Oral History Summer School is back in session this summer, in Hudson, New York!!
Instructors: Suzanne Snider
Guest Instructors: LJ Amsterdam and Rochelle Hoi-Yiu Kwan
Location: Hudson, New York
Dates: Saturday, June 15 (9 AM) - Wednesday, June 26 (1 PM), 2024 (please see note about start and end time below when making travel plans)
Tuition: $0-$3100 (See below for more information)
Application Period Opens: Applications for this workshop are now closed. See below to join the waitlist.
Come all ye budding oral historians, radio documentarians, writers, filmmakers, media advocates, and photographers who wish to make use of oral history in your practices. This immersive upstate New York workshop is a rigorous introduction to the field of oral history. Over the course of 12 days, we’ll cover interview techniques, project design, and recording tutorials, plus sessions dedicated to ethics, trauma, advocacy, archives, and other related topics.
We're excited to announce that this summer’s workshop will include a music sub-focus, working with the idea that we can cathect with pleasure strategically in our moments of greatest suffering, connecting with joy to support courageous action. What is comfortable and uncomfortable for each of us about our experiences of joy and suffering? In what ways do some of us default to "pathology" narratives while others insist upon "silver lining" stories? And how did we come by these narrative approaches? We'll use music as a site of felt experience, relationship, pleasure, memory retrieval and more.
This workshop is a great opportunity to jump-start a project in a supportive environment, or to get this training under your belt for future projects with the benefit of deadlines and peer critique. Participants will be conducting interviews throughout this workshop. No experience necessary.
TUITION (does not include housing. Housing information can be found below):
Fellowship Rate: $0 [APPLICATION CLOSED]
Hand-Up Rate: $1400 (+ 3% processing fee) (Limited, 2 participants) : FULL
Standard Rate: $2600 (+ 3% processing fee) Unlimited, up to 20 participants
Institutional/Supporter Rate: $3100 (+ 3% processing fee) Unlimited, up to 20 participants
Definitions of these tiers can be found below
Thank you for reviewing our tiered fee structure, which reconciles our wish to make the training increasingly accessible with our need to cover staff labor and the rising costs of our materials. Please read the descriptions below and be in touch with us (info@oralhistorysummerschool.com) if you would like support selecting your tuition tier.
Fellowship: $0 (Limited, 2 participants; separate application—APPLICATION NOW CLOSED) These spaces are reserved as part of an equity initiative to support more BIPOC participation and historically marginalized voices at the table and in the field. If you are eligible based on these criteria and cannot attend at the standard tuition rate, please select this option.
Fellowships will be awarded early in the application process. If you are not awarded a fellowship for this workshop, please note that we will continue to offer (tuition-free) fellowship seats for all of our workshops. We encourage you to re-apply in the future.
Hand Up: $1400 (+ 3% processing fee) (Limited, 2 participants—NOW FULL) This tuition tier is reserved for people who could not attend this workshop without this subsidy. This includes those who do not have reliable or steady income or may be experiencing precarity/transitional employment, or who may be choosing this tuition tier because of categories of identity and/or circumstances that have impacted their earning opportunities. We earmark hand up seats as well as tuition-free seats in every workshop. These subsidized seats are funded through grants, fundraisers, and other members' tuitions.
Standard: $2600 (+ 3% processing fee) (Unlimited, up to 20 participants): This tuition tier is for participants without institutional support, without a salary, and/or for those who work in under-resourced economies (education, social work, etc). Those with steady income are encouraged to look to the institutional tier.
Institutional: $3100 (+ 3% processing fee) (Unlimited, up to 20 participants): This tuition tier is for participants who are employed full-time/salaried, who may finance vacations and/or dining out, and/or who receive professional development funds or other additional support from an institution.
