23 Using An Archival Collection in a Student Research and Creative Activity Fair: The Lourdes Gouveia Papers at the University of Nebraska at Omaha

Introduction

During the Spring 2022 semester, Claire Du Laney, Outreach Archivist at the University of Nebraska at Omaha (UNO) Archives and Special Collections (ASC), worked with Dr. Brett Kyle and students in International Relations in Latin America (PSCI4280) to introduce political science students to primary source research.[1] Using the Lourdes Gouveia Papers (UNO-0234), students conducted archival research and incorporated those skills into their final projects.[2] The Lourdes Gouveia Papers are the research collection of Dr. Lourdes Gouveia, a UNO professor and founding director of the Office of Latino/Latin American Studies (OLLAS), who studied Latinx immigrants in the Nebraska meat-packing industry from 1988–2016. Areas of research within the collection include immigrant integration, the experiences of Latina women in migrant communities, social services available to Latinx families, and the ethical concerns around beef-packing labor.[3]

There were three significant outcomes of this class collaboration. First, Dr. Kyle and his students gained confidence in accessing archival materials and understanding how primary sources enhance research projects. Second, students presented their final projects, which included their primary source research, at the UNO’s Student Research and Creative Activity Fair (RCAF) in March 2022. Finally, students wrote reflection papers about their interactions with primary source research. This chapter will focus primarily on the reflection papers and the benefits that students gain from an active-learning pedagogical format and research framework.

UNO Archives and Special Collections Collaboration with PSCI4280: Background

The Gouveia Papers were donated to UNO ASC in July 2016 and are composed of fifteen cubic feet of material.[4] The collection spans Gouveia’s research circa 1970–2015, with most materials from 1980–2010. At the time of the class, the collection was unprocessed, though open to researchers with a well-organized original order.

The ASC-PSCI4280 Spring 2022 class collaboration was a long time in the making. Du Laney and Kyle met during a university-sponsored forum in the fall of 2019. A professional friendship developed over the subsequent semesters, in which Du Laney invited Kyle to visit ASC or to incorporate collection usage into his classes.[5] Du Laney and Kyle discussed the possibility of using various archival materials, but no class was an obvious choice.

During the Fall 2021 semester, Kyle emailed Du Laney to brainstorm an in-class archives assignment for his International Relations class. Initially, Kyle envisioned this as a two-week, discrete assignment, with one week for archival instruction and the second week to research and write. Du Laney and Kyle scheduled seven planning meetings from November 2021–February 2022, prior to the class visits, to identify research topics, learning objectives, and collection series. The learning objectives were to introduce students to primary sources and archival materials, explore the content of the collection and how it connects to the overall class themes, conduct archival research and incorporate this research into a final research project, and write a research reflection where students focus on their archival experience. The learning objectives conversation was critical, as studies show that clear objectives in archival instruction sessions lead to higher rates of comfort and competency in the classroom.[6] Additionally, instruction sessions that are collaborative, embedded, and support active learning have high success rates for student engagement.[7]

Through this process, Kyle and Du Laney determined that instead of a single writing assignment, students would benefit more from a scaffolded approach that incorporated archival research through active learning. The advantages of a hands-on or constructivist framework, where students learn through experiencing archival materials and research, rather than instructor-centered lecture or show-and-tell, has been well documented.[8] During meetings, it was decided that the Student Research and Creative Activity Fair (RCAF) provided the ideal venue for students to showcase their final poster projects. The posters would include an analysis of a wide variety of research sources including archival materials, academic journal articles, gray literature, and news articles. Kyle was most interested in the series about Lexington, NE because of the local connection (relative to Omaha) with which students might connect their group topics of Labor, Business, and Political Institutions.[9] Du Laney asked if either a survey or reflection could be incorporated to gauge students’ grasp of archival competencies and learning objectives; the reflection paper was agreed upon. Assessment and student feedback proved critical for understanding the success of these learning outcomes within the constructivist framework.[10]

The two class sessions included a standard introduction to primary sources and elements of primary source literacy. Only one student had archival research experience, so Du Laney spent a significant portion of that first class explaining how to read and analyze primary sources. Additionally, Du Laney stressed that students might not find a perfect document for their research. Rather, students would have to be flexible and even discuss how materials found were not relevant to their research for various reasons. During this session, Du Laney had selected a few items from a specific series and had students read them over, discuss in small groups, and share with the rest of the class how they would or would not incorporate this item into their project to practice conducting research. Students were then free to explore the boxes and folders within a subsection of the collection, so that they would have a chance to physically interact with the papers before conducting any research.

