The Nancybelle Project

noreply@blogger.com (Professor Kim) — Fri, 04 Jun 2010 17:27:00 +0000

More programming in Scratch

noreply@blogger.com (Professor Kim) — Sun, 06 Jul 2008 15:00:00 +0000

I've been learning to use this Java-based language to create lessons for our interactive journalism camp, which starts tomorrow. Based on reactions, this is my best one to date, on photojournalism:

Learn more about this project

More here

With each project, my thinking on the completion of the Nancybelle project gets clearer.

My take on CoverItLive, now at Poynter

noreply@blogger.com (Professor Kim) — Fri, 29 Feb 2008 22:51:00 +0000

I'm now a contributor to Poynter.Org's E-Media Tidbits. My first piece, a follow-up report on CoverItLive.com, has just been posted. Feedback welcome.

If you'd like to be in on the NMC conference in June...

noreply@blogger.com (Professor Kim) — Fri, 29 Feb 2008 19:39:00 +0000

Nancybelle Valentine's family tree

noreply@blogger.com (Professor Kim) — Sun, 17 Feb 2008 02:10:00 +0000

This information is based on interviews with Nancybelle and her mother, a 2001 newspaper interview with her mother, and searches of the 1880 and 1930 US Census data. The one area of uncertainty is the information on Nancybelle 's grandmother. Her name was Rovutter Daniel Wilson, but she was known as Annie within her family. I found a census record for an Ann Daniel that largely corresponded to the information Elder Nancybelle gave me about her grandmother. Thus, the lines drawn from her images are wavy to denote this uncertainty.

If you have trouble reading the text on the image, try this page.

The images of Nancybelle and her sister are by James Vanderzee.

Meant to mention

noreply@blogger.com (Professor Kim) — Sun, 13 Jan 2008 22:24:00 +0000

The paper that Ursula Wolz and and I co-authored about this project can now be read online in the 2007 Proceedings of the New Media Consortium Summer Conference. It's called "Multithreaded Interactive Storytelling for Literary Journalism" and it starts on p. 38.

Hatmaking with Dad

noreply@blogger.com (Professor Kim) — Tue, 01 Jan 2008 00:02:00 +0000

Learn more about this project

Finally got the scratch interactive segment done. It's still pretty rough, but I'm learning.

A piece of editorial commentary in Scratch

noreply@blogger.com (Professor Kim) — Mon, 19 Nov 2007 05:44:00 +0000

Click on the image below to see my experiment...

First attempt to tell a story in Scratch

noreply@blogger.com (Professor Kim) — Mon, 12 Nov 2007 03:06:00 +0000

We will be using Scratch, an innovative program from MIT for creating interactive games and stories, in our Interactive Journalism camp for middle schoolers this summer, so I spent this weekend putting together my first interactive story using the software. I used a couple of sprites provided by the the software, and made backgrounds and additional sprites from my son's cameraphone images. I'll attempt a story with live sound next, and then see whether I can use Scratch for a portion of the Nancybelle project.

Draft interfaces for the Nancybelle Valentine story

noreply@blogger.com (Professor Kim) — Mon, 15 Oct 2007 18:07:00 +0000

Flash interface for the project (click the center image for sample presentation of content): Scott Hoover, Eve Roytshteyn, Nia Haqq

Flash 20th century timeline: Gemma Waylett

I'm going to use these student-created interfaces to flesh out the hard-wired 2-D prototype of the Nancybelle story.

Photosynth Demo: Cool use of social media

noreply@blogger.com (Professor Kim) — Tue, 02 Oct 2007 00:15:00 +0000

Suggested by a commenter on the Poynter piece: Check out the demo The Photosynth technology generates hyperlinks between images and texts from multiple users in an interface that can be layered or segmented in various ways. Fascinating stuff.

Welcome Poynter.org readers!

noreply@blogger.com (Professor Kim) — Mon, 01 Oct 2007 16:58:00 +0000

If you've come here after reading today's centerpiece, you've got a general overview of the work we're trying to do. It's more than a bit messy around here, but feel free to look around and offer questions, comments, critiques and suggestions. I'm actively working on components of this project that aren't online now, so I hope that you will come back from time to time.

Thanks!