ABOUT TUITION:
Tuition covers 12 days of instruction, OHSS tote bag, OHSS workbook, OHSS folder/forms, OHSS notebook, OHSS e-reader and other digital resources, use of recording equipment during workshops, a certificate of completion plus access to alumni newsletters/network, an extended trial/purchase discount from Hindenburg Systems editing software, a few group meals along with snacks and daily morning/afternoon coffee & tea service.
Transparency statement: We have calculated our tuition tiers with a commitment to fair labor practices, scholarships and our school’s future. These commitments are reflected in necessary tuition hikes.
We seek to educate all participants about our overhead expenses so they might appreciate how we arrive at these numbers–and/or learn more about starting independent schools and institutes (We hope to see more). The line items that figure into the current tuition tiers include: site rental, administrative hours/wages, food from local businesses, curriculum development, teaching hours, printing, office supplies and recording equipment, honorarium for guest instructors if relevant, staff housing, staff travel (train/gas), staff food during the workshop, documentation/photography, Covid tests and masks for staff, event insurance and a fellowship fund. These are just some of the expenses that go into the overall creation of this workshop. Collectively, we incur additional expenses that we do not expect participants to cover, including childcare, research materials, and professional development to name a few. This year, we have paid special attention to these calculations, working backwards from our operating budget so we can confidently look ahead. Additionally, we learned more intimately over the last four years the way this school, which serves 200-400 people a year, relies on the labor of a very few people (with the support of many); we now understand the necessity of an emergency fund for our school and/or staff to ensure our longevity.
TRAVEL PLANS:
Please note that the workshop officially begins at 9 AM of June 15; please plan travel and accommodations accordingly to arrive on the 14th. Final sessions (taking place until 1 PM on June 26) are a very important part of the program and we encourage everyone to make travel plans accordingly.
HOUSING:
Upon acceptance, students can be matched with community hosts through OHSS for an admin fee of $50, or can pursue housing independently. OHSS has reserved a limited number of rooms with Hudson-area hosts at below-market rates for early registrants. We cannot guarantee these same rates beyond April when hosts may wish to secure rentals.
Participants who choose to be matched with community hosts can expect to pay between $30/night and $100/night, depending on needs/budget (accommodations range: camping, room in a shared home, an entire apartment). Those who choose to pursue housing independently can expect to pay rates as high as $200/night in the Hudson Valley in high season, so we recommend early registration. More housing information is available upon acceptance to the workshop. We do begin making housing matches in mid-March.
Tuition and housing payment are due upon acceptance.
A detailed schedule will be provided ahead of time for participants.
Covid/Health: We seek to create an accessible space and opportunity for as many students as possible. This means that we will be creating and following a Covid safety plan that deeply considers a range of health statuses including those who may be immunocompromised or those who will return to immunocompromised family members after the workshop. These protocols include rapid testing prior to group gathering on the first day, utilizing outdoor locations as much as possible, weather permitting, and practicing indoor masking when not eating/drinking if the local numbers recommend such precautions. We recognize that these measures reduce but do not erase the health risk of congregating in person at this time. Oral History Summer School will make decisions on the precise protocol this spring. We acknowledge the pandemic as a serious ongoing public health crisis. We will continue to offer online workshops for those who find travel, unmasked meals or the physical demands of a classroom a barrier to oral history training. We will take measures including those listed above to reduce risk for those attending in person. Please consider these group agreements as you make any plans towards joining us this summer. Please be in touch with any questions about our stance.
Cancellation Policy: As a small organization, we maintain a strict cancellation policy. Tuition is non-refundable and non-transferable. We are working hard to make an in-person workshop possible during an ongoing global health crisis. We ask participants to make their travel arrangements with Covid and other health-related contingencies in mind. Given the workshop’s built-in considerations around Covid, we fully expect to run the workshop regardless of the pandemic’s twists and turns over the next few months. That said, we acknowledge that participants may have a range of responses to the risk involved in travel. While we cannot refund tuition/housing, we encourage you to get travel insurance if you need flexibility.