MIDDLE TENNESSEE STATE UNIVERSITY

PROPOSAL FOR PUBLIC HISTORY RESIDENCY

Teaching Residency for Potential Archival Distance Education Program at MTSU
Murfreesboro, TN

In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirement for the

Doctor of Philosophy Degree in
Public History

SUBMITTED TO
Dissertation Committee-
Dr. Lisa Pruitt, Chair
Dr. Ellen Garrison
Dr. Brenden Martin
Dr. Lynn Nelson
Dr. Dianna Rust

SUBMITTED BY
Albert C. Whittenberg

August 18, 2010

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Professional Residency Proposal

The overall goal/plan for this residency is to explore distance education

possibilities for the Public History program and specifically the Archives option. Currently,

the Archives program/option at MTSU is also part of the Archival Education Collaborative

(AEC). The AEC is a unique partnership of five universities (MTSU, Auburn University,

Indiana University, Louisiana State University and the University of Wisconsin at

Milwaukee) pooling their resources to provide classes through distance education delivered

by video conference transmitted over Internet 2. As part of the residency, I will serve as the

AEC liaison for MTSU during the 2010/2011 academic year. This will include ongoing

correspondence such as through the AEC email distribution list or scheduled meetings such

as the one to Baton Rouge on October 8th through 10th. For each AEC meeting/conference, I

will submit a written report to Dr. Rebecca Conard, chair of the Public History Committee

and Director of the Public History Program. I also plan on giving a 10 minute oral report on

the October conference to the Public History Committee at its November 5th meeting. Dr.

Ellen Garrison will also provide advisory assistance with this role due to her extensive years

of experience with AEC and the SAEC (the original program before AEC that consisted of

only four southeastern schools).

As one of my first responsibilities, I will teach the AEC Fall 2010 course, HIST

6620 (Seminar in Archival Management: History of Archives and Recordkeeping). This

course was converted into a hybrid online course in 2008 with a grant awarded to Dr.

Garrison, and I was fortunate to be one of her first students in the course after the conversion.

Using a survey given that semester plus my personal experience, I will update the course’s

online components (along with input from Dr. Garrison on what did and did not work when
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Professional Residency Proposal

she taught it). I will use the experience from this course in the fall (plus over 15 years of

work in distance education) to then update HIST 6615 (Essentials of Archival Management)

to an online hybrid model for Spring 2011. I should be able to solely teach this course in the

spring unless a doctoral student signs up for it which would then require Dr. Garrison to team

teach it with me. It is hoped that the “hands on” or practical application portion of this

course can be handled through Saturday sessions at the Rutherford County Archives while

the rest of the course can be done either through online sessions in the Desire2Learn course

management system or the new video conferencing classroom being created in the History

department.

Assisting me will be my residency mentor and an authority on distance learning,

Dr. Dianna Z. Rust. There is her official bio from MTSU:

Dianna Z. Rust earned her Bachelor’s and Master’s degree in Mass Communication
from Middle Tennessee State University and earned her Ed.D. from Tennessee State
University. Her dissertation research was titled Examining Interaction in Online Courses
in Relation to Student Performance and Course Retention. She recently co-authored an
article, Evolution of a Peer Review/Evaluation Program for Online Course Development,
that was accepted for publication in To Improve the Academy, Vol. 29. She has presented
on distance learning topics at state, regional and national conferences.

She has directed the Academic Outreach and Distance Learning Department at MTSU
since 1998. Currently she is the Associate Dean for the Continuing Education and
Distance Learning. She has instructed online courses for the Regents Online Degree
Program including ORCO 3240 Introduction to Organizational Communications and
PRST 6310 Leadership in Organizations.

Rust is a member of the Association for Continuing Higher Education, Tennessee

Alliance for Continuing Higher Education and MTSU’s Learning, Teaching, and
Innovative Technologies Center advisory board. She serves as the chair of the MTSU
Distance Learning Committee. She has attended numerous training sessions and
conferences on utilizing technology in teaching and learning as well as training in online
course management systems.

Both HIST 6620 and 6615’s online components will be made available to Dr. Rust as well as me

meeting with her to discuss my overall plans during this year as well as my dissertation research.
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Professional Residency Proposal

Dr. Rust will also serve on the dissertation committee.

Besides acting as liaison for AEC and the two classes taught, I will also serve on

the Ad Hoc Distance Education Committee currently being chaired by Dr. David Rowe in the

History Department. This committee is investigating moving several of the graduate courses

onto to a hybrid online model as well as upgrading the current conference/seminar classroom in

Peck Hall to allow online video and audio (this will be the room used by me for the Spring 6615

course). I have already attended the first initial meetings of this committee and will provide

assistance with technology training and support. Since several of the History faculty will be

investigating moving their courses to this model. I should be able to provide departmental

Desire2Learn training as well as using the new technology in the room.

In summary, my residency will consist of four main tasks:

1. Serving as liaison for the Archival Education Collaborative,

2. Updating and team teaching HIST 6620 with Dr. Ellen Garrison in Fall 2010,
3. Converting HIST 6615 to a hybrid online model and teaching it in Spring 2011, and
4. Serving on the History department’s Ad Hoc Distance Education Committee while
providing both Desire2Learn and classroom technology training.

These should provide a number of key benefits for me as well as assisting in my dissertation

research. Teaching both courses will give me valuable classroom teaching experience while also

introducing me to the complexities of adapting a course to an online hybrid environment.

Working with Dr. Rust and the Distance Education Committee will enable me to understand

fully the difficulties of moving a program to the online arena and provide valuable insight on

possible questions for his dissertation on the feasibilities on an online public history or

specifically an archival program. Serving as liaison will also allow me to work with faculty from

several universities as well as helping understand better the administrative duties of a program

like the AEC. By the end of Spring 2011 semester, I hope to have gained valuable experience,
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Professional Residency Proposal

completed a professional portfolio and taken strong steps towards my dissertation research.