Narrative and Multiple State Environments

noreply@blogger.com (Professor Kim) — Tue, 04 Sep 2007 17:13:00 +0000

Donna Leishman creates narrative digital art by layering images in Flash, and creating an interface without obvious visual or auditory cues as to the location or meaning of the hotspots and layers. She explains:

"Firstly, instead of being complexly non-linear (in the cybertextual sense), the project is a layered structure, which uses branching offshoots [23]. This structural layering works in "building up" compositions that can be regarded as a MSE. The different layers show the interrelationships between the narrative objects. This linking works in an unconventional manner -- layering as a storytelling technique is little used within digital media; it requires participants to make associations between objects using a spatial rather than time based metaphor, such as typically practiced by Owenns or Thomson & Craighead [15]. This sense of difference is compounded further when the depiction of the world and its inhabitants is a mix of the believable, impossible, familiar and bizarre (My aesthetic ). The total effect is that the work communicates to the participant in an unfamiliar, disturbing but imaginative manner."

Her dissertation project asked viewers to explore one of her works, Deviant, and to discuss their experiences. She describes the goal of the project as an effort to subvert emerging narrative conventions for hypertext and hypermedia. One question that she raises -- whether pointing and clicking destroys the storytelling experience -- bothers me as well. That's one reason that I'm really interested to see whether we can create the kind of intuitive narrative experience that we're striving for.

Leishman's work is further explored in this collection from the Iowa Review Web.

Character development in literary journalism

noreply@blogger.com (Professor Kim) — Fri, 10 Aug 2007 18:45:00 +0000

Jack Hart provides an excellent checklist of details journalists should collect.

What writers can learn from Ingmar Bergman

noreply@blogger.com (Professor Kim) — Thu, 09 Aug 2007 21:44:00 +0000

Dialogue as action. Cinematic description in which point of view shifts, in which there is plenty of evocative, sensory detail. Roy Peter Clark refers to the cinematic master to remind writers about rules that are fundamental and profound.

Rev. Don Ransom on Elder Nancybelle

noreply@blogger.com (Professor Kim) — Sun, 22 Jul 2007 20:09:00 +0000

Love from the church

noreply@blogger.com (Professor Kim) — Fri, 20 Jul 2007 13:23:00 +0000

As you can see, we worked with this video in a number of ways...the sound still needs to be edited to mute the drums more

Screenplay generated while playing Facade

noreply@blogger.com (Professor Kim) — Fri, 13 Jul 2007 19:31:00 +0000

As one of my students wrote in my interactive storytelling class this past semester, while Facade suggests fascinating possibilities for gaming and procedural storytelling, the temptation to "game the game" is very strong.

FACADE STAGEPLAY
Fri Jul 13 15 27 19 2007

TRIP
Where are the new wine glasses?

GRACE
What for?

TRIP
That should be obvious!

GRACE
Oh God, Trip, don't turn this into a big production, please!

TRIP
Jesus Grace, come on, I'm not asking a lot here!

(Adam knocks on the front door.)

(Adam knocks on the front door.)

GRACE
What -- Trip, -- (interrupted)

TRIP
Oh, he's here!

GRACE
What?! You said he's coming an hour from now!

TRIP
No, he's right on time!

(Adam knocks on the front door.)

(Adam knocks on the front door.)

GRACE
Trip...!

(Trip opens the front door.)

TRIP
Adam!!

TRIP
Hey! God it's been so long since we've seen you! How are you doing, man?

ADAM
Hi, how are you?

TRIP
Oh, oh, we're great. You know, with our new apartment and all.

ADAM
I'm okay.

TRIP
Y -- yeah, yeah...

TRIP
Uh, it'll be just a sec while I go get Grace...

TRIP
(unintelligable arguing)

TRIP
(unintelligable arguing)

ADAM
Nice apartment.

TRIP
(unintelligable arguing)

GRACE
Adam,

GRACE
Hi! How are you? God it's been a while! -- (interrupted)

ADAM
Hi Grace

GRACE
H-mmm (happy smile sound) -- (interrupted)

(ADAM kisses grace.)

GRACE
Oh, yes, let's... (polite kiss on cheek)

GRACE
Aren't you sweet.

GRACE
Well, come in, make yourself at home...

GRACE
Yeah, I'm hoping you can help me understand where I went wrong with my new decorating, -- (interrupted)

ADAM
Great view

(Trip closes the front door.)

