Clark Hultquist and Carey Heatherly Get Caught Reading

Photo and graphics by Joel Bullock

Our latest edition of UM Gets Caught Reading features professors Clark Hultquist and Carey Heatherly. The pair are the authors of Montevallo, which was published last month as part of the Images of America series by Arcadia Publishing. Dr. Hultquist is a Professor of History and chair of the Behavioral and Social Sciences Department at the university, while Mr. Heatherly is an Assistant Professor who handles the dual roles of Reference Librarian and University Archivist at Carmichael Library.

We usually ask our Get Caught Reading participants, "How do you use your campus library?" The following is a more detailed explanation of how Heatherly and Hultquist used the library and its collections during the preparation of their book for publication:

Clark Hultquist and Carey Heatherly use Carmichael Library for research purposes. This is best exemplified by the extensive research on both the campus and town history for the book Montevallo. The work is a pictorial history featuring 217 images accompanied by captions and chapter introductions. Almost all the images came from the University of Montevallo, mostly from Carmichael Library’s University Archives and Special Collections. Additionally, the duo spent six months researching each photograph; the people, the buildings, the stories behind each one. A sample of those rich resources include yearbooks from 1907 to the present, the student newspaper Alabamian from 1924 to the present, a collection of area newspaper scrapbooks from 1915 to 1995, and the University’s course catalogs and pamphlets from 1895 to the present.

The authors utilized Carmichael Library’s reference and circulation collections too. Much is owed to the available secondary sources on local history, particularly Eloise Meroney’s Montevallo: the First One-Hundred Years, Lucille Griffith’s Alabama College and White Columns and Red Bricks, and Mary Frances Tipton’s Years Rich and Fruitful. The research conducted at Carmichael has paid dividends beyond the publication of Montevallo as the authors are often asked to speak about local history. Most recently, the two led a tour of downtown and told stories about homes, businesses, churches, and the people who settled, lived, and worked in Montevallo, including notable events such as electricity coming to town in 1912 and the Main Street murder of Walter S. Cary.

2011 Faculty Research Symposium

Monday, March 7 is the date of the 2011 Faculty Research Symposium on the Montevallo campus. Tomorrow's presentations will center around five themes and feature the creative work of 21 UM faculty members representing all four colleges and the library, a stellar group of scholars and creative artists.

Faculty, staff and students are encouraged to drop in anytime between 10:00 a.m. - 6:30 p.m. as interest prompts and time permits. The presentations will take place in Wills Hall Master Classroom, room 200. Here's a list of this year's presenters:

10:00 a.m. – 10:05 a.m.
Welcoming Remarks by President John W. Stewart

10:05 a.m. – 11:30 a.m.
Learning Curves
Tom Sanders (Business)
Nancy Bell (Business)
Mickey Bunn (Business)
Joe Walsh (Education)

11:30 a.m. – 1:00 p.m.
Interventions
Laurel Hitchcock (Social Work)
Jason Newell (Social Work)
Linda Murdock (Communication Science and Disorders)
Dan Valentine (Communication Science and Disorders)

2:00 p.m. – 3:30 p.m.
Soundings & Discoveries
Betsy Inglesby (English)
Joseph Landers (Music)
Glenda Conway (English)
Deborah Karpman (Art)

3:30 p.m. – 5:00 p.m.
Recoveries
Eric Vaccarella (Spanish)
Leonor Vazquez (Spanish)
Ruth Truss (History)
Clark Hultquist (History) & Carey Heatherly (Library)

5:00 p.m. – 6:30 p.m.
Creative Processes
Kelly Wacker (Art History)
Bryn Chancellor (English)
Collin Williams (Art)
Karen Graffeo (Art)

More information on the symposium can be found here.

Heatherly, Jones Profiled in UM Research Publication

Photo by Matt Orton

Congratulations to our own Carey Heatherly, who was profiled in the latest edition of Pathways to Discovery. Produced annually by the Division of Academic Affairs and the Public Relations Office, Pathways highlights the scholarly achievements of the faculty and students at the University of Montevallo.

In this third edition of UM's campus research publication, Carey's profile highlights his work in the University Archives. He discusses his interest in campus history, specifically the life and career of Captain Henry Clay Reynolds, the first president of the Alabama Girls' Industrial School (now the University of Montevallo.) He also talks about his current project with Dr. Clark Hultquist on a photographic history book of Montevallo.

Also appearing in this edition of Pathways is Carmichael Circulation Desk Assistant Mercedes Jones. Readers of this blog will know that the Guntersville native traveled to Brazil this past year. Mercedes presented her research into Brazilian art and history at the National Conference of Undergraduate Research in April.

Congratulations to all of Montevallo's student and faculty scholars!

WWII and Montevallo

World War II has descended on Montevallo this spring. At the beginning of March, Jason Cooper posted a blog titled Women's History: The Original Flygirls. Jason's entry highlights a piece that aired on NPR's Morning Edition about WASP, Women Airforce Service Pilots.

