Greetings! I am Holly Rine; I am an Associate Professor of History at Le Moyne College in Syracuse, NY. My interests and goals in the Digital Public Humanities certificate program are to gain skills, primarily, to teach undergraduates about digital public history. I have an M.A. in Public History/Cultural Resources Management, but it is from 1994. Since my degree pre-dates the introduction of Windows 95, I figure I have some catching up to do in all of public history but particularly in the digital part. I am especially excited about this class as I hope it will give me some solid grounding as I prepare to teach an Introduction to Public History course come fall 2022.

As many in the class have heard, ad nauseum, I am hoping to create 1. a public history concentration in our current history major, and 2. a digital project for students to work on that will focus on local history, the tentative title of which is “Syracuse at the Cross-Roads.” My project last semester was a site built with Omeka that tells the counter-narrative to what in Syracuse is known as the “Jerry Rescue,” which was the rescue of a fugitive slave from federal custody in 1851 in the city. This is the cornerstone of Syracuse’s public memory as an abolitionist city. My project was designed to tell the other part, where most Syracusans found the abolitionists to be both dangerous and treasonous. I used this as a pilot of sorts for the “Syracuse at the Cross-Roads” project.

In addition to improving my skills with Omeka, I also want to learn more about creating interactive maps, podcasts, and oral histories. Like my “traditional” history teaching at Le Moyne, I cover many subjects from Native American History to Environmental History and World History, and, given our hiring freeze, I will need to broaden my skills in digital public history as well. That is before the teaching part even comes into play. Luckily, I learned the key lesson that you need a team to do this kind of work, and, luckily, I have many colleagues who are also interested in contributing their skills to this project. I am excited for this opportunity to shake up my own work as well as bring some new ideas and projects to my students and colleagues.

I’ve also discovered there aren’t many photos of me without a dog or without me making strange faces or both. Here is one of the few, when my wife and I escaped Syracuse in January for five, warm, sunny days in Sarasota.