During the second session, students returned to the archives with unexpected, though much appreciated, gusto. Divided into their research groups, students examined the pre-selected folders and self-selected materials from series boxes. Students asked both content-specific and larger thematic questions as they conducted their primary source research. They explored how items could support their research, how to read research notes and the marginalia, and struggled when they could not find materials that fit their purpose. Importantly, Kyle increasingly saw the benefit of primary source research in the field of political science. Students periodically came to ASC outside of class time to continue their research, sometimes making individual appointments and other times walking into the reading room as a group.

Student Reflections

PSCI4280 students were organized into three groups, producing three research posters in total. The group topics, Labor, Business, and Political Institutions, were selected by Kyle to reflect the overarching course themes. While the intention was for the poster to reflect a more evenly distributed analysis of materials (one quarter archival, one quarter gray literature, one quarter scholarly journals, and one quarter synthesis), this did not manifest. Many students wrote one or two sentences about their archival work and focused overall on the more familiar and comfortable gray literature. However, the connections they made in the posters indicated that students with no previous experience with primary sources can use them to frame research in sophisticated ways. Two quotations, one from the Business group and one from the Labor group respectively, illustrate this point.

By utilizing the unique resource of the Lourdes Gouveia Papers in the UNO Archives and Special Collections, we first establish an understanding of the inter-related issues of migration and recruitment for employment in the [meatpacking] industry as well as the role of government in facilitating production and export through measures such as guest worker visa programs and trade agreements.^[11]

Moreover, the Gouveia Papers provide a unique view with an unfiltered voice due to the nature of primary documents. This reveals a stark reality in the state of the meatpacking industry in the United States.^[12]

Students in the Business group used the Gouveia Papers to orient themselves to the intersection of migration, employment, and government, while the Labor group focused on the human rights approach that archival materials can support when they incorporate data and the voices of the marginalized, respectively. The Labor group’s use of the term “unfiltered” raised some concerns for Du Laney about the conflation of primary sources and assumed authority or neutrality in records. While students should be lauded for seeing the value in primary sources, there must be continued discussion about the nuances of bias, even in records that share stories of the oppressed.

The individual reflections provided archival introspection, and incorporated non-archival reflections about potential future research. These archival insights fall into three categories: primary source research, contextual learning, and archival joy.[13]

Primary Source Research

When discussing primary source research and analysis, students used phrases such as “hands-on,” “formative,” and “unique.” Students spoke specifically about how primary source research strengthened or changed their research questions during the process. Some of the positive responses are quoted below:

Our class was able to learn hands-on the importance of primary sources and how research can grow and change through a project…Compared to researching a topic online, you had to be very intentional about what folders you pulled to make best use of your time and the resources at hand. Student 3.

[Gouveia] made notes in the margins of academic papers, newspaper columns, correspondence, and interview notes, which allowed us the unique opportunity to understand her basis of thinking. For example, she made notes in interviews that provided a sort of flow chart of her thoughts, i.e., what happened to why do [sic] that happen. Student 1.

Included in these annotations were specific issues and questions posed that had a few parallels for my project and helped shape the direction it started out at. Student 2.

The Lourdes Gouveia Papers were the major source we initially used to help us narrow down our topic and get us started in the right direction for the rest of our research. Student 6.

There were also some reflections that indicated students’ confusion, frustration, or incorrect assumptions about primary source research. These included not remembering reading room protocol, understanding that bias exists in both primary and secondary source materials, and reconciling that there may not be the perfect research material available for your project.