On April 19th, we will pay tribute to UM Professor of Biology and author, E. B. Sledge. The event will be held at Parnell Memorial Library in Montevallo. Dr. Sledge's book With the Old Breed is considered by many to be one of the finest war memoirs ever published. The book is used heavily by researchers and serves as a major foundation piece for HBO's miniseries The Pacific.

UM's History Department offers many classes that focus on World War II subject matter and this semester is no exception. Two of these courses are Dr. Ruth Truss' History 481/581 "The United States 1900-1945" and Dr. Clark Hultquist's History 411/511
"Europe 1914-1945.

Finally, UM's University Archives and Special Collections contains a small, but interesting group of WWII materials. Located primarily in the Helen Parrish Collection and the Presidential Papers of Dr. Arthur Fort Harman, the items offer a real sense of what the home front was like during the war years. Harman's Papers contain documents and letters about salvaging items and donating them to the war effort. Scrap paper and tin were highly sought after material. Items in the Helen Parrish Collection include personal correspondence with soldiers stationed in Europe, a piece of Vmail, and war ration booklets (with some stamps still intact). Helen was a student and employee at Alabama College, in the 1940s, and her keepsakes were part of a recent donation to our Archives.

Special thanks to Jamie Rawls for processing the Helen Parrish Collection and to Dallas Hanbury and Kathy Ratcliffe for their research on this project. Also thanks to Hunter Tinsley and Joel Bullock for their digital image work.

UM History Professor Marks Somber Anniversary

In the spring of 2006, Clark Hultquist, UM Professor of History, was on sabbatical and living in Paris. During his stay, he traveled to Verdun and spent a weekend touring the area where German forces attempted to overwhelm the French army with a concentrated infantry and artillery attack. His visit coincided with 90th anniversary of the battle. Luckily, Dr. Hultquist took the time to relate his experience through writing, photographs, and video. With his permission, I've included links to his blog entry and media.

This Sunday marks the 94th anniversary of Verdun's opening salvo. On February 21, 1916, Germany unleashed a nine-hour artillery assault on the French stronghold. However, this bombardment was on a scale that world had never seen before. According to the Almanac of World War I, the barrage resulted in "284 shells for every 6 feet of the front" completely saturating the battlefield. The shelling continued at this rate for days and days. To put this in perspective, Dr. Hultquist states, "In the first week alone the Germans fired more than two million artillery shells on some twenty-five miles of French defenses. In the first three weeks alone, at Verdun, more artillery shells were fired by the German army in this sector than during the entire American Civil War by both sides." The battle continued for almost one year and resulted in more than 700,000 casualties (with as many as 420,000 dead). Ending on December 22, 1916, Verdun provides a perfect snapshot to a war that eventually consumed tens of millions of lives.

To read more about Dr. Hultquist's experience, please visit:

http://clarque2006.blogspot.com/2006/03/verdun.html

And to view his photos and video, click here

For further reading:

Almanac of World War I by David F. Burg and L. Edward Purcell (Ref. D 522.5 .B87 1998)

Fighting the Great War: a global history by Michael S. Neigberg (D 521 .N44 2005)

The Price of Glory: Verdun 1916 by Alistair Horne (D 545 .V3 H6)

Again, I'd like to thank Dr. Hultquist for allowing us to use his materials. His experience is a perfect example of how the University of Montevallo attempts to bring the world to its students on a daily basis.

Information needed about the Hill House Collection

A few weeks back, Karen Neal in Hill House contacted Carmichael Library about a rediscovered collection that had suffered water damage. The collection contains biographical information on noted Alabamians and consists mostly of newspaper clippings. The bulk of the articles are from the 1950s and 1960s.

With the help of Dallas Hanbury, archives student worker, and Jamie Rawls, archives intern, we were able to save this collection. After allowing the paper to fully dry, Dallas and Jamie organized the articles and rehoused them in archive appropriate containers. The material has been named the Hill House Collection.

If anyone has any information on this material, please contact me at heatherlycw@montevallo.edu or Karen Neal at nealkg@montevallo.edu

To see photos of the collection, click here.

E. B. Sledge and The Pacific

HBO Films’ 10-hour miniseries, The Pacific, is scheduled to air in March 2010. The miniseries is based in part on the life of the late Eugene B. Sledge, who taught biology at the University of Montevallo for nearly 30 years before his retirement in 1990 and who wrote, With the Old Breed, the highly acclaimed account of his time in the U.S. Marine Corps during World War II.

Click here for more information.

A trailer showing scenes from The Pacific can be viewed at www.hbo.com/events/pacific/

Death of Dr. Marvin Narz

We at the library are extremely saddened to learn that Marvin Narz, associate professor in the Michael E. Stephens College of Business and a member of the UM faculty since 1978, died Friday, July 24, of apparent complications from open-heart surgery performed earlier that week.

