Week Nine: The First Attempt to Contact our Potential Project Team

Though much of my time was spent making further strides on the grant narrative portion of the application, the most important piece of the week was making the initial contacts to our potential project team. The groundwork for these initial contacts was laid weeks ago. Following the group tour, I had a clear sense of what type of consultants we should try to find. I also had a better sense of exactly what we would need consulting for. So the search began. Some of the names came from recommendations from Dr. Beiler and Laura Keim, the curator at the Stenton House Museum in Philadelphia. I met with relevant UCF faculty to figure out other recommendations as well. In this effort, Dr. Lester proved especially useful. Lastly, my own (extremely limited) knowledge of scholars in Southern history came in handy. The extent of my exposure came from my copyediting experience during my tenure at the Florida Historical Quarterly in Spring Semester. During my time there, I had the opportunity to copyedit book review sections for two issues of the Quarterly. From there, I encountered names of scholars in both Florida history (no surprises there) as well as historians of Southern history topics more broadly.

From there I was able to compile a list of potential humanities scholars who would be ideal consultants for our project. The list was by no means extensive, and with more time I would have liked to come up with a lengthier group of names. But I did not have the luxury of time, given how quickly this semester is flying by, and though not extremely long, the list did have a number of well-known and qualified scholars. I promptly submitted the list to Dr. Beiler for review, and the following week she returned with the consultants she found most appropriate.

I composed the politest email I could, explaining in one long breath the purpose of the PHC, the NEH grant, our goals for the future, and where they fit into the picture. Concision and succinctness are not my two greatest strengths and, frankly, the email was a bit verbose considering these scholars were being contacted by a complete stranger. But it’s hard to say everything briefly! I sent the email out to a number of scholars, the ones Dr. Beiler wanted most, and crossed my fingers for a positive reply.

Quickly enough, responses started filtering in. To my relief, most replied. There was one who never replied, and another scholar replied with reluctance, stating that she was too busy to consider such a project. The others, though, they were receptive and proceeding to set up times to set up phone meetings. The other consultant, the one that was too busy, offered recommendations that would provide acceptable substitutes for her presence. So, on the whole, everything worked out well. All of this happened very quickly, and by Friday afternoon I had scheduled three phone meetings for the following Monday.