"Digital Modeling of Western State Constitutional Conventions by Undergraduates: Extending the Quill Project"

FAIN: HAA-269067-20

Utah Valley University (Orem, UT 84058-0001)
Rodney Smith (Project Director: June 2019 to August 2020)
Scott Paul (Project Director: August 2020 to October 2022)
Verlan Lewis (Project Director: October 2022 to March 2023)
Matthew S. Brogdon (Project Director: March 2023 to present)
Scott Paul (Co Project Director: October 2019 to present)
Verlan Lewis (Co Project Director: March 2023 to present)

Extending the Quill Project to include additional research by undergraduate history students to help create a digital model of archival materials that document US state constitutional conventions.

The Center for Constitutional Studies (CCS) at Utah Valley University requests NEH level-III support of $324,791, with an added match of $50,000, for a major expansion of its undergraduate-led digital modeling of state constitutional conventions. Building upon our completion of an interactive edition of the Utah convention records, an accomplishment enabled by a partnership with Oxford University’s Quill Project, we propose to model three more state conventions from the American west. State constitutionalism is a neglected field, especially with the western states; moreover, Quill’s software cannot be enhanced without more attempts to apply it. CCS would hire five student employees to do the modeling, purchase an additional server for the sake of upgrading Quill’s user-friendliness, and hold a conference where we share our findings and encourage other universities to model a convention. Overall, our project would spur academic research and digital advancement in tandem.