Sophomore Journeys Digital Scholarship Fellows
"Investigate and gain proficiency with a variety of digital platforms and critically reflect on the related impacts on our culture and society.”
We are pleased to present the Digital Scholarship Fellows Program, offered by the Libraries' Digital Scholarship Group in partnership with the Sophomore Journeys Grant.
The program is designed to enable sophomores to investigate and gain proficiency with a variety of digital platforms, while also critically reflecting on the related impacts on our culture and society.
2020-2021 Sophomore Journeys Digital Scholarship Fellows
Program Overview
Students are engaged in a series of workshops, led by Judith DeGroat, Avery Olearczyk, Nicole Roché, and Eric Williams-Bergen. The workshops and related tasks are designed to progressively increase the students' skills in the use of digital technologies for scholarly research and to acquaint them with the debates about the role and challenges of technology in our society.
Mary Jane Smith, Sophomore Journeys Coordinator and Associate Professor of History notes,
"The Sophomore Journeys Digital Fellows Scholarship offers students mentored, hands-on, experiential learning that they will be able to transfer to their classroom assignments, SYE mentored research projects, and/or internships, fellowships, and post-graduation employment. After working one-on-one with LIT digital learning experts, the Digital Fellows will employ their newly learned expertise in digital technology platforms to advise faculty and/or students working on digital scholarship projects while continuing to enhance their own digital technologies research skills."
The Opportunity
Fellows are paid for 5-6 hours of work per week. Activities include monthly DSF collaboration meetings and digital skills workshops. Meetings and workshops are relaxed and productive to help guide progress through the program.
Developing digital skills from workshops enhance scholarly research used in a variety of collaborative digital scholarship projects on and off campus. Upon completion of the program, fellows have a foundation of various digital skills and project experience. This experience enhances future college and professional work at St. Lawrence and beyond!
Learn Digital Skills in Workshops
Fellows attend workshops to increase their repertoire of computer skills and technical knowledge, while simultaneously deepening their understanding of the digital humanities.
Web Design
With hands-on experience, fellows learn the basics of HTML and CSS, building blocks of every webpage and ubiquitous tools for presenting digital information. Fellows learn how to arrange and stylize web content manually by building a simple but attractive personal homepage. Students also gain experience building WordPress & Drupal-based websites.
VR/AR
Virtual and Augmented Reality technologies are changing the world from entertainment to scientific research, but they have scholarly and pedagogical applications as well. In this workshop, students experience various Augmented Reality tools for smartphone and tablet, before embarking on virtual journeys to ancient Rome, African savannah, and the depths of solitary confinement.
Data & Society
Working with Images
Geospatial Web
Contribute to Digital Scholarship Projects
Fellows work with university faculty and library staff on research that incorporates digital technology. This unique opportunity prepares students for future academic and career opportunities.
Featured Projects
The Digital Scholarship Group supports a wide range of projects from across the spectrum of the digital humanities. Below are a few featured projects.
Testimonials
Read what DSF alumni have to say about the program!
Brittanie Gordon
Class of 2021
A few months ago, I was given the opportunity to expand my knowledge of the digital field throughout the Digital Scholarship Fellows program. Over that time, I have learned a great amount that I am able to confidently incorporate in my other courses such as some basic coding skills, exploring Microsoft Excel and making timelines. The fellowship has helped me to understand what goes on” behind the scenes” in the digital world and this brought me to appreciate the work done in this field. Aside from building my technological skills, I had the opportunity to work with and form relationships with five other sophomore fellows and four members the St. Lawrence University staff, who facilitated meetings. My favorite part about this program is how interactive meetings are and the fact that we are all able to learn from each other and build on each other’s ideas.
A complete list of past and present undergraduate digital scholars can be found here.
Questions?
Contact one of our team members to learn more about this opportunity!
- Judith DeGroat (Associate Professor of History)
Dr. Judith DeGroat is a historian of gender and labor in modern France who has also developed an interest in the history of the North Country. She enjoys teaching students about and encouraging them to learn more about both subjects. She has found that learning to use digital technologies broadens the sources available to tell the stories of individuals and groups who deserve greater attention both among scholars and the wider public. She employs digital technologies in the classroom to encourage her students to engage people within and outside of the academy in civic discourse informed by historical knowledge. DeGroat has published on Parisian women’s labor and political activism in the mid-nineteenth century.
- Avery Olearczyk (Academic Library Fellow)
Avery Olearczyk works with the Library Instruction team to support academic research and library instruction. Prior to this position, Avery provided STEM and technology-based programming for Teen Services at the Charlotte Mecklenburg Library in Charlotte, NC. She enjoys connecting scholars with quality information and using digital technologies to present academic work creatively. Avery is interested in the way technology impacts empathy, experience, and communication.
- Nicole Roché (Project Support Assistant for Digital Scholarship)
Nicole Roché helps support the creation of student and faculty digital projects. Before joining the Digital Scholarship team at St. Lawrence University, she worked as the Online Managing Editor for Cutbank, the literary journal published by the University of Montana. In addition to her project support role, Nicole teaches in the First-Year Program at St. Lawrence, where her FYP, “We Are Our Stories,” engages with issues involving storytelling, family mythmaking, and personal documentation. Nicole loves working with students to help them become more empowered storytellers, researchers, and authors of their own lives. She is passionate about local history and untold stories and hopes to continue exploring how new digital technologies can help bring those stories to a wide audience.
- Eric Williams-Bergen (Director of Research & Digital Scholarship)
Eric Williams-Bergen is the director of research and digital scholarship at St. Lawrence University. He brings together his knowledge of scholarly resources and emerging technologies to help the libraries and IT focus on the planning, implementation and support of digital projects and initiatives. He is actively involved in the use and support of new and emerging technologies and publishing trends such as open access and open data. He provides technical and planning assistance to faculty in support of the digital scholarship, data management and creative work associated with digitally oriented teaching and research across the University. Eric is also a member of the University’s Library and Information Technology leadership group.