TRIP
See, I told you he would like it! There's nothing wrong with it.

GRACE
(little sigh)

GRACE
So, about my decorating...

GRACE
(little sigh) With this room I was trying for a kind of post modern style...

TRIP
Well yeah, I think that comes across.

GRACE
but it is clearly just not happening. This is a mess.

TRIP
uhh...

ADAM
It's pretty stark.

GRACE
Ah, yes, I've been waiting for someone to say that!

TRIP
What are you talking about?

GRACE
Trip, he is just being honest about my decorating, which I appreciate.

TRIP
(frustrated sigh) But I still think this looks fine...

ADAM
Why are the walls black?

GRACE
Oh but I liked what you said about my decorating... Besides, I'm redoing it all this week, so...

TRIP
Well, we're all friends here, uh...

GRACE
Adam, seeing you again makes me remember the wonderful times we all used to have. H-mmm (happy smile sound)

TRIP
Ye -- yeah...

ADAM
How about a red couch?

TRIP
Huh, I just realized something.

GRACE
What...

TRIP
There's something we need to celebrate.

GRACE
What, Trip, what?

TRIP
Adam, remember, it was almost exactly ten years ago, tonight, that you introduced us.

TRIP
Senior year of college.

GRACE
Oh... geez...

TRIP
Do you remember that?

ADAM
No

TRIP
Uh, well, all I can say is, tonight means a lot to me, and Grace.

TRIP
(frustrated sigh)

ADAM
That's cool.

(Trip shakes the advice ball.)

TRIP
Oh, uh...

GRACE
That's nice of you, I'm sure Trip's happy to hear that.

ADAM
How about a drink?

TRIP
Oh, yeah, let me fix us all some drinks in a sec!

TRIP
Oh this perfect because I just bought these classy new cocktail shakers we've got to try out.

TRIP
So! Drinks!

TRIP
Anything you want!

TRIP
We need to have something really fun,

ADAM
May I have hot cocoa?

TRIP
like sangria?

TRIP
Ah! I knew it.

TRIP
Perfect!

GRACE
Adam, I think you'd prefer something simple and light, like a nice glass of chardonnay, yes?

TRIP
but... uhh... Grace, come on... -- (interrupted)

ADAM
No, cocoa.

TRIP
Okay! Good! I'll just whip up these bad boys real quick!

GRACE
(little sigh) Trip's favorite pastime is to get the blood alcohol content of his guests higher than his golf score.

TRIP
(quiet humming)

TRIP
What was that?

GRACE
(clears throat)

ADAM
I don't want alcohol.

TRIP
Oh, yeah, you know, I think I'll fix us another drink in not too long...

TRIP
In terms of drinks...

TRIP
Grace, what can I get you to drink tonight? Surprise me.

GRACE
(little sigh) Um... that sounds... nice. I'll have that too.

TRIP
Oh! Good. Okay.

TRIP
Here you go Grace, you get to be the first to drink.

ADAM
So do you still play tennis?

GRACE
(little sigh)

GRACE
So, Adam, -- (interrupted)

PHONE
** RING **

GRACE
Oh, I'll get it --

TRIP
No, no no no, our friend's here, we can let the answering machine get it.

PHONE
** RING **

GRACE
Trip, no, I want --

TRIP
Grace, come on, don't be rude.

TRIP
Besides it's probably some telemarketer trying to sell us another set of timeless New England antiques for the master bathroom, heh, heh. -- (interrupted)

PHONE
** RING **

ADAM
That's not cocoa.

PHONE
** RING **

TRIP
What? Jesus, just -- no, no, I just, I just want to wait for the answering machine...!

(ADAM picks up a player's drink.)

ANSWERING MACHINE
** click **

GRACE
Anyhow, Trip's parents... They're sweet people, really down to earth --

ANSWERING MACHINE
You've reached the fabulous new home of Grace and Trip. Leave us a message!

(ADAM puts down a player's drink.)

TRIP
Uhh, no, they're ignorant, they wouldn't know what a cumberbund from a cucumber.

ANSWERING MACHINE
** beep **

ANSWERING MACHINE
Travis, are you there, it's your mother, I haven't heard from you and Grace in a while,

GRACE
(frustrated sigh)

ANSWERING MACHINE
I'm just calling to find out if you've settled in to your new apartment, that's all...