I do think it presented its own challenges, however. It was difficult to work with a text you couldn’t photograph or take with you, and though it was usually clearly based on statistics in the papers I read, I always worried whether her personal biases would be read as fact in her notes. Student 9.

Many of the Gouveia papers were about the Midwest meat industry touching on the international labor recruitment. The Gouveia papers served as a jumping point, a realization that the meat industry has more international components than one would think. With our topic being about the business of the meat industry in Latin America, the Gouveia papers felt irrelevant. Student 5.

Even the negative or confused insights (students are allowed to take photos and Du Laney stated this during both instruction sessions) about primary source research provide valuable information. It is clear that students were grappling with this new research method to the best of their abilities and overall, they engaged with the active-learning framework in meaningful and productive ways by evaluating how primary sources can guide, strengthen, or challenge an existing argument.

Contextual Learning

Contextual learning is defined here as students successfully integrating the information they gathered from their primary source research into the larger analysis of their topic. Kyle has the most hesitation about student success in this research area. However, students did a great job linking the Gouveia research materials with secondary sources, drawing connections between the local experiences of migrant workers with global labor, industry, and governmental trends.

The topic of immigrant labor in the meatpacking industry is not a topic that normally appeals to me, but since my family started working in a meatpacking industry, I have realized that it is quite an interesting phenomenon…The results were very productive since I found some reports on the working conditions in the meat industry in Argentina in the 80s and 90s. In addition, I got access to some newspapers of the time and these allowed me to understand the political, economic and, and [sic] social [word missing] that affected the country in those years. Student 4.

We used the information we found in the Gouveia Papers and expanded their information to a greater Latin American context. With the Papers, we were able to see the local relevance of a topic as major as meat processing in Latin America. Student 6.

It’s interesting to see how the research conducted in the Gouveia files relates to the experiences my parents and I have been through. It’s daunting to see how your own experience can be explained by data and research conducted on issues that stem further than just a town in rural Nebraska. Student 7.

The local relevance and unique information that the Gouveia Papers afford researchers surprised students as they synthesized primary sources with gray literature, scholarly research, and news sources. One student wrote that the archival work they conducted lay the groundwork for how they conducted additional research and influenced the trajectory of their project (Student 2). The active-learning pedagogical framework allowed students to engage with materials in a more meaningful way than the traditional show-and-tell method, which ran the risk of decontextualizing the folders simply by sharing too many items at once. Rather, the constructivist approach, allowing students to learn through experiencing, provided students with the option to ask questions and formulate their own ideas. Kyle was able to guide these questions within the broader context of the class, and students gained subject expertise in the local topics.

Archival Joy

Du Laney was delighted by the reflections that shared moments of archival joy, or instances where students shared their surprise at how meaningful the archival research was during the semester. The theme of archival joy can be a gamble, as so much is dependent on a student’s research temperament. The reflection from Student 7 was particularly moving, as they reflected on their family’s experience in the Nebraska meatpacking industry, and how they felt themselves represented in the archival records.

By far one of the most memorable aspects of conducting research with the Gouveia archives is how close to home the information presented hits. The documents I analyzed discussed the links between rural towns whose economies depend on meat packing plants and the immigrant labor that supports them. I couldn’t help but to think about my up bringing as a first generation Mexican American to Mexican immigrants who during the 90s heard through word of mouth of a town in rural Nebraska with a meat packing plant that was actively recruiting employees…
Both my parents remained in the plant for many years all of my friend’s parents were also employed at the plant it seemed like everyone I knew had connections to the meat packing plant. Student 7.

Going forward, I would love the opportunity to learn from the UNO Archives again and to apply this resource to other school projects. Student 3.

This is also the first time I have used the archives at the UNO Criss Library, I did not know that was something the school had. It did make me want to become a librarian all over again. It is such an experience to have your hands on the actual sources someone like Lourdes Gouveia used as the basis of her research project that she has publicized works in. Student 5.

