The Marchand Center For Public Engagement facilitates multiple History Labs. Each lab brings together diverse history practitioners to address a common theme or historical question. Lab participants include faculty, graduate students, undergraduates, outside scholars, archivists, teachers, and teacher leaders as they collaborate. History labs advance publicly engaged scholarship and research outputs.
Expand the modules below to learn more about past, current, and upcoming UC Davis History Labs and check the "History Labs in Action" page to read longer posts about or updates from these labs.
The California Women's Conference 1977
Title: 1977 California Women's Conference History Lab
Term: Winter 2022
Participants: Lisa G. Materson was the Principle Investigator for this lab which brought together undergraduate student researchers, archivists, and faculty, graduate students, and independent researchers.
Related Course: HIS102
Description:
Materson led her Winter 2022 HIS102 course as a history lab on the 1977 California Convention. The California Women's Conference was one of 56 state and territorial pre-conferences in which delegates raised issues and agreed upon resolutions to present at the national conference that took place later that year.
Materson designed this lab to contribute to a wider initiative to commemorate the 1977 California Women's Conference which was spearheaded by UCI Professor and Sharing Stories lead Judy Tzu-Chun Wu. See blog post for a more detailed description of Wu's initiative and the multi-campus collaboration.
Student researchers in Materson's history lab researched the life histories of several of these California delegates. They wrote short biographies about these delegates that will be published on Sharing Stories, and they prepared delegate pages for the Nothing Less than Justice virtual exhibit that Wu's research team designed. Lab Participants also presented their research findings, along with other UC research teams, at a virtual conference. This conference was a valuable opportunity for faculty researchers, graduate researchers, and undergraduate researchers from all the researchers from all the participating campuses to talk about what they learned.
The Reynoso Project
Title: The Reynoso Project History Lab
Term: Part 1 (Exhibit and Curriculum) May 2022-February 2023
Part 2 (Summer Institute and Primary Source Development with California Revealed)
Partner Agency: California Revealed
Participants: UC Davis History PhD Candidate Daniel Castaneda led the Cruz Reynoso project as an extension of both his dissertation research his then role as one of the inaugural Marchand Center for Public Engagement Interns. The Reynoso Project was completed through the work of Castaneda, UC Davis Head of Archival Processing Jason Sarmiento, CHSSP Teacher-Leaders, CHSSP Staff, Graduate Student Researchers, Undergraduate Student Researchers, and UC Davis Faculty.
Description: The Reynoso Project was a multi-stage research initiative that used the archive of Cruz Reynoso, the first Latino CA Supreme Court Justice and former King Hall Law Professor, to create physical and digital exhibits on his legacy for the University, a curriculum guide for K-12 teachers, a public event unveiling the exhibit, a three day summer institute using archival sources, and small primary source sets.
Part one of the Reynoso Project not only consisted of the design, development of a library exhibit showcasing archival materials, but also the "Reynoso Curriculum Project" which produced 5 curriculum guides for k-12 teachers using the same materials. A public reception on May 26th provided an opportunity for the public to meet and engage with the exhibit and the scholars who produced it. The physical exhibit washoused at UC Davis's Shields Library from May 2022 to February 2023 and used archival materials curated by Sarmiento to celebrate and explore Reynoso's political, legal, and educational career in California. A smaller digital exhibit is available here.
The curriculum project brought together graduate student researchers, undergraduate student researchers, CHSSP staff and teacher-leaders, and archivists to produce five curriculum guides for 2nd grade, 4th grade, and 11th grade History course as well as one Ethnic Studies curriculum guide and one guide for 12th grade Government. Each of these resources used archival materials to create lesson plans about Reynoso, Latinx history, California history, and civics engagement.
The second part of the Reynoso Project centered around the Reynoso Summer Institute. The summer institute was a three-day program that brought together K-12 teachers, graduate students, undergraduates, other scholars, and librarians to work with Cruz Reynoso's Archive at UC Davis and to work with the California Revealed Archives alongside California State Archivists. At the Institute, the participants worked together to create six brief primary source sets for K-12 education using material from the Reynoso Archives and from California Revealed.
Remembered and Forgotten Legacies of the Japanese Colonial Empire
In Spring 2024, Professor Kyu Hyun Kim conducted his Spring 2024 course HIS102N: Remembered and Forgotten Legacies of the Japanese Colonial Empire as a History Lab with the assistance of History PhD Candidate and Marchand Intern Emma Chapman. UC Davis Library's Head of Archival Processing Jason Sarmiento also visited with students to share the basics of archival work and historical research. This lab facilitated collaboration amongst these scholars as students led the creation of a digital exhibit based on their research findings.
Check this page in the future for a link to the digital exhibit!
Uncovering Diverse Histories of Yolo County
Check back soon for more details on this upcoming history lab!
History Professor Cecilia Tsu, CHSSP Elementary Consultant Kate Bowen and CHSSP Ethnic Studies Coordinator Dominique Williams recently developed a project tentatively titled “Uncovering the Diverse Histories of Yolo County” which won funding from both a Public Impact Research Initiative (PIRI) grant and the University of California Engaging Humanities Research Institute (UCHRI).
This funding will support multiple quarters of collaborative research among teachers, archivists, professors, graduate students, undergraduates, and CHSSP staff as they invest in local education. Two graduate students, Sareena Crawford and Frank Meyer, and three undergraduate/ recently graduated researchers, will begin research in alongside Tsu, Bowen, and Yolo County Archivists this summer as they locate and select the stories that will be transformed in K-16 curriculum within the next academic year.
The history lab will include a History102 Course at UC Davis to be taught by Tsu.
COMING SOON - Diverse Narratives: The Middle East in Historical Context
In the Winter of 2023, the UC Office of the President granted UC Davis programmatic investments meant to combat antisemitism, Islamophobia and other forms of bias, bigotry and discrimination. In the Spring, CHSSP's Beth Slutsky and UC Davis History Professor Stacy Fahrenthold's proposal "Diverse Narratives: The Middle East in Historical Context" was selected by the UC Davis Committee as a recipient of the Addressing Bigotry and Bias Funding Opportunity.
This History Lab will involve professors, CHSSP leaders, and graduate students collaboratively creating both a lecture series and permanent public history resources.
The series will result in the following outcomes:
- Lectures by leading historians of the Middle East on the UC Davis campus, open to the campus community (students, faculty, and staff) as well as the public.
- A digital presentation in Middle Eastern history, comprising of professionally edited videos of the lectures enriched with relevant readings, primary sources, and clickable historical content. To be published on an open-access UC Davis platform.
- A related series of peer-reviewed K-12 lesson plans devised jointly by invitees and members of the UC Davis Diverse Narratives team. These materials will be co-published on a UC Davis platform and available statewide.
- New faculty/staff partnerships among project partners, as well as between project partners and additional academic units on the UC Davis campus, centered on publicly engaged historical production.
- Meaningful professional development experiences for project graduate students (GSRs) in their work with project faculty, staff, speakers, and K-12 teachers.