HIGH POINT, N.C., May 14, 2015 – High Point University professor Paul Ringel shared his efforts to research and record the history of William Penn High School, High Point’s historic segregated African-American school, at the National Council of Public History Conference in Nashville, Tennessee.
During a panel presentation, “History on the Edge of Campus,” Ringel talked about the work he and his students are doing through the William Penn Project, an effort to document the school’s history and make it accessible to the community.
“Our panel discussed how collaborative history projects between universities and their neighbors can work across boundaries within communities to contribute to civic vitality,” Ringel says. “Participating in the conference gave me the opportunity to meet other historians doing similar community-based projects who can offer feedback on how to improve ours.”
Ringel and his students recently shared their work on the project during an event at the High Point Museum and have created a website that preserves the interviews they’ve conducted with school alumni. The site also houses artifacts, photos and student essays that highlight the school’s history and student experiences from the 1890s through its closure in 1968. Students from Ringel’s History Detectives service learning course, along with students from Penn-Griffin School for the Arts, have provided hundreds of hours of research to the project.
HPU recognized Ringel’s leadership of the project by naming him Service Learning Professor of the Year for 2015. Community members can connect with the project via e-mail, Facebook or on Twitter @WilliamPennProj.