possible topics for archival research

By Laura Michael Brown, September 18, 2014

Doris Malkmus and I worked together to develop this list of possible topics for your archival projects. These broad topics will lend themselves to developing a contemporary proposal, but (most importantly for this first paper) these are all topics that will give you a wealth of material to work with in the archives. If you have another idea, we can see what the archives have to offer, but these topics are, without a doubt, good places to start.

• Student “rowdyism”
• Sexual assault on campus
• Women in science: early forensic chemist Mary Willard and aerospace engineer Mary Ilgen
• “We Are” Penn State through the eyes of PSU’s first African American football player Wally Triplett
• Joe Paterno — “more than winning” philosophy
• Who [gets to] come to Penn State—rising costs of tuition, educational background
• Who calls the shots in higher ed—the role of grantors and donors
• Student activism in the 1960s—socialists, communists, free love, anti-war
• From white to civil rights to diversity—race at Penn State