Time Commitment and Compensation:
This is a one-year, full-time, grant-funded fellowship. Compensation is $45,000 annually and
offers health and wellness benefits. This may be a remote position. Position commences
January 1 and runs through December 31.
Computer/software and professional development and travel funds will be provided, as will
membership in SAA, OHA, and other appropriate organizations.
About the Fellowship:
The HBCU Radio Preservation Project, a multi-year effort to foster an ethos of preservation at
HBCU radio stations, is pleased to announce the establishment of a Fellowship in Radio
Preservation.
The HBCU Radio Preservation Project seeks to provide learning opportunities and mentorship
for early-career archivists from diverse backgrounds and underrepresented populations. We
believe that varied representation of experiences, perspectives, and cultures is critical to our
project and to the archival profession.
The project has established a one-year position for an early-career archivist to work alongside
the project Field Archivist and other staff from the Northeast Document Conservation Center
(NEDCC), assisting in preservation of materials at the radio stations located on HBCU campuses. The Fellow will gain real-world, practical skills in audio preservation by participating in a broad range of activities supporting collaboration between the radio stations and the institutional archives on their campuses, with a focus on project-based learning with clear outcomes.
Responsibilities:
The fellow will gain hands-on experience with collection assessment, inventorying,
reformatting, oral history processes, and other preservation activities.
Qualifications/Requirements
- Candidates must have the ability to travel as needed during the full duration of the fellowship.
- Must be a recent graduate of a related Masters-level graduate program
- HBCU graduates will receive special consideration
- Candidates must be eligible to work in the United States
- Strong writing and communication skills
- Self-directed, work with minimal supervision
- Ability to work independently; ability to take direction; willingness to ask questions
- Team orientation
About the Project:
Through a grant from the National Recording Preservation Foundation, in the summer of 2019 project director Jocelyn Robinson began administering a survey to the 29 existing radio stations located on Historically Black College/University (HBCU) campuses to begin ascertaining if these stations had historical materials and what preservation needs they might have, with the WYSO Archives, a division of Miami Valley Public Media in Ohio, serving as the administrative hub for the project.
Through 2021-22, the initial survey blossomed into the HBCU Radio Preservation Pilot Project funded by the Mellon Foundation to work with a small number of the radio stations and their institutional archives/libraries to plan and design a larger implementation project. With technical expertise provided by the Northeast Document Conservation Center (NEDCC), this pilot project provided audio and digital preservation training, disaster planning, reformatting, collection assessment, and other support to the participants. The overarching goal of the ongoing project is to foster an ethos of preservation at HBCU radio stations in concert with the institutional archives on their campuses.
Not only is the HBCU Radio Preservation project an example for the HBCU community, it is a model of practice to be shared with college and community radio stations throughout the country. Radio preservation has been long neglected, and such projects are vital to the development and continuation of this important work. As we move toward implementation in 2023 and beyond, subsequent phases will include: (1) education and training, in which post-grad fellows and graduate interns are afforded early career work experiences supervised by the project’s roving archivist; (2) multi-platform learning experiences including NEDCC-led courses/workshops in audio preservation, digital preservation, disaster preparedness and WYSO-led training in oral history and using historical media in content creation; (3) preservation, which includes collections assessments performed by the roving field archivist and also reformatting historical media, with access made possible through the American Archive of Public Broadcast (AAPB); and (4) public history praxis, including an oral history project, an annual symposium held on a different HBCU campus each year, and multiple seasons of a 6-episode podcast featuring interviews, oral histories, and reformatted media.
To Apply:
Submit the following to Assistant Director Phyllis Jeffers-Coly at pjefferscoly@wyso.org
- Cover letter explaining how this position fits the applicant’s career goals;
- Current resume; and
- Three letters of recommendation from individuals knowledgeable about the applicant’s
experience, skills, and suitability for the position
Application deadline is November 25, 2024 for a January 2, 2024 start date.
The HBCU Radio Preservation Project and Miami Valley Public Media value people of all races,
colors, national origins, gender identities and expressions, sexual orientations, ages, abilities,
and religions. BIPOC, LGBTQIA+, and persons with disabilities are strongly encouraged to apply
