Rochester: Mapping Place, Space, and Identity

FAIN: AKB-279352-21

St. John Fisher College (Rochester, NY 14618-3537)
Oliver Lothar Griffin (Project Director: September 2020 to present)
Kimberly Chichester (Co Project Director: April 2021 to present)

Implementation of a five-course sequence that brings the lens of place to the history of Rochester, New York.

St. John Fisher College (SJFC) proposes “Rochester: Mapping Place, Space, and Identity.” This three-year implementation project will feature interdisciplinary collaboration between humanities faculty from history, American studies, and religious studies and non-humanities faculty from biology, chemistry, sociology, and data science. Participating faculty members will engage in collective learning and develop a series of five new courses for SJFC’s core curriculum focused on topics related to greater Rochester’s history, culture, and environment that will engage students from their freshmen to senior year. Through experiential learning activities designed for and embedded in each of the five courses, participating faculty and students will develop content for a web-based “deep map” of the Rochester region, which will include historical primary documents, media coverage, and Census and other data to create an interactive view of Rochester from the 19th century to the present.