The Virginia Tech Center for Rhetoric in Society has received a grant from Voice of Witness, a nonprofit that sponsors oral history projects examining human rights and social justice. As part of the grant, the center sponsored training workshops in oral history methodology for Virginia Tech undergraduate and graduate students; Voice of Witness education director Cliff Mayotte and managing editor Dao Tran led the workshops.
Workshop participants are now qualified to work with a Voice of Witness oral history project, “Resettled: Beginning (Again) in Appalachia,” for which Katrina Powell, an English professor who directs the Center for Rhetoric in Society, serves as editor.
Participants are also trained to work with another center initiative: VT Stories, a collaborative oral history project aimed at capturing a broader and more inclusive history of the university through interviews with Virginia Tech alumni, students, faculty, and staff.