President’s Reflection on 2019-20

by Hannah L. Jacobs

This past year has seen a number of successes for the Digital Humanities Collaborative of North Carolina. As we prepare for a transition to new leadership, I’d like to reflect briefly on our achievements. 

In August 2019, a group of digital humanists gathered at the National Humanities Center (NHC) to begin a new phase of the Triangle Digital Humanities Network, an initiative reinvigorated by Nathan Kelber, Claire Cahoon, and Kristina Bush through the support of UNC Libraries, the NHC, and the NEH-funded Digital Humanities Research Institute. The group of scholars, practitioners, librarians, students, and instructors 

• established an Executive Board that would go on to expand its communal reach to the entire state of North Carolina and change its name to reflect that; 
• adopted a mission, constitution, and code of conduct to sustain the DHC-NC’s leadership; 
• supported 2 more institutes; 
• continued our weekly newsletter of events and opportunities in North Carolina and beyond; 
• initiated an internship program for students like Stuart Parrish and Brandon Hedgebeth interested in digital humanities and content creation; 
• and expanded our resources lists with the help of students in the Digital Innovation Lab at UNC Chapel Hill.

All of this work represents considerable energies and expertise from our executive board, whom I am so grateful to call colleagues and friends. They contributed their time voluntarily, without direct or immediate compensation. Their wisdom, experience, and creativity has made all of this possible, and, even as we now face global and national challenges, they have so much more in store for the coming year.