College of Arts, Humanities, and Social Sciences

Humanities and Communication

CSUMB 10th Anniversary Oral History Project

The course project of "Oral History and Community Memory," fall semester 2004 at CSUMB, was to collect oral histories of the university on the occasion of its 10th anniversary. Our class explored and sought to discover different perspectives and stories of past and current members of our campus; we captured stories about their lives, but our main purpose was to find out how they felt throughout their experiences at the university.

This oral history project creates a space in which to present both contradicting and corroborating memories of life at CSUMB over the past ten years. Our class created a project that sought perspectives from different members of the community including students, faculty, staff, administration, members of the military community and community members. As we mark this tenth-year milestone, it behooves us all to reflect on the original Vision. Along with applauding the University's tremendous accomplishments, there are questions being asked, specifically: Has the university accomplished what it set out to do and what it claims to have done, and what are the stories that have not been recorded?

Oral histories have been conducted to contribute to a collective, public memory. We hope you will find these stories as interesting and captivating as was our experience in creating this project. These interviews will be housed in the Oral History and Community Memory Archive at CSUMB. They will be accessible for use in future history projects, capstones, and research, as well as for general interest.