OHMA Director Amy Starecheski to oversee new oral history grant

The Oral History Association has been awarded $825,000 from the National Endowment for the Humanities through the American Rescue Plan to create a fellowship program for under/unemployed oral historians, with a focus on oral historians from communities that have historically been marginalized in the field.

Amy Starecheski, Director of the Oral History Master of Arts (OHMA) program and 2021-22 President of the OHA, will serve as a Co-Principal Investigator on the grant alongside Louis Kyriakoudes, Director of The Albert Gore Research Center & Professor of History at Middle Tennessee State University. The idea for the grant came from work Starecheski did with OHMA students.

OHA will be awarding eleven year-long fellowships of $60,000. Oral historians from communities which have been historically marginalized in the field (such as Indigenous peoples, people of color, people with disabilities, and working class people) are particularly invited to apply. Applicants will be encouraged to propose projects grounded in partnerships with communities and organizations. In addition to the fellowship award, fellows will be provided with mentoring, research funds, training, and a supportive cohort experience. Program details, including application materials will be available at http://www.oralhistory.org/neh 

As a part of this funding series, OHA will also be awarding up to a dozen smaller grants to support research into the history and current dynamics of the field of oral history, with the aim of creating knowledge that can be deployed to create a more equitable and inclusive field.