The University of Houston Alumni Association has generously agreed to support a research assistant in the 2012-2013 academic year. This RA will work on the UH Memories Project, a joint research effort by the Center for Public History and the Digital Library in the UH Libraries.

Kathleen Brosnan of the CPH and Michele Reilly of the Digital Library have been spearheading UH Memories. The goal of this project is a full-length documentary film which tells the history of the University of Houston. Our targeted completion date is April 2015, the 75th anniversary of the Alumni Association.

The film will tell the story of how the university and its host city have grown together. The project name, UH Memories, reflects the filmmakers’ reliance on the reminiscences of UH alumni, students, faculty and staff. The Alumni Association has been and will continue to assist in the completion of the film by arranging interviews with alumni.

In the interim, the CPH and the Digital Library are completing a 27-minute mini-documentary that follows UH through its 1939 move to its current campus, the years of World War II, and the postwar changes associated with the GI Bill. Reilly and Brosnan anticipate completion of this mini-documentary in Fall 2012.

A second research assistantship on the project is being provided by the Houston History Project under the direction of Joseph Pratt, the NEH-Cullen Professor of History and Business, who also appears in the mini-documentary.