GRACE
(big sigh)

GRACE
Oh God, Adam, I hope you didn't come here tonight to be entertained...

ANSWERING MACHINE
Give me a call if you're not travelling, I know you're travelling a lot these days.

TRIP
What?

GRACE
Listen to us, we're arguing in front of our friend.

ANSWERING MACHINE
Okay, that's all, bye Travis.

TRIP
Grace, come on, it's not -- (interrupted)

TRIP
Adam, are you -- are you looking for something?

ADAM
Just looking around

TRIP
There's really not much to see in there, it's just the kitchen...

ADAM
Looking for cocoa

ADAM
Are you hiding, Grace?

TRIP
Why don't you come back, be with us here in the living room.

TRIP
Okay, anyway... I forget what we were talking about...

TRIP
Oh, Adam, I thought you might like this photo I just put up from our recent trip -- (interrupted)

ADAM
cocoa

(Grace sips her Grace's drink.)

GRACE
Oh, well, please, go look at Trip's Italy photo...

GRACE
By the way, anybody, join me on the couch if you like.

TRIP
Um... uhh, Now, -- (interrupted)

GRACE
Adam, this is making you uncomfortable. See Trip, was it really worth it to fly us all the way to Italy so you could take that inane picture?

(ADAM sits on the couch.)

(ADAM gets up from the couch.)

GRACE
(little sigh) I'll take the picture down later tonight before I go to bed.

TRIP
Grace...!

TRIP
(short petulant sigh)

TRIP
Adam, this trip to Italy was meant to be our second honeymoon.

GRACE
Oh, was that what it was? Huh, I'm always the last to know.

TRIP
Grace, I wanted us to spend some time together...!

ADAM
sounds as if you have issues

TRIP
What?!

GRACE
Trip, Trip, it's alright, our friend is just giving you a bit of a hard time tonight, you're a man, you can take it.

TRIP
(clears throat) We're so ready for a second round of drinks.

GRACE
Trip thinks carting me off to Europe will, how did you put it, thaw me out a little bit?

ADAM
Hope you work it out

TRIP
H -- hold on...

TRIP
You think we should....

TRIP
not... get divorced...

TRIP
Ha ha, ha, oh, you're -- you're quite the kidder tonight, ha ha ha...

GRACE
Ha, yeah, ha ha...

TRIP
Ha, never afraid to push our buttons, ha ha ha, heh...

ADAM
Wow, there's nothing here!

TRIP
Um, well, hold on, hold on... (clears throat)

GRACE
Okay, well, I was worried there for a bit you were on Trip's side tonight, ha ha.

TRIP
Uhh, you're driving me insane!

ADAM
I am on cocoa's side.

TRIP
Carting you off to Europe... -- (interrupted)

TRIP
Huh? What, what -- what was that?

TRIP
Grace, I do one little thing wrong, and you're cold and distant! Just one thing wrong, that's all it takes!

GRACE
(impatient sigh) Adam, can you believe this?

GRACE
(frustrated sigh)

TRIP
Yeah, Adam, yeah...

TRIP
I know what you'll say...

TRIP
All your goddamn over analytical explanations...!

ADAM
No. You guys don't have cocoa!

GRACE
God, what was it you said? We shouldn't... get divorced...

GRACE
What? I -- what are you saying to me?

TRIP
Adam, where are you going? Don't hide in the kitchen, we need you out here!

TRIP
Okay, you know what, Adam,

TRIP
I need to ask you something.

ADAM
I need cocoa!

GRACE
Trip --

TRIP
Grace, let me ask our guest a question.

TRIP
Adam, hey, quit leaving the room! You can't start this mess and then leave us to fix it!

TRIP
Adam, yes or no...

TRIP
Marriage is about saying yes to the other person, even if you're not sure about it, right?

ADAM
Excuse you!

GRACE
What?

TRIP
I mean, if your husband or wife reaches out to you, you have to reach back, right?

ADAM
I'm not married. I don't know.

TRIP
Look, you don't need answer, I don't need to hear anymore! -- (interrupted)

TRIP
Uhh, I try so hard to reach out to you, Grace, and you reject me! You're cold! You're distant! I can't keep going this way, it's killing me!