There is an extensive and growing body of scholarship within the library, archival, and public history fields that deals with the ideas of symbolic annihilation, suppression within the historical record, and silences within the archives. Du Laney felt that students grasped these concepts, specifically Student 7 who so eloquently reflected on their family’s experience and analyzed the humanistic records with the data found in Gouveia’s research notes as well as secondary sources. Additionally, students came away with an understanding of how valuable primary sources can be in research, even if the item does not immediately appear relevant. Integrating diverse sources made their research questions more complex and the conclusions more nuanced. Finally, it is always heartening to see students engage with research to such an extent that it reaffirms a desire to go into the library and archival fields.

Conclusion

The political science class provided an opportunity for Du Laney to collaborate with a teaching faculty member who had no previous experience using archival materials and was nervous about placing such a heavy emphasis on the research for the final project. The collaborative approach between Kyle and Du Laney reflects current trends in scholarship about the importance of mutual respect for expertise. In future classes, it would be beneficial if students made more nuanced connections with the archival materials, and if that analysis was reflected more fully in the final project. This might be corrected with one additional research session later in the semester once students had a deeper understanding of the course themes. This possibility was complicated, however, by the short timeline between the beginning of the semester, January 24, and the Student Research and Creative Activity Fair, March 4, 2022.

Ultimately, this case study allowed Du Laney to test faculty and student receptivity of a more embedded and constructivist approach to archival research than a traditional one-shot or show-and-tell instruction session allows. The students benefited from examining materials more on their own terms and formulating research questions within the framework of the class context. One student wrote in their reflection that “Through this project I learned a new way of research through the archives and special collections” which will hopefully inform future research projects (Student 8). Kyle’s decision to have the final project be a poster presentation, a very different format than students were used to, lent itself well to incorporating a “new” type of research. This is made evident by the students’ reflection papers, which touched upon some important archival themes and practices in a positive light.

Bibliography

“Business of Meat Industry in Latin America: Latin America’s Meat Industry: A Global Comparison.” PSCI4280 Academic Poster. University of Nebraska at Omaha Student Research and Creative Activity Fair. University of Nebraska at Omaha, Omaha, NE, Spring 2022.

Fic, Christy. “Working as an Embedded Archivist in an Undergraduate Course: Transforming Students into Scholars through an Archival Workshop Series.” The American Archivist 81, no. 2 (Fall/Winter 2018): 290–309.

Flynn, Kara. “Archives and Special Collections Instruction for Large Classes.” portal: Libraries and the Academy 21, no. 3 (2021): 573–602.

“Labor and its Effects on International Relations: The United States, Mexico, and Argentina.” PSCI4280 Academic Poster. University of Nebraska at Omaha Student Research and Creative Activity Fair. University of Nebraska at Omaha, Omaha, NE, Spring 2022.

Lourdes Gouveia Papers, University of Nebraska at Omaha Archives and Special Collections. Criss Library. Omaha, NE. https://archives.nebraska.edu/repositories/4/resources/559, archived October 4, 2023 at https://web.archive.org/web/20231004000236/https://archives.nebraska.edu/repositories/4/resources/559.

Marino, Chris. “Inquiry-based Archival Instruction: An Exploratory Study of Affective Impact.” The American Archivist 81, no. 2 (Fall/Winter 2018): 483–512.

Nimer, Cory L., and Gordon J. Daines III. “Teaching Undergraduates to Think Archivally.” Journal of Archival Organization 10, no. 1 (2012): 4–44.

Silvia, Judith Loney. “A Collaborative Approach to Teaching Undergraduate with Primary Sources: Applying a Social Constructivist Lens.” PhD diss., Indiana University of Pennsylvania, 2020.

Smith, Jessica Perkins and Jennifer McGillan. “Towards a More Collaborative Experience: Connecting Library and Departmental Faculty to Improve and Expand Archival Instruction.” Journal of Map & Geography Libraries 15, no. 2–3 (2019): 173–86.

Stringfellow, Julia. “Teaching an Introduction to Archives Course to Undergraduates: A New Experience for the Archivist and the Students.” Journal of Western Archives 10, no. 2 (2019): 2–20.

Yaco, Sonia, Carolina Brown, and Lee Konrad. “Linking Special Collections to Classrooms: A Curriculum-to-Collection Crosswalk.” The American Archivist 79, no. 2 (Fall/ Winter 2016): 417–37.

