Application Information
Residency: 2023-2024
Deadline: 5:00 p.m., April 21st, 2023
The Humanities Research Center’s Health Humanities Lab is calling for applications for 2023-24 Health Humanities Undergraduate Fellows from the College of Humanities and Sciences. In 2023-24, fellows will be participating in the East Marshall Street Well Project’s oral history and memorialization projects overseen by two postdoctoral fellows.
All students are encouraged to apply! We especially welcome applicants from communities historically excluded from academic research and who hold multiple marginalized identities, including BIPOC, LGBTQIA+ individuals, and students who are the first in the family to go to college.
The East Marshall Street Well Project (EMSWP) documents the history of medical racism at VCU School of Medicine and its ongoing impact on health inequities today. The EMSWP focuses on enacting the recommendations of the Family Representative Council, a group representative of the descendent community of mostly Black individuals whose remains were used for medical training and have since been recovered. The recommendations prioritize ethical research, memorialization, and burial with dignity. Undergraduate work would further the goals of research through an ongoing oral history project and memorialization through community engagement and education.
Possible research projects may include:
- Processing and preparing oral history interviews to make them more accessible
- Reviewing transcripts to prepare them for podcast production
coding - Organizing audio
- Designing and leading walking tours on the history of race, health, and medicine
- Creating a physical map version of the tour, distributed in partnership with local history and cultural museums
Health Humanities Lab Undergraduate Fellows will gain experience as health humanities researchers working in collaboration with an interdisciplinary team. Students from all majors are encouraged to apply. Students do not need prior experience in audio production but will have the opportunity to gain skills in public engagement, podcast production, and historical methods alongside a deeper understanding of the broader contexts of health and healthcare disparities.
Health Humanities Lab Undergraduate Fellows will be expected to devote two hours a week to the project and to attend Health Humanities Lab meetings and events. Upon satisfactory completion of work in the fall semester and mutual agreement with the lab director and postdoctoral fellows, fellows will continue work into the spring. Fellows who successfully complete the fellowship will each receive a $1,000 stipend.
To apply, please send a two-paragraph explanation of why you are interested in the Health Humanities Lab Undergraduate Fellowship, along with a CV, to Lab Director Chris Cynn (cjcynn@vcu.edu) by 5:00 p.m., April 21st, 2023.