GRACE
Oh, don't even...!

ADAM
Do you sleep in the living room?

GRACE
Uhh! Yeah, good, get out of my sight!

GRACE
I can't stand you!

GRACE
Goddammit!

ADAM
Where do you shower?

GRACE
What are you saying? What?

TRIP
What? Are you talking about me in there?

GRACE
What do you care?

ADAM
You don't have a toilet?

GRACE
Adam, -- (interrupted)

GRACE
Adam, (annoyed sigh) Trip is sometimes so...

TRIP
Oh, we're talking about me again, are we?

GRACE
What?

ADAM
No wonder you have trouble!

GRACE
Look, at this point, criticizing me is just going to make it really really bad!

TRIP
Grace, we don't -- we don't have to do this... things are okay, we can just --

GRACE
Adam, I can't stand the pretending anymore... I can't take it!

ADAM
I know. Life without a bathroom!

TRIP
No, Grace, we can... I mean, come on, don't make it out to be so bad...

GRACE
Uhh...

GRACE
Look, let's not focus on just me or you, let's talk about us.

ADAM
Bad! It's potentially fatal!

TRIP
It's so annoying... Grace, why is it that anytime I want to do something nice for you, you resist it?

GRACE
Trip...

TRIP
Like I always have to convince you?

GRACE
Adam, you know, we... uhh...

(ADAM knocks on the front door.)

(ADAM opens the front door.)

TRIP
Adam, where are you going? Don't leave, we need your help here!

ADAM
I need a bathroom

TRIP
Let's keep the focus on us, not just one person.

ADAM
and some cocoa

TRIP
You know, I can't say Grace never acts loving towards me...

TRIP
Adam, She's all over me at our goddamn parties, trying to look good in front of the guests!

(ADAM points to the elevator button.)

(ADAM points to the elevator button.)

TRIP
Adam, -- (interrupted)

Storytelling as a motivation for programming

noreply@blogger.com (Professor Kim) — Fri, 13 Jul 2007 18:30:00 +0000

Caitlin Kelleher created Storytelling Alice, with storytelling icons instead of programming terms.

Lenora Southerland on Nancybelle Valentine

noreply@blogger.com (Professor Kim) — Thu, 12 Jul 2007 16:40:00 +0000

Presentation feedback : Presentation Strategies and Objectivity

noreply@blogger.com (Professor Kim) — Sun, 24 Jun 2007 22:25:00 +0000

Our presentation at the New Media Consortium was generally well-received, but there were two criticisms that deserve attention here. Both involve the slide show of images from Elder Nancybelle's childhood, and they were leveled by James W. Brown, Executive Associate Dean and Professor at the School of Journalism at Indiana University Purdue University Indianapolis. It was an honor to get such close attention from a veteran educator and visual journalist.

Dean Brown's first criticism is one with which I agree wholeheartedly -- that I should not have had text on top of the images. I edited the video using Adobe Premiere Elements, which is basically for home videos. I'm just learning to use Final Cut Pro, which is what we have in the lab at work. I was trying to keep the captions off the images as much as possible. Dean Brown told me I should have set up the slideshow in Flash, to give people time to examine the images. He also noted that Flash is superior to video when it comes to image reproduction. Again, I think he has a point, and I will come up with a version of the slideshow in Flash.

However, Dean Brown's biggest criticism was of my choice to run the soundtrack with Caruso singing in the background. He asked whether Elder was listening to Caruso when we looked at the pictures. I said she was not; however, I chose the aria because:

these were images from her childhood;

I wanted to evoke aspects of her childhood experiences in this section of the story;

she had told me that she often listed to opera as a child; she had heard Caruso recordings as a child, and "La Boheme" was her favorite opera. (Not surprisingly, she's also a Rent fan.

Dean Brown said it would have been more journalistic to have Nancybelle talk about the images, or to have a photgraphhy scholar analyze them. I explained that I do have a separate Flash presentation created by Eve Roytshteyn, in which TCNJ Art professor Ken Kaplowitz analyzes several of the Vanderzee photos, in particular.

In choosing to combine the musical selection with the images, I was trying to create an evocative setpiece which will have layers of meaning in each of the narrative threads.

