Special Collections Supports Your Teaching

Each academic year, the Special Collections Research Center hosts about 100 curated class sessions across all disciplines, including but not limited to history, art history, American studies, psychology, chemistry, math, creative writing, English, foreign languages, music, kinesiology, and marine science. Potential instruction opportunities are endless, and our archivists are eager to help engage your students in researching with special collections.

Faculty Instruction Request

Curated instruction session formats include:

• Lecture + object analysis - We welcome you to use our projector and podium to hold your lecture and allow students to see materials related to your talk. (max. 40 students)
• Object display - Our archivists will set up the classroom with materials hand-selected for your class themes and topics. Students will have the class time to move around the room and look at the materials. At the end of class, they will share with each other what they saw, what surprised them, and what they saw that raised questions. (max. 40 students)
• Selections for student-specific research - Archivists will identify and display materials specifically related to individual students' class research projects. This works best for small seminar-style courses, independent studies, and/or graduate level courses. (max. 20 students)
• We are always happy to work with you to structure a class session that will best suit your students and goals. Discuss with an archivist what format will work well for you!

Additional Instructional Services Include:

• Customized resource guides - We will create guides, tailored to specific courses and assignments, that direct students to relevant resources in Special Collections. Discuss this option with one of our archivists. 
• Consultations on possible assignments - Unsure if Special Collections would fit into your class?  We’re happy to work with you to come up with assignments to meet your needs.
• Orientations for classes - We will give your class a "crash course" introduction to finding and using our materials.
• Digitization of our materials - We can provide digitized copies of our materials (where possible) for use in Blackboard or in your presentations.  This could be especially useful for larger classes.