Contents: About the Founding Stories project | Credits and Acknowledgement | Support Founding Stories | Tech

About the Founding Stories project

UW Tacoma Oral History: Founding Stories aims to present a rich and complex history of UW Tacoma, which was established with tremendous community support. Its presence in downtown Tacoma has transformed the post-industrial neighborhood and invites inquiries into urban development; historic preservation; public higher education; and the relationships between people, communities, and institutions.

In late 2017, UW Tacoma Library began to collect oral history interviews with founding faculty, staff, and community leaders to document the founding history of University of Washington Tacoma and completed the first phase of this oral history project.

Then in 2019–2020, the Library initiated a second phase with a much more expanded scope. After ten months of work, Founding Stories reflects a collection of over 35 interviews that share first-hand accounts, perspectives, and experiences of individuals who played significant roles in establishing and shaping UW Tacoma. Founding and long-serving faculty and staff, past active members of student organizations, academic and community leaders, and political figures all appear in the collection. These oral history recordings serve as valuable primary sources to support future scholarly research and storytelling.

Credits and Acknowledgement

Founding Stories is the result of a collaborative effort. Justin Wadland (UW Tacoma Library) and Charles Williams (UW Tacoma School of Interdisciplinary Arts and Sciences) conceptualized and initiated the project. Joan Hua (UW Tacoma Library) managed the 2019–2020 phase to develop, curate, and publish the collection. Colleagues at UW Libraries—from the Collections & Content and IT Services & Digital Strategies in particular—offered their crucial support to make the archiving of the collection possible. A number of UW Tacoma student employees assisted in the transcription process to make the audio collection more accessible.

We especially appreciate the opportunity to collaborate with Devin Becker, Head of Data and Digital Services at University of Idaho. His generous and tireless guidance on the CollectionBuilder site enabled us to showcase the collection material and facilitate discovery in dynamic ways on this collection website.

This project has been supported by the Friends of the UW Libraries (Phase 1); and UW Tacoma and a pledge of support from Rod Hagenbuch (Phase 2). We received assistance from the Office of Advancement to expand our contacts and garner support for the project, and we thank generous past and future donors for helping us preserve and interpret the history of UW Tacoma.

Support Founding Stories

This project is about a community that helped build UW Tacoma. Many of you—whether formerly or presently affiliated with UW Tacoma—offered input and shared your stories. You can help collect the rich and complex stories of the founding of UW Tacoma by making a gift in any amount to support UW Tacoma Oral History: The Founding Stories.