I’ve seen and learned so much about Lafayette’s Black student body this past year. Some things were more emotionally taxing to understand than others, but it only reminded me of the continued need to maintain both physical and digital spaces where Black thought, identities, and experiences are respected and discussed. I started working with the ABC Archives Project during the spring semester of my first year. I remember gathering in the upper room of Portlock, laptop in hand, discussing the very beginnings of my new role. Shortly after, the pandemic put a lot of the project and my own personal life on pause. But I’m hopeful to complete the work we had set out to a year ago. 

This summer, I hope to dive deeper into how Black students are preserving and protecting themselves from the many harms of this institution. Most importantly, I just want to listen. Gaining a newfound understanding of what other Black students are experiencing at Lafayette College is pivotal to the goals we all set for ourselves this summer. I also hope to use this to develop a digital project that displays said stories and histories in a beautifully honorable way. 

Earlier today, I familiarized myself with the captioning program in Kaltura. My main concern moving forward is that the voice-listening-AI will not accurately transcribe the recorded conversations. When using the platform earlier this week to caption a DHSS interview, I saw that many words or colloquialisms were either misspelled or skipped over. I don’t mind combing through the audio to add in the small changes in speech patterns of our Black interviewees. I definitely have not been able to dedicate a lot of time to transcribing this week (my DHSS website is almost complete) but I am very excited to visit campus this weekend and dedicate more time to my role.