Urban Environmental Justice with Leslie Ribovich, Director of the Greenberg Center for the Study of Religion in Public Life and Associate Professor of Religious Studies and Public Policy and Law, and the Greater Hartford Interfaith Action Alliance (GHIIA) This PHC project will support a larger 3-year Urban Environmental Justice project that aims to encourage informed public dialogue on how historical land use decisions have imposed health and environmental consequences on Hartford’s predominantly Latine and Black residents and to build regional consensus to address challenges brought about by that history. This project will broadly “increase student learning and broaden faculty and community partner experience in public humanities approaches and community engagement ethics, while addressing additional environmental justice issues in Hartford,” as the grant states. This summer, student researchers and I will partner with the Center for Justice and Leadership (CLJ) and the Greater Hartford Interfaith Action Alliance (GHIAA), a broad-based justice initiative for churches, synagogues, mosques, and meeting houses to conduct oral histories with community members on their experiences with urban environmental justice in Hartford and explore the role that religious institutions and motivations play in environmental justice activism and organizing.

Students may therefore interview members of the Greater Hartford Interfaith Action Alliance (GHIAA), our community partner, among other affected community members. This project will continue and build on the work done by students in the Liberal Arts Action Lab in Spring 2025. I would be excited to work with a student  who has received oral history training, as well as students who have taken religious studies courses; however, I would like to provide students some basic training in oral history and readings on the history of urban environmental issues in Hartford. Students would also receive archival training relevant to the history of religion in Hartford, which would help support my fall 2025 “Religion in Hartford” class.

Work will be in-person for interviews and visiting archives. Preparation for interviews may be in-person and remote. Some research tasks may be conducted remotely, including processing interviews and reviewing notes from the interviews. Students will need a laptop computer.

Combined faculty/community partner project. See faculty component description.

From Archive to Interface: Narrating Hartford Environmental Histories with Amanda Guzmán, Assistant Professor of Anthropology

Student researchers will contribute to the pilot research phase of a Trinity-led Mellon Foundation Higher Learning Grant focused on urban environmental justice in Hartford in partnership with the Stowe Center for Literary Activism and the Center for Leadership and Justice. The grant aims to provide regional dialogue, across urban and suburban communities, that builds shared understandings of and solutions to interrelated systems of environmental justice in Hartford. Summer work will involve the opportunity to participate in the design of long-term digital spaces of public access to and engagement with the grant project in collaboration with Trinity library staff and local Hartford cultural institutions. Students will be exposed to the practical realities of preserving and promoting research project sustainability.

Student researchers will be working on two grant pilot research areas focused on digital exhibit and project website design. Students will learn to create digital twins of physical spaces using the Matterport camera kit and virtual tour software platform. This work will support the design planning of a future physical exhibition at the Stowe Center for Literary Activism. Students will also develop a beta website for the grant project to archive and publicly share ongoing research findings and community collaborations. Together, these research areas advance one of the grant's central goals: building lasting relationships between Trinity faculty and community partners that will be platforms for further humanities-oriented dialogue and research on environmental justice in the urban region. Interest in/experience with cultural work in museum and archives and/or related humanities coursework (e.g., museums, environmental studies, Connecticut history) is preferred. Fluency with digital humanities platforms is a plus. 

Work will be largely in-person and on-site with research work being staged both at Trinity College Library and across local cultural institutions including the Stowe Center for Literary Activism. Students will need a personal laptop. Students will work in close collaboration with library staff on Matterport camera equipment / digital platform training and receive support with website design troubleshooting as well as overall design feedback. Some research tasks may be conducted remotely such as the establishment of Matterport student resource guide for future Trinity class use and a survey of comparable existing university-level environmental studies project websites for grant project team reference.

with Cat White, Director of Collections and Public Programs, Stowe Center for Literary Activism

Finding aids provide an overview of archival items in a collection, as opposed to listing each item within a collection, and are invaluable as an accessible resource to those who seek to identify potential research leads. They offer archivists, curators, scholars, and visitors alike a wealth of information and resources for studying the past. Interns working on this project will learn how to and why cultural practitioners create finding aids as well as contribute to the pilot research of a Trinity-led Mellon Foundation Higher Learning Grant focused on urban environmental justice in Hartford in partnership with the Stowe Center for Literary Activism and the Center for Leadership and Justice. 

The grant aims to provide regional dialogue, across urban and suburban communities, that builds shared understandings of and solutions to interrelated systems of environmental justice in Hartford. Katherine Seymour Day (1870-1964), the founding preservationist of the Stowe Center, was a public health advocate who called for the end of the open burning of garbage and refuse; today, Hartford residents now have the opportunity to provide input for a remediation plan in the wake of the 2022 closure of the MIRA regional trash-burning plant. This work also aligns with ongoing Stowe Center environmental initiatives including the development of a barrier-free and ecologically diverse greenspace known as Harriet’s Backyard. 

I would like to request 2-4 student interns. In close collaboration with museum collection staff, interns will develop historical research skills to locate and present relevant archival material that will later be interpreted for public exhibition curation in a series of pop-up exhibits and a six-month physical exhibition. Attention to detail and organization is a must. Prior archival experience is not required as training will be provided. Interest in/experience with cultural work in museum and archives and/or related humanities coursework (e.g., museums, environmental studies, Connecticut history) is preferred.  Work will be mainly in-person and on-site at the Stowe Center for Literary Activism as well as other local Hartford cultural institutions such as the Connecticut Museum of Culture and History. Students will need a personal laptop. They may also benefit from library access to research databases to support their archival work and a camera loan.