The University of Dayton Department of History wanted to do something different this year for its senior capstone class. The students are researching the history of UD Arena and its relationship to the Dayton community as a class project. The project is tied to the arena\u27s 50th anniversary and its current renovation

Gallagher, Clare

English

University of Dayton

University of Dayton eCommons College of Arts and Sciences Newsroom College of Arts and Sciences Administration 5-4-2018 Students Trace UD Arena's History Clare Gallagher University of Dayton Follow this and additional works at: https://ecommons.udayton.edu/cas_blog eCommons Citation Gallagher, Clare, "Students Trace UD Arena's History" (2018). College of Arts and Sciences Newsroom. 229. https://ecommons.udayton.edu/cas_blog/229 This Blog is brought to you for free and open access by the College of Arts and Sciences Administration at eCommons. It has been accepted for inclusion in College of Arts and Sciences Newsroom by an authorized administrator of eCommons. For more information, please contact mschlangen1@udayton.edu, ecommons@udayton.edu. 1/3Students Trace UD Arena's Historyudayton.edu/blogs/artssciences/2018-stories/18-05-04-hst-capstone-project.phpFriday May 4, 2018The University of Dayton Department of History wanted to do something different this yearfor its senior capstone class. The students are researching the history of UD Arena and itsrelationship to the Dayton community as a class project. The project is tied to the arena's50th anniversary and its current renovation."The students seem excited and that excites us," said Todd Uhlman, assistant professor ofhistory who is known to his students as "Dr. U."David Darrow, associate professor of history, and Uhlman came up with the idea to do astudy of the arena for the 50th anniversary. They decided to make the class a collectiveresearch project, for all 12 students in the class."We didn't want it to just be about the specific construction of the arena but rather a socialand cultural history," Uhlman said. "What has the arena done for Dayton? What has theUniversity of Dayton done for the larger community?"The professors started teaching the students how to use the University archive. The studentswere then responsible for going to the archive and conducting their research, looking for notonly the history of the construction of the arena, but also its social and cultural history."When you're in the archive you don’t know what you're going to find," said Alex Bourdakos,a senior from Chagrin Falls, Ohio. "It's not only just what you find and how you interpret it.You have to craft the story yourself and infer from what your seeing how the historyhappened. The document can only tell you so much; you have to put the pieces together."According to Darrow, the arena has a history on multiple levels — sporting venue,architectural item and as a bridge between the University and Dayton community.2/3University President Eric F. Spina sat in on the class on March 28 to learn more about theproject and the class’ initiative."What a great idea for a course and to see the students come alive, they know more aboutthis institution than most, maybe all of the faculty and staff," Spina said. "This is a historyclass but it's really important for today. So, I'm really impressed by the students and theirengagement and obviously the way the faculty has developed this class."So far the students have spent about 360 to 380 hours in the archive this semester. Theirgoal is to cover at least the first decade of the arena."Even as a senior I find it a little overwhelming because I've never had a class like thisbefore," Bourdakos said. "It's cool to actually do the work of a historian instead of just writingpapers."In addition to conducting research in the archive, students must work as a group and sharetheir research and ideas to write one collaborative narrative."In doing this, they're being real historians," Darrow said. "They're having the experiencewhere they're going through an entire box of papers and finding absolutely nothing and thenthe next box it seems to take them forever to get through because every piece of paper theytouch has something interesting and important."While conducting research in the archives the students discovered how the arena wasfunded, how the land was determined and the design specifications. The students alsodiscovered there were many social issues happening during the building of the arena.Although the arena was not intended to directly impact any social issues, it did have animpact on the community."We have information on the arena as an economic force, as a racial force and as a force forsocial change. Now we have to make it all one cohesive narrative," said Adam Schwartz, asenior from Hamilton, Ohio. "We can connect what's going on with UD at the time with howthe arena is being used as a social change and kind of a relief of racial tension."In addition to the group's paper, the class will produce a website calleddaytonarenahistory.org with the paper, primary documents found in the research, photos,oral interviews and a forum where locals can write their stories of the arena."The students are doing historical research in ways we’ve done it going back hundreds ofyears but when telling the story they are combining that with this new technology of theinternet," Uhlman said.Darrow and Uhlman said this project would not be possible without the help of Scott DeBolt,director of UD Arena; Paul Dagnell of the Learning Teaching Center; English professorPatrick Thomas; and University archivists Jennifer Brancato and Kristina Schulz.3/3"It's definitely a much more intense feeling, but I think one that will benefit the historydepartment in the long run," Schwartz said.  Next spring, Uhlman will teach the same course with new students, who will add to theproject. Darrow will teach Introduction to the Historian's Craft, where the students will learnthe basic skills of the archives before they get to the senior capstone class.- Clare Gallagher ‘181/10  

Students Trace UD Arena\u27s History

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Students Trace UD Arena\u27s History

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