Ohio State University women have played vital roles in shaping the university since its founding. Given this, The Women's Place and University Archives have joined in an effort, coordinated by the two former directors of The Women's Place, Judy Fountain Yesso and Deb Ballam, to gather the voices of women who have worked to change the institutional systems.
These stories of women as told in their own voices and from the context of the institution, will provide the richness and insight we need to really understand the legacy of the women's movement at Ohio State and its lasting impact.
This "Voices of Women" project preserves women's stories through oral interviews with women students, faculty and staff about their years at the university. The voices will become a permanent record in the University Archives.
You can listen to the recordings on the Knowledge Bank website.
In addition, the Knowledge Bank offers an episode of Buckeye History Live that combines excerpts from five oral histories from the Voices of Women project. The excerpts come from interviews with Deb Ballam, emeritus professor of business and former director of The Women’s Place; Rudine Sims Bishop, emeritus professor of education; Shirley Dunlap Bowser, 1956 Ohio State grad and former member of the Board of Trustees; Gay Hadley, former assistant vice president for Human Resources; and Susan Hartmann, emeritus professor of history and women’s studies and former director of the Center for Women’s Studies.
We invite you to participate in the project both by being interviewed and by interviewing others. Note that interviewees must have some kind of relationship with the university.
Here are the steps involved in recording an interview:
- Come up with a few dates and times that you and the interviewee are available.
- Contact Kevlin Haire (haire.14@osu.edu) to schedule a time to record the interview.
- Interviewees will be supplied with a basic list of questions before the interview.
- The recordings are generally made in the University Archives conference room, 2700 Kenny Road, Columbus.
- Once the recording is done, it will be transcribed and sent to the interviewee for review.
- The final step is putting the recordings into the Knowledge Bank.
Learn more
To learn more about women at the university, read The Women's Place's "An Encyclopedia of Pathbreaking Women at The Ohio State University," a historical record of Ohio State women and their contributions.
Hear examples
If you would like to hear examples of the recordings before doing an interview, visit the Knowledge Bank. We hope you'll take advantage of this opportunity to preserve women's history.
