When discussing the Covid-19 pandemic almost, everyone has a story on how Covid impacted their lives. From losing a family member to discussing how quarantine impacted their mental health, the pandemic altered the world. Five years later, Covid has now affected part of our history. Upon this anniversary, History Professor Dr. Molly Nebiolo began asking what we can still remember as we move further from the pandemic. The resulting project is a collection of oral histories from students across a few of Dr. Nebiolo’s classes which is being incorporated into the Butler University Archives digital collections for anyone to visit and contribute to.

The first stage of the project consisted of 42 students conducting oral histories with each other. Each student developed five to seven questions to ask each other during recorded interviews. Questions in oral histories must be incredibly fined tuned as they must direct the flow of conversation while giving space for the interviewee to elaborate on certain points. When discussing the development of the questions Dr. Nebiolo mentioned, “They [the students] had to articulate why they chose together those five to seven questions to think through. What is a great question that embodies an experience that may be collectively the two have had or might have had differently?” After the questions were approved, the interviews began. Each one was recorded and then the transcripts were cleaned up by students in Dr. N’s Introduction to Digital Humanities class, emulating the process of archiving raw audio data and building their experiences with historical information.

Once the website for the digital collection is complete (only two example oral histories have been posted in the initial collection site), people will be able to view the oral history of these 42 students and also donate their own oral accounts of their pandemic experiences to add to the collection. “Since many of our alums and current students have experienced COVID-19 and the pandemic itself,” says Dr. Nebiolo “We really are open to anybody donating to it.” The website will be a growing collection of diverse experiences from all over campus, so that future historians can learn from the events of our present. Dr. Nebiolo will also include the initial assignment given to the 42 students so future faculty can incorporate it into their classes. She hopes the collection will be a good way for future students to not only learn more about the pandemic and oral histories, but they also be able to build the collection even more. Once collected, the newly submitted oral histories will be archived by the current Butler Archival team and then will be incorporated into the collection.

On March 18^th, 2025, the collection was revealed at a Covid-19 memorial event in Irwin Library. Students who worked on the project viewed, and celebrated, the culmination of their work for the first time and took pride in preserving a piece of history. The collection can be found here. We recommend visiting multiple times over the coming weeks, months, and years as more people share their oral histories.

This past week, students in the History, Anthropology, and Classics department were welcome to attend panel of three alums to give advice to current students. Maggie Gentry (Class of 2010), Chelsea Linder (Class of 2011), and Claudia Vinci (Class of 2020) took questions from students and shared their respective journeys from graduation to their current employment. All three alums reminded attendees that no journey is linear, and the future usually has a way of working out.

Maggie Gentry graduated with a combined Anthropology and Psychology major. After working for a few years managing customer experience consulting work for multiple different companies, Maggie is now the Director of Experience Analytics and Network Analytics for Community Health Network (CHN). She utilizes her anthropology degree everyday analyzing customer satisfaction and working with her co-workers and customers to find solutions to problems. She is constantly asking what is at the heart of both a problem and its solution. She also considers the people behind the issues to determine the weight of each new issue that arrives in the collaborative process of solving problems. Maggie discussed the conceptualization of self-worth while briefly highlighting some struggles with imposter syndrome throughout her career. She advises others now to learn how to be vulnerable as that is what is important to the individual and the company.

Chelsea Linder graduated with an Anthropology and International/ Global Studies double major. Chelsea is the Vice President of Innovation and Entrepreneurship at TechPoint after working at Gener8tor helping connect startup organizations. Before that she worked at different levels of customer satisfaction at Angie’s List. She discussed how the skills she learned at Butler allowed her to have the confidence and ability to network, a high factor she contributed to her success. She has used her anthropology degree directly throughout her entire career in a similar vein to Maggie by connecting to the individual customer, employee, startup, etc. to focus solutions and opportunities for growth. Chelsea’s main advice was to take chances as they come. Even a job that is not one hundred percent what you are looking for may lead to further opportunities down the line to find that perfect job.

Claudia Vinci graduated with a History/Political Science and Chinese double major. She recently became the Exhibits Researcher at the Indiana Historical Society after working at the White House Historical Association in D.C for a few years. Claudia fully utilizes her degree everyday deciding what aspects of history should be presented in the museum and working with the design team to help achieve a positive learning environment. She also briefly highlighted the fact that life is not linear. She really wanted a museum job early on, found a job with the White House Association that wasn’t exactly what she wanted, but it gave her experience and the ability to find the museum job she has currently. Claudia also discussed the importance of work-life balance and was able to provide a perspective to students on applying to grad school.

Overall, all three alumnus were able to provide students with a variety of perspectives when approaching one’s future. We greatly thank Maggie Gentry, Chelsea Linder, and Claudia Vinci for taking the time to come and talk with students.

Recently Dr. Jennifer Guiliano of IU Indianapolis visited Butler University discussing the benefits of using Digital History to help recover/craft Indigenous Histories. Digital History promotes technology as an integral tool to historians by bringing in modern communication tools to help gather, organize, and display research. Digital History is increasingly accessible allowing undervalued and marginalized narratives to rise to the public surface.

Dr. Guiliano began her historical journey alongside her genealogist mom, joining her on trips across the Midwest growing up. By the time she was ten she knew she wanted to tell stories about the past. Thus, she started working on Indigenous history through the lens of Native American sports mascots through her undergraduate years as a history major.

In focusing on the broader range of uplifting indigenous narratives Dr. Guiliano suggests,

“1) talking about Native peoples in Indiana as a general term and instead talk about specific tribal communities: the Miami, Potawatomi, Shawnee, Delaware, and Wea. Each of these groups have their own specific histories and peoples and deserve to be recognized as independent sovereign peoples; 2) using terms like founding and settlement which ignore that role of war, violence, and trauma in the history of founding and living in Indiana.”

In addition, Indigenous Peoples are not of the past, there are many communities alive and active around the country with 13,000 in Indiana as of the 2020 census.

Now the question comes to what can we as students do to help? Students can help by just engaging with local indigenous communities and learning resources like the Eiteljorg Museum. Students can also work to organize access to indigenous resources and class on campus. Digital History has opened the doors on these narratives but students need to also make the effort to learn.

Brooks Hosfeld is a Butler University 2019 graduate in History & Anthropology and Gender, Women, & Sexuality Studies (now Race, Gender, & Sexuality Studies). He currently works as the Development Director of Sprout City Farms in Denver CO.

Q: How has your experience in the HAC Department helped you after graduation?

A: My experience in what was previously just the History & Anthropology department has been foundational to the ways I see the world and approach my career. I got into fundraising through museum work, in which various museum and archive collections internships during college introduced me to grant writing. My academic writing within the department made me a very strong grant-writer, and this department equipped me to build the professional insight necessary to intersect my passions for justice and community into professional spheres.

Q: How have your Majors helped in your current position?

A: The COVID-19 pandemic moved me away from museums and into more fundraising roles through small community organizations, and I have since ended up flourishing in nonprofit development. Skill-building aside, my degrees and the support I received from Butler faculty have been essential to the ways I perceive current events, communicate with people who want to build a better future (in part by avoiding mistakes of the past), and build relationships in both personal and professional spheres. I love when I’m asked how I got into fundraising for an urban farming nonprofit, because I get to offer a surprise of saying that I was professionally trained in history and anthropology, and that every step to get me where I have been a happy, semi-intentional accident.

Q: Any plans moving forward?

A: After doubling the organization’s operating budget in three years, I am currently seeking other professional opportunities to grow. In and out of work, I root myself in community and the belief that collective liberation is possible.