Matters
of Memory

Their work is part of a new initiative at Hobart and William Smith that asks a deceptively simple question: Who gets to tell a community's story, and how does that story shape the way people live together?

Directed by Professor of History Matthew Crow, the program blends team-taught seminars with hands-on research and community collaboration. Students study how stories are formed, preserved and sometimes contested — and then apply those ideas beyond the classroom.

That work extends well beyond Geneva. Last fall, students traveled to Washington, D.C. to explore how national institutions shape historical memory. At the Library of Congress, the nation's oldest federal cultural institution, and the National Museum of African American History and Culture, students examined how archives, exhibitions and public history influence what a society remembers, values and understands about itself.

Back in Geneva, students apply those insights locally. One early project explored the intersections of religion, race and civic life in the city's history — drawing on interviews, archival research and community partnerships to help create a public, interactive exhibit that will be shared both on campus and online.

It's the kind of work that turns a question — who gets to tell the story? — into something the community can examine, debate and carry forward together.