Faculty and Community Partnerships
The Samuel Proctor Oral History Program regularly works with faculty, campus units, and community collaborators across Florida and the Southeast to design oral history projects, provide training, support research and creative activities, and preserve interviews for future use. Collaboration is central to SPOHP’s mission and long-standing impact, and the program’s work is grounded in accessibility, community partnership, and public engagement.
Why Collaborate with SPOHP?
SPOHP offers faculty and community partners a distinctive combination of strengths: deep experience in oral history methodology, one of the region’s most significant oral history archives, a long-standing commitment to ethical and community-centered practice, and a strong record of student training and public engagement. The program has built enduring partnerships with communities across Florida and the Southeast, and current and former collaborators consistently identify trust, shared purpose, and mutual respect as central to that work.
Workshops and Training
SPOHP regularly offers introductory oral history workshops and training sessions for students, faculty, staff, and community members. These half-day workshops introduce oral history methods, ethics, and best practices, and can support both new and developing projects. If your organization or community group is interested in hosting an oral history workshop, contact SPOHP at spohp@clas.ufl.edu.
Class Visits and Presentations
SPOHP welcomes opportunities to visit classes, host groups in Pugh Hall, and offer presentations on oral history theory, methodology, and practice. Faculty may also arrange archive visits or presentations tailored to specific courses, assignments, or research interests. Contact SPOHP at spohp@clas.ufl.edu to schedule your visit.
Project Consultation and Collaboration
SPOHP consults with faculty and community collaborators on oral history project design, interviewing strategy, documentation, preservation, and public access. Whether you are planning a class-based oral history assignment, a research project, a community history initiative, or a larger collaborative endeavor, SPOHP can help you think through the process from start to finish.
Archiving and Preserving Interviews
For faculty and community partners who wish to preserve oral histories beyond the life of a single class or project, SPOHP may be able to support long-term archiving and public access. Many interviews are made available through UF Digital Collections, SPOHP’s primary platform for public access. Interviews considered for accession into the archive must meet documentation and permissions requirements, and we encourage you to reach out to us as early in the planning phase as possible. Doing so helps ensure that projects follow oral history best practices and are structured for ethical preservation and long-term access.
To learn more, visit the Interview Permissions, Depositing, & Forms page.
A Partner in Teaching, Research, and Public History
SPOHP is both a research resource and a collaborative partner. Faculty use SPOHP collections in coursework, honors theses, dissertations, books, articles, documentaries, and exhibitions, while community collaborators work with SPOHP to preserve stories, support public memory, and create new forms of engagement with the past. Contact SPOHP to discuss potential collaborations—we look forward to hearing from you.