For the past two years, the UWF History Department has been working on an oral history project designed to bring about an understanding of the University of West Florida’s rich and detailed 40 year history.

UWF was founded in 1967 as a senior college with less than 2,000 students; today the university incorporates close to 10,000 and is still growing.

The UWF History Department is working in collaboration with current faculty and students as well as retirees and alumni to produce an audio/video history segment that is aimed to bring a whole new interpretation of campus history through the people who lived it.

“Many things that are a major part of the history of this university have never been recognized,” said university librarian Dean Debolt. “By interviewing alumni and retired faculty on a wide variety of things such as academic and student life, we are able to get to the heart of the university and the community as well.”

Debolt has worked for UWF since 1981 and is one of the key contributors to this project that is expected to be completed in 2007, the 40th anniversary of the school. He hopes that this project captures memories that have never been documented before.

The oral history project is broken down chronologically throughout the terms of the four presidents that have been at UWF. It is comprised almost like an anthology where people will give their stories and first-hand experiences of the university.

“The oral history project is designed to get the viewpoints from all different types of people,” said Patrick Moore, who is heading the project.

“Groundskeepers, students, everyone you can think of will be part of this thing.”

Moore said his involvement in this operation has quite been enjoyable and hopes that the final outcome will be a great tool for future researchers and historians for generations to come.

“It has been a lot of fun working on this thing,” Moore said. “Because the institution is so young, a lot of the original people who worked here long ago are still living and are around the area which has made it possible for us to interview a wider variety of people.”

Working with Moore on the project in the history department is Janel Hendrix. She is instructing a class on oral and community history at UWF which is allowing students to contribute a large portion to the 40th anniversary project.

“The students are actually doing the majority of the work,” Hendrix said. “So far everything has been real fluid. We have done over a thousand interviews and are hoping to actually produce a book around the 2006-2007 school year.”

The oral history book will contain mementos, artifacts, pictures and interviews from each generation of the school’s history.

Questions regarding the project can be sent to Janel Hendrix at Jhendrix@uwf.edu or Patrick Moore at Pmoore@uwf.edu.

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