Project Description

Colby has struggled consistently at addressing the issues of peoples from marginalized identities, but what about those who don’t fall into traditional special interest backgrounds. Recognizing the lack of focus, in this case International Students, Reggie and I would like to propose to create, curate, and refine the existing multimedia collection that would document and chronicle the memories of international students at Colby College by collecting and organizing existing materials including multimedia assets, print documents, objects from their home countries.

Over the past couple decades, the presence of International students on campus has shifted dramatically. Colby is currently recruiting a more diverse international student body with particular focuses on nationality, race and social class. Although this push for increased diversity is definitely beneficial for Colby’s creation of a more inclusive community, the stories and struggles of international students seem to fade after 4 years. These stories, containing the struggles, the joys, the moments of growth, even the moments of calm, are all valuable and integral in the documentation of students on this campus, and more broadly, US post-secondary schooling systems in general. Thus, both Reggie and I see immense value in creating an anthology of experience, if you will, depicting “internationals on the hill.” We also foresee this project as a topic of interest that directly appeal to past international alumni, current international students, and even perspective international applicants.

Historical References

Due to the fine scope that Reggie and I have chose to adopt for this project, the brevity of historical resources on the subject matter is indeed limited. At the moment, there are a plethora of groups currently expressing interest and conducting projects all about the international student community. More specifically,. Although these materials may be unable to individually depict the story of international students on campus, we foresee that through weaving these stories together using a documentary style video as our glue, we can begin painting a more complete picture. Additionally, we plan to meet and talk with Qiam Amiry ’09 and his other colleagues in Advancement Office, who are currently working on fostering the relationships with many international alumni. Lastly, we plan on integrating Sue McDougal’s, who has been working as the Dean for International Students for a long time at Colby, story. Thus, we intend to communicate between all of these parties to collect the multimedia resources necessary. Also, we wish to give credit to some past students works that inspired this project including Uzoma Orchingwa ’14’s film Black on the Hill, Annie Lee ’20’s film Popul[asian].

Technical Difficulties

As we continue to refine our focus, we envision that this project will exist in the intersection between a documentary style video and a digital published multimedia website. More specifically, we hope that this Frankenstein creation between the resources procured from special collections, including pictures, recordings, and publications, and a short documentary-style video on Dean Sue McDougal will create an interactive and extensive story that anyone with internet can access. Additionally, we foresee that procuring a technical resource that can combine the elements of an animated storyline and more manual solution will be slightly more challenging. However, if there is still great difficulty with procuring a tool that can accomplish this, we have been thinking about using a storyboard/interactive map model that can accomplish something closely resembling an animated timeline.

Current Achievements

At this moment, we have begun to initiate contact with individuals in the Advancement office and have already had the chance to sit down with some international students and hear their stories. Additionally, we anticipate having a sit down meeting with Sue McDougal expressing our vision for this project and gauging her interest. Furthermore, we have coordinated with the Office of Communications to use their photo studios as a place to conduct any interview or more formal video B-Roll. With all of this, we have had our fair share of challenges. One of the hardest thing with this project is addressing our technical conundrum. Although there are a bunch of alternative solutions that might be able to produce content, our vision requires something extremely specific. Furthermore, reaching out to Alumni and garnering their support for this project is also becoming more of an issue than anticipated. In order to document a holistic experience of as many international students as possible, we require interviewees from all walks of Colby; those who valued their time here, those who never want to step foot on campus again, and those who are still unsure about their sentiments.

Existing and Anticipated Content

  • Special Collections – Maggie Libby, Mansi Hitesh ‘19
    • Graduating International Seniors’ Oral History
    • Photo Archives built by self-submitted photos, Sue McDougal’s album
  • Colby Echos
    • Digital/Print Stories from Colby Echos
  • Colby Magazine – Gerry Boyle
    • The coverage of International students and alumni
    • Stories of achievement, experience, or research
  • Admission Office
    • The admission stats of where students were from
  • Advancement Office
    • The data of International Alumni
  • In-depth Interview with Sue McDougal, Director of International Student Programs
  • Partnering with Special Collections on curating and organizing the existing contents