Endnotes

[1] Dr. Brett Kyle’s teaching and research focuses on Latin American politics, democracy, legacies of authoritarianism, and civil-military relations. Claire Du Laney focuses on archival instruction, outreach, and history research. Kyle is a member of the UNO Office of Latino/Latin American Studies (OLLAS) and both Du Laney and Kyle are UNO Goldstein Center for Human Rights (GCHR) faculty.

[2] Lourdes Gouveia Papers, University of Nebraska at Omaha Archives and Special Collections, Criss Library, Omaha, NE, https://archives.nebraska.edu/repositories/4/resources/559, archived October 4, 2023 at https://web.archive.org/web/20231004000236/https://archives.nebraska.edu/repositories/4/resources/559.

[3]While Du Laney uses the current term “Latinx” to describe the populations examined, the author of the Gouveia Papers used the terminology Latino/ Latina in her research.

[4] The collection has been processed since writing this chapter and is now composed of twenty-three document boxes comprising nine and a half cubic feet of materials.

[5] Archival scholarship emphasized the importance of mutually supportive collaboration between academic archivists and teaching faculty as a cornerstone of successful student projects, as noted by Judith Loney Silvia, “A Collaborative Approach to Teaching Undergraduate with Primary Sources: Applying a Social Constructivist Lens,” PhD diss., (Indiana University of Pennsylvania, 2020) 1–10; and Sonia Yaco, Carolina Brown, and Lee Konrad, “Linking Special Collections to Classrooms: A Curriculum-to-Collection Crosswalk,” The American Archivist 79, no. 2 (Fall/ Winter 2016): 421.

[6] Cory L. Nimer and Gordon J. Daines III, “Teaching Undergraduates to Think Archivally,” Journal of Archival Organization 10, no. 1 (2012): 7.

[7] Nimer, 9; Kara Flynn, “Archives and Special Collections Instruction for Large Classes,” portal: Libraries and the Academy 21, no. 3 (2021): 578; Silvia, 14.

[8] Silvia, 15–19; Flynn, 577–8; Chris Marino, “Inquiry-based Archival Instruction: An Exploratory Study of Affective Impact,” The American Archivist 81, no. 2 (Fall/Winter 2018), 483, 488.

[9] “Lexington Nebraska Research Materials,” Lourdes Gouveia Papers, University of Nebraska at Omaha Archives and Special Collections, Criss Library, Omaha, NE, https://archives.nebraska.edu/repositories/4/resources/559. Students were allowed and encouraged to examine and request any documents in the collection. But since it was unprocessed at the time, Du Laney wanted to provide a selected portion so that students were not overwhelmed.

[10] Christy Fic, “Working as an Embedded Archivist in an Undergraduate Course: Transforming Students into Scholars through an Archival Workshop Series,” The American Archivist 81, no. 2 (Fall/Winter 2018): 295; Jessica Perkins Smith and Jennifer McGillan, “Towards a More Collaborative Experience: Connecting Library and Departmental Faculty to Improve and Expand Archival Instruction,” Journal of Map & Geography Libraries 15, no. 2–3, (2019): 184; Julia Stringfellow, “Teaching an Introduction to Archives Course to Undergraduates: A New Experience for the Archivist and the Students,” Journal of Western Archives 10, no. 2 (2019): 13–14.

[11] “Business of Meat Industry in Latin America: Latin America’s Meat Industry: A Global Comparison” (PSCI4280 Academic Poster, University of Nebraska at Omaha Student Research and Creative Activity Fair, University of Nebraska at Omaha, Omaha, NE, Spring 2022).

[12] “Labor and its Effects on International Relations: The United States, Mexico, and Argentina” (PSCI4280 Academic Poster, University of Nebraska at Omaha Student Research and Creative Activity Fair, University of Nebraska at Omaha, Omaha, NE, Spring 2022).

[13] For the purposes of this chapter, students were assigned a random number and are referred to as such when quoting passages of their reflections to provide anonymity.