Recommendations: The Voices of Participants

Recommendation 1

Illustration featuring three individuals Kim Christen, Maria Cotera, and Josh Honn alongside elements and quotes about archival practices, memory-keeping, and community stewardship.

The illustration highlights three individuals Kim Christen, Maria Cotera, and Josh Honn each accompanied by visual elements and quotes reflecting their perspectives on archival practices, memory-keeping, and community engagement. In the top right, Kim Christen is depicted with shoulder-length hair and glasses. Her quote reads, “The foundation for archival repair and restructure is relationship infrastructure, practices embedded in policies that enact, enliven, and engender respect and reciprocity through sovereignty.” To the left of her, a diagram labeled “CARE” is shown, with the acronym standing for “Collective Benefit,” “Authority to Control,” “Responsibility,” and “Ethics.” In the bottom left, Maria Cotera is illustrated with short hair and a scarf. Her quote states, “The women we interview are more than ‘resources’ to be mined for information about the past; they are collaborators in intimate acts of memory-keeping.” Next to her, a visual comparison is depicted: on the left, a woman places her hand on her chest, saying “Mi vida...” (Spanish for “My life”), while on the right, a hand places small figurines of people into a drawer, symbolizing the contrast between personal storytelling and objectification. In the bottom right, Josh Honn is shown with glasses and a beard. His quote reads, “How can we get that final deliverable, that website, that digital project, into the hands of the people who it really affects and who are going to be the stewards of that legacy and remain in community?” Below his quote, a digital interface is illustrated, with a website displayed on a screen. Two people stand nearby, and a pair of hands is extended, symbolizing the act of sharing and community stewardship.

Recommendation 2

An illustrated collage featuring four individuals with quotes about project management, funding, and humanities scholarship, accompanied by symbolic graphics.

An illustrated collage of four individuals, each accompanied by a quote and symbolic graphics representing their ideas about project management, funding, and humanities scholarship. 1. Top Left: Linda García Merchant’s quote reads: “My role is to train faculty how to do project management, how to do plan management, utilize resources within their own institutions. We really have to begin to look at the labor and the representations of labor that is not available to these projects.” 2. Top Right: Dan Cohen is shown wearing glasses and a suit. His quote states: “Dan Cohen characterized the problem as the need to Meet Operational Needs Each Year, i.e., MONEY.” A graphic next to him shows a person surrounded by icons representing ideas, collaboration, and empowerment. 3. Bottom Right: Ben Vinson 3 is illustrated wearing glasses and a suit. His quote reads: “If we speak of a humanities core in the way we do for science that becomes understood as an investment resource... something that benefits multitudes of scholars at an institution.” A graphic below his quote shows a person holding two domes, one containing a computer and the other containing documents, while another person looks confused. 4. Bottom Left: Katrina Powell is depicted. Her quote says: “What takes someone who has the job of grant project manager five minutes to do, may take me all day to figure out. And so that has taken my time away from producing various kinds of scholarship or digital projects or community-based resources.” A graphic below her quote shows a calendar, a piggy bank, and a government building connected by arrows, symbolizing funding cycles.

Recommendation 3

Illustration featuring three individuals, Christopher Warren, Ricia Chansky, and Jeffrey Cohen, alongside quotes about challenges and perspectives in digital humanities.

A composite illustration featuring three individuals, Christopher Warren, Ricia Chansky, and Jeffrey Cohen, each accompanied by a quote and related visuals. At the top left, Christopher Warren is depicted with a bald head and a plaid shirt. His quote reads: “So many digital projects involve multiple people, and so much of the model of evaluation in the humanities presumes a single author. It’s tricky with digital scholarship to ask people to untangle their very rich and productive collaborations.” To the right of his portrait, an illustration shows four people holding hands in a circle, with two of them raising a ribbon. At the top right, Ricia Chansky is illustrated with short dark hair, glasses, and a patterned top. Her quote states: “Some of the things that I’m hearing from junior faculty members in the digital humanities is that they’re now expected to do everything. That if they want to do a DH project, they have to do that in addition to articles, in addition to academic presentations, in addition to printed and bound books.” Below her quote, an illustration shows a person sitting under a glass dome surrounded by books, a laptop, and papers, symbolizing the overwhelming expectations placed on academics. At the bottom left, Jeffrey Cohen is depicted with glasses, a beard, and a suit. His quote reads: “Doctors review the work of doctors, dancers and choreographers review the work of dancers and choreographers. Those in other fields have long been comfortable gauging the significance of contributions made in practice, interpretation, performance and public impact. The Humanities don’t need to reinvent anything, but re-adjust with intentionality and care.” To the right of his quote, an illustration shows two people interacting with a large computer screen displaying various icons, representing the evaluation of digital contributions.

Recommendation 4

Illustration featuring three individuals, Maryemma Graham, Ida Jones, and Zoe Wake Hyde, alongside their quotes about education, mentorship, and community development.

