and 1885. They identified a theoretical basket of commonly purchased goods in the Knapp, Stout, and Co. Lumber store register and documented the changes in prices for the same set of items over time. They compared the price of the basket on given years with the CPI they calculated.

Engineering and Technology

ETECH-112

Engineering Graphics Fundamentals

Students researched the U.S. Patent Office patents and analyzed patents successfully obtained by Stout faculty and members of the Menomonie community. Students analyzed the patent drawings, description narratives, and the background research necessary for the applicants to substantiate as part of each application. The assignment included a discussion of the patent application process and interaction with supplementary materials from the UW-Stout Archives manuscript collections.

English

ENGL-101 Composition 1
Communication Skills - Writing
Students selected local spaces of personal significance and used archival resources to investigate the histories of those locations. Students combined historical resources with current images and impressions to provide thorough written studies of spaces including local businesses, campus buildings, and area points of interest.

In another section, students consulted archival resources to investigate their choice from three campus controversies: controversial artwork, gender pronoun policies, and Halloween costume stereotyping. The students analyzed primary source images, documents, and artwork to create position pieces about their chosen topics.

ENGL-102 Composition 2
Art and Design Living and Learning Community

Students investigated WPA artist Cal Peters and the murals created in Harvey Hall on the Stout Campus. They created informational exhibits about facets of the art project's history, including projects on similar WPA muralists, detailed descriptions of his art studio on campus, and analysis of the artwork's messages related to the mission of the Stout campus.

Tagging and Classification of Digital Images 

Students engaged with the critical thinking practice of classification. Students explored metadata schema and investigated a series of digital collections from the University Archives and external resources. Then, as groups, the students adopted a variety of audiences. Each team tagged the same set of photographs according to the needs of their audience. The students compared results and discussed ways that cataloging and organization might influence discovery of resources.

ENGL-111 Freshman English--Honors I
Communication Skills - Writing
Students selected local spaces of personal significance and used archival resources to investigate the histories of those locations. Students combined historical resources with current images and impressions to provide thorough written studies of spaces including local businesses, campus buildings, and area points of interest.

ENGL-112 Freshman English--Honors II
Communication Skills - Reading
Students investigated advertisements in The Stoutonia student newspaper, athletic event programs, and other historical resources from Stout and its predecessors. They wrote papers about their impressions of the ways the ads conveyed information.

ENGL-113 The Power of Place Honors Seminar I

Students investigated elements of the historical circumstances behind the WPA Murals in Harvey Hall. Some student projects were selected for the regional and national honors conferences.

ENGL-245 Creative Writing

Students chose textual or three-dimensional objects in the archives to create a non fiction narrative that explored the object, the people who created or used it, and its significance to those who have interacted with it. Objects included cans and bottles recovered from Harvey Hall during its remodeling, 1920s era death certificates, and 1960s visions of the year 2000.

ENGL- 218 Mass Communication: Effects Of The Technology On Society

Stoutonia student newspaper

Students reviewed a selection of mass communication formats represented in the Stout Archives. Local primary resources included local newspapers, the Stoutonia student newspaper, Civilian Conservation Corps newsletters, alternative press publications, radio recordings from the 1960s, and public television programs recorded on campus during the 1970s and 1980s.

Another section analyzed groupings of mass communication objects that demonstrated a progression of technology by function. Groupings included still images, educational presentation equipment, audio recording equipment, printing technology, and social media. Students researched their objects and created exhibits for the larger class. The teams rotated through the exhibits and discussed their findings as a class.

ENGL- 320 Business Writing

Students analyzed a variety of pieces of business writing, including informal 1980s community groups, Stout student organization minutes, and formal 1890s corporate records and compared the ways that the resources summarized and communicated information about the groups and companies they described.

ENGL- 371 Rhetoric and Style: Strategies of Argumentation

Students analyzed scrapbooks, photograph albums, yearbooks, and diaries to identify instances of third-person privacy violations. Students wrote about the private information they encountered and discussed the ethics of disseminating sensitive information in public media. Students concluded by writing a reflection piece about their own writing and social media practice and the choices they make about revealing information about themselves and others.

ENGL- 418 Convergent Communication

Students investigated The Stoutonia student newspaper at specific time periods and composed impressions about why the resource presented itself in the format, topics, and visual styles during eras outlined in the project.

ENGL-480 Digital Humanities Seminar

Digital Humanities students collected, researched, and curated digital artifacts to incorporate into a virtual Harvey Hall game interface.

Another section used TEI encoding to add descriptive metadata to the World War I diary of a Stout alumnus.

ENGL-495 Digital Humanities Capstone

Senior Professional Communication and Emerging Media students performed either independent or collaborative archival research projects that served as their capstone work in their program's curriculum.

A team of seven students collaborated with a design team to create the Harvey Hall video game.

A team created an augmented reality interface to interpret controversial Works Progress Administration murals on campus.

Other independent projects have interpreted a nonextant campus gymnasium building and the diary of a World War I soldier.

English as a Second Language Institute

ESLI-61A High Advanced ESL Reading, Writing and Grammar Skills I

Students researched how International students are represented in the collections of the Stout Archives and wrote papers that recommended ways that they could advocate for increased documentation of their organizations and activities.

ESLI-11A Beginning ESL Reading, Writing, and Grammar Skills I

Students researched how International students are represented in the collections of the Stout Archives and wrote papers that recommended ways that they could advocate for increased documentation of their organizations and activities.

Literature

LIT-307 After 9/11 : American Literature of Public Crisis and Trauma

Students used archival photographs, newspapers, speeches, and meeting minutes to analyze the reactions to the terrorist acts of September 11, 2001. The project focused specifically on the events, writings, and longterm effects within the UW-Stout campus and area communities.

Psychology

PSYC-251 Child Psychology

Student groups focused upon archival images and primary source documents to observe how children in three separate age groups approached play during their assigned temporal eras. They compared depictions of play from the past with observations about how play is structured and viewed today. The assignment combined observations of current children and archival research.

Vocational Rehabilitation

REHAB-215 Rehabilitation and Criminal Justice

Criminal justice students engaged in group projects that investigated the Dunn County Jail Registers, 1913-1959. Each group researched an assigned time period and examined arrest data including age, occupation, race, sex, crime, arresting officer, and circumstances of incarceration. The groups connected the data to larger trends in litigation, police and community relations, and cultural movements. They compiled their analysis into research papers and presentations.