Services will be held Wednesday, July 29th, at 1:00 p.m. at the Church of Brook Highland. The address is 7160 Cahaba Valley Road in Birmingham.

Dr. Narz taught in the Stephens College of Business for more than 30 years. We wish his friends, family and colleagues our deepest sympathies.

Introduction to Public History

During May Term 2009, Dr. Ruth Truss taught Introduction to Public History. Dr. Truss designed this course to give students a glimpse of Public History graduate programs and the job market in this new and growing field. Among many activities, the class toured the Alabama Department of Archives and History, American Village, and Carmichael Library's University Archive (May 26th).

While visiting the library, yours truly provided the class with information ranging from what our University Archive contains and how we preserve it to what it's like working as an Academic Librarian. In addition, the class visited the Archive room and viewed some of Montevallo's treasures.

Click here for more photos.

For more information on UM's Introduction to Public History course, please contact Dr. Ruth Truss or Carey Heatherly.

For more information on Public History, click here to visit the National Council on Public History website.

Murphy Interviewed for Alabama Public Radio

Listen as Montevallo's own Jim Murphy is interviewed by Jeanie Thompson, executive director of the Alabama Writers’ Forum. Murphy is the author of Heaven Overland, published this year by Kennesaw State University Press. He is associate professor of English here at UM, and his poems have appeared in The Southern Review, Southern Humanities Review, Brooklyn Review, Painted Bride Quarterly, Cimarron Review, Fine Madness, The Alaska Quarterly Review, Puerto del Sol, and in other journals, as well as in The Memphis Sun (Kent State University Press, 2000). He serves as Director of the Montevallo Literary Festival, held on campus each spring, and as an editor in poetry for Red Mountain Review, a Birmingham-based literary journal.

Here's the link to the audio, to be aired on Alabama Public Radio: http://arts.alabama.gov/actc/1/20090414murphy.mp3

On the Web:

• Alabama Arts Radio Series website
• RedMountainBlog
  

Michael Patton Gets Caught Reading

Today we bring you our ninth installment of Get Caught Reading. It's also our first to take place off campus. Carmichael Library caught up with UM professor of philosophy Michael Patton at Eclipse Coffee and Books on Montevallo's Main Street.

It seems appropriate to the start of Banned Books Week on Saturday that Dr. Patton is reading Kingdom of Fear, by the late gonzo journalist Hunter S. Thompson. The subtitle of the book is "Loathsome Secrets of a Star-Crossed Child in the Final Days of the American Century." Said Patton of his reading choice, "It's political insight and humor that makes me laugh out loud."

Since we started taking these pictures last April, we've asked for your nominations for the UM community member you'd most like to see here. Whether it's your favorite prof, your best friend, or a student organization, we hope you'll keep sending us your ideas.

Kathy King Gets Caught Reading

Kathy King, UM Professor of English, was kind enough to visit Carmichael Library Staff at the Ask Here desk in the Library. We asked her the following:

Carmichael Library: What are you reading?

Kathy King: Atonement, by Ian McEwan.

Carmichael Library: Why?

Kathy King: This is the book, in the last year, that I’ve found most compelling. It shows the power of the imagination, its needs as well as its capacity to destroy.

Carmichael Library: How do you use your campus library?

Kathy King: I like to hang out with the fun-loving, sexy librarians of Carmichael Library.

And we like hanging out with Kathy. Stay tuned for the next episode of get caught reading. Btw, we're still taking nominations for faculty you'd like to see Get Caught Reading.

President Williams Gets Caught Reading

Dr. Philip C. Williams was recently inaugurated as UM’s 14^th President. Carmichael Library staff caught up with Dr. Williams in his Calkins Hall office, and we asked him a few questions:

Carmichael Library: What are you reading?

Dr. Williams: Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap... and Others Don't, by Jim Collins.

Carmichael Library: Why?

Dr. Williams: Because it informs the strategic planning process we will be following at UM over the next 1 ½ years.

Carmichael Library: How do you use your campus library?

Dr. Williams: There’s no one answer to that question. Librarians bring a perspective that no one else brings. I use the librarians to assist me in a number of efforts. For example, Kathy Lowe volunteered to help moderate our planning sessions. I use the Archives to learn about the history of the university. The library’s such an important place: in many ways it’s the heart and soul of the liberal arts university.

The hedgehog in the picture is Dr. William's new toy. The principle behind Good to Great is the Hedgehog Concept, in which organizations focus on the intersection of the following three qualities:

1) the product or service that leads the organization to outshine its competitors,

2) that which drives the organization's economic engine, and

3) that which the organization is passionate about.

Good to Great highlights companies that did this better than their competitors, making the leap from being good companies to being great companies.

Stay tuned for the next episode of get caught reading. BTW, we're still taking nominations for faculty you'd like to see Get Caught Reading.