Rights and Responsibilities, Parting Gifts, and a Brief Progress Report

“Alone we can do so little, together we can do so much.”

-Helen Keller (possibly apocryphal)

This week, I learned an important aspect of teamwork: knowing the limits of your responsibilities. It is not the same as shirking your duties; rather, it is contributing your gifts and fulfilling your duties to the team without trying to do what is beyond your obligations.

I live about 30 minutes away from UNC Asheville, so it is not always easy for me to commute to campus and then drive to other places where I may need to conduct oral histories or interviews (e.g., Brevard or Black Mountain.) At the beginning, Carson rightly warned against undertaking a project requiring gauntlet-like commutes throughout the entirety of western North Carolina. 828 is not just the Asheville area code; it goes all the way from Murphy to Boone. Because of this, we ruled out the Carolina Mountain Club Collection as well as the Upper French Broad River Collection. When we were finally assigned “Cut the Clearcutting Collection,” Carson, Amanda and I all breathed a slight sigh of relief, since the person of interest (Monroe Gilmour) lived in Black Mountain – about 30-35 minutes away from campus.

However, I am a commuting student, and when Carson, Amanda, and I scheduled an interview time for Monroe Gilmour, the time which worked best for their schedules was on a Thursday morning. I realized this would not be as convenient for me, since I had another commitment from 2 PM to 4 PM, and also needed to complete some homework for my other classes. As a result, I told them I could not attend the oral history. They understood, and I let Gilmour know; he could not have been kinder in his email.

When I scanned images last Monday, I told the archivist Gene I regretted not agreeing to come with them. He told me not to worry about it, and that is the way group dynamics worked. I remembered when creating the contract for the Cut the Clearcutting group, there was nothing stating I had to go conduct an oral history with Gilmour. I realized I needed to avoid putting pressure on myself and let other group members handle what they were supposed to do. This is an important part of group work – letting go of what is not your responsibility and focusing instead on doing the best at what is your duty.

 

Knowing the limits of your responsibilities is not the same as shirking your duties; rather, it is contributing your gifts and fulfilling your duties to the team without trying to do what is beyond your obligations.

On Thursday the 28th, Carson and Amanda drove to Black Mountain in the morning and interviewed Gilmour. I received their audio recording in .wav format, and although it suffers from some “background noise” (apparently it was recorded in a basement with a heater), we believe we can reduce that in Audacity. One of us will go to the Media Design Lab below Ramsey Library and work on editing that; I doubt this is the first time anyone has had to do this with a .wav file. As always, if we are unsure, Sasha will be there to help!

Although I was not present at the interview with Gilmour, he was kind enough to send all of our group members (including myself) a folder with his curriculum vitae, his involvement in Buncombe County civic organizations, and even a picture of a black bear on his porch.  It was a friendly gesture which reminded me a bit of the parting gifts the professors give us every spring at the History Department Banquet. (Dr. Rizzo confirmed I am getting something… since my senior thesis is on how pottery played a role in the Catawba Tribe of South Carolina’s revival during the 1970s, it would be funny if I got a $20 gift card to Pottery Barn, but I doubt it…)

I debated redacting some of Gilmour’s information in this parting gift, but he is so open and friendly I decided against it. I think he would agree with my decision, although I do not want other groups to assume their persons of interest will be as willing. Indeed, the nature or location of the information and person often dictates what information you will receive (if any.) For example, the USS Asheville group members may have trouble interviewing Navy officials on the current ship, since civilians are not generally permitted aboard Navy submarines. However, I doubt the students writing on the Julian Price collection will have any trouble; the former owner of Malaprops Bookstore seems quite open and willing to answer any questions about Price’s history of development in Asheville.

As far as our progress, we have scanned about 20-30 images from Ramsey Library’s Special Collections, and plan to upload them onto our wordpress.org site as a WordPress Gallery collections before spring break. We also plan to send images of Gilmour and perhaps some other individuals in the photographs from 1989 to the computer science students to render into three dimensional images for our interactive. We will edit the oral history in Audacity to make it presentable for our website, and may end up splitting it in portions for our respective tabs.

The next few weeks will be challenging and editing the website will require many steps, but as a team, we can accomplish far more than we can as individuals. Carson, Amanda, and I will learn to tackle these challenges as they arise, as we have before.