The illustration highlights three individuals, each accompanied by a quote and visual elements representing their ideas. 1. Maryemma Graham: A portrait of Maryemma Graham, an older woman. Her quote reads: “We need to give our students and staff more say in projects and create career paths to move them up to administrative and lead work.” Beside her is an illustration of three people holding hands, walking up a winding path toward a sunrise over a mountain, symbolizing progress and collaboration. 2. Ida Jones: A portrait of Ida Jones, a woman with curly hair.Her quote reads: “The idea is succession planning. So ideally I would like to see my replacement look like me. I was mentored by people that looked like me, and they had been stewarding the materials in my collection 100 plus years... I would say the greatest challenge in this subfield of the H B C U world is the apprenticeship to make it a viable and attractive option that graduate school and employment could be rewarding.” Next to her is an illustration of three overlapping portraits of women with curly hair, symbolizing mentorship and succession planning. 3. Zoe Wake Hyde: A portrait of Zoe Wake Hyde, a person with short and wavy hair. Her quote reads: “A lot of it is really related to what digital spaces enable in terms of community development and people being able to come together because the ideas are there. One example that emerged organically on the platform is the composers of color group... bringing the histories and the presence of composers of color into contemporary education.” Accompanying her is an illustration of three people engaged in a creative discussion, with speech bubbles, a lightbulb symbolizing ideas, and musical notes representing the composers of color group.

Recommendation 5

An illustrated collage featuring 4 individuals discussing the importance of networks, cross-disciplinary collaboration, and digital humanities, accompanied by visual metaphors.

The illustrated collage highlights the themes of networks, collaboration, and digital humanities. In the top left, a woman labeled “Terri Taylor” is illustrated. Next to her is a quote: “Part of what we’re doing is trying to get a lot better in our own approach to networks, because one thing funders have that’s often hidden are really rich networks. We can provide huge value in connecting people.” To the right, a Venn diagram is depicted with three overlapping circles. Surrounding the diagram are three figures: a man holding a beaker, a woman holding a laptop, and another woman holding a document. Below, a garden scene with flowers and butterflies represents the concept of complex ecosystems. Butterflies are shown flying between flowers, symbolizing connections. To the right of this, a man labeled “R. Darrell Meadows” is illustrated. His quote reads: “In this broad ecosystem, these are highly complex networks of folks who are unaware of each other almost completely. How do we facilitate network connections that are not currently happening, but could prove really beneficial to everyone involved?” At the bottom left, a man labeled “Kenton Rambsy” is illustrated with short locs and a turtleneck. His quote reads: “In my Digital Humanities and African American literature course, hash tag The Jay Z Class, my institution had a program to facilitate cross-disciplinary work, and the cross-pollination with library science and computer technology has been illuminating. The fusion of their data management and analytical skills with our literary inquiries elevates our analysis, highlighting the evolving relationship between literature, music, and digital technology.” To the right of this, an icon of a book and a computer is connected by arrows to a drawing of a man in a suit.

Recommendation 6

Illustrated portraits of three individuals with accompanying quotes about preserving projects, D O I recognition, and amplifying global voices.

The illustration features portraits of three individuals, each paired with a quote and relevant visuals. 1. Top Left: A portrait of Roopika Risam. Her quote reads: “Part of our hope...in doing this is that there would be some record of the projects that if they cease to be maintained, or if they’re sunsetted, there is some documentation that they existed and that they were there.” To the right of her portrait is an illustration of a sunset with clouds and a stack of documents, symbolizing the preservation of projects. 2. Top Right: A portrait of Charles Watkinson. His quote reads: “The D O I is now the entryway into recognition, into credit, into getting into the information supply chain so your work will get reviewed and preserved.” Below his quote is an illustration of a circular flow of books, documents, and a D O I (Digital Object Identifier) label, representing the process of recognition and preservation in academic publishing. 3. Bottom Left: A portrait of Stephen Rhind-Tutt. His quote reads: “We’ve traditionally set up systems that require a great deal of money and a great deal of learning for people to publish. And in doing so, we’ve shut down large swathes of voices around the world. What I’m really excited about is enabling these communities...to speak with their own voices and to bring skills of access, preservation, and curation to those voices.” To the right of his portrait is an illustration of a world map with speech bubbles, symbolizing global voices and communication.

Recommendation 7

An illustrated collage featuring three individuals, each discussing challenges in funding and infrastructure sustainability, accompanied by symbolic visuals like a piggy bank, an octopus, and people reaching for money bags.

The collage addressing challenges in funding and infrastructure sustainability. In the top left, a cartoon-style illustration shows a person sitting at a desk labeled “RULES,” with a piggy bank and a piece of paper in front of them. To the right, a portrait of Carly Strasser is shown with accompanying text discussing the difficulty of sustaining infrastructure projects due to rigid funding rules. She emphasizes the need for funders to engage in conversations with infrastructure providers to ensure long-term project viability. In the bottom left, Monika Rhue is depicted in a portrait alongside text about the challenges faced by smaller institutions. She notes that individuals in these institutions often wear multiple hats, such as being both the director and the advocate for making collections accessible. An illustration of an octopus holding various items, including a keyboard, a document, and a phone, represents the multitasking required in these roles. In the bottom right, Marisa Parham is shown in a portrait with text discussing the barriers to accessing large-scale grants. She highlights that funding agencies are expanding to include more communities, but the level of resources and staff required to apply for these grants makes them inaccessible to many. Below her, an illustration shows three people standing on different-sized platforms, reaching for large money bags, symbolizing unequal access to funding opportunities.

Appendix: Commissioners and Project Team

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