One level of meaning is, as I said earlier, to associate the images with sounds that she heard during her childhood. My intention, in fact, is to find appropriate places to use all of the genres of music that Elder Nancybelle loves -- opera, jazz, spirituals and gospel -- at appropriate points in the narratives. I concede that in this, I am thinking more like a documentary maker than like a traditional journalist.

Another level of meaning comes from the analytic lens through which I am viewing the images, as well as the cultural politics of Nancybelle's upbringing. This particular set of images, which date from 1917 to the mid-1940s, show a family presenting itself as proud and upwardly mobile, despite the perjorative images of African Americans that were ingrained in popular culture.

More later.

Trustee Nancybelle

noreply@blogger.com (Professor Kim) — Sun, 24 Jun 2007 22:19:00 +0000

Camera phone shot of Elder Nancybelle (center) leading the offering portion of a church service at Unity Fellowship Church-New Beginnings. The church, which changed its name in 2007, had just completed a rite of passage ceremony for its youth.

Slides from New Media Consortium Presentation: June 2007

noreply@blogger.com (Professor Kim) — Sun, 24 Jun 2007 02:23:00 +0000

Here are the slides from the presentation I gave with my colleague Ursula Wolz, at the New Media Consortium Summer Conference in Indianapolis on June 7, 2007. (That's Ursula on the left, with another colleague, Chris Ault. Ursula and Chris gave a well-received presentation on Friday morning focused on best practices in teaching game design. The tools they have created (along with colleague Teresa Nakra) for student engagement, monitoring and assessment in an interdisciplinary class are elegant and effective. I intend to steal quite a few of them for my own classes.

We've been blogged!

noreply@blogger.com (Professor Kim) — Thu, 21 Jun 2007 23:58:00 +0000

Thanks, for including us in your "coolness" list, Tom.

A possible future application for multithreaded storytelling

noreply@blogger.com (Professor Kim) — Tue, 19 Jun 2007 20:41:00 +0000

[This thinkpiece is from 2003.]

In all of the research, debate and analysis surrounding affirmative action, I have become convinced that we are missing a golden opportunity to be more innovative in our thinking about ways of achieving educational equality. I believe that if we analyze some of the voluminous data we have using emerging tools in networking science, interactive multimedia and social psychology, we can create effective new models for teaching, mentoring and advising students and young professionals from non-traditional backgrounds.

I write this essay to suggest how these tools might be created, and how they might be applied in ways that are less contentious than our current arguments about fairness and distributive justice. In advancing this proposal, I do not mean to suggest that such arguments are not important or necessary – because they are. I do suggest however, that if we are sincere about wanting to see each child achieve his or her full potential, science and history may be able to offer us a way we are not currently considering. And conceptually, at least, it isn’t that complicated.

A final disclaimer before I disclose my idea: I am neither a scientist nor a trained historian. I come to this conversation as an Affirmative Action baby with a quarter century of professional experience as a writer and teacher in the fields of public relations, magazine writing and interactive multimedia. This idea emerged from reflecting on that polyglot experience, and on those of my forbears, as I read Columbia University sociology professor Duncan Watts’ book, Six Degrees: The Science of a Connected Age (Norton, 2003).

Watts’ book describes an emerging body of theory of how disparate phenomena are affected by their internal and external connections – whether the phenomenon under study is computer viruses, power outages, or political activism. It turns out that I am one of the thousands of e-mail users who have participated in Watts’ internet-based Small World project, which tries to ascertain whether there really are only six degrees of separation between two randomly selected individuals. In the Six Degrees project, volunteers are given the name of a “target” individual and told to get as close to that person as they can by sending an e-mail to someone they know. About two years ago, I got an e-mail from a former student asking me to help establish a connection to a person who worked at Bloomberg LP. I didn’t know the target person, but I know lots of people at Bloomberg, so I picked one of them and passed the e-mail along. Simple idea.

As Watts discloses in his book, the data from this simple experiment gives rise to some powerful and sophisticated mathematical models that, like chaos theory, can be applied quite broadly. He suggests that these models can eventually be used to predict the outcome of elections, or suggest effective job-hunting strategies or to understand and defuse terrorists’ cells. It occurs to me that we can also use these modeling techniques to understand how structures of educational opportunity are created and most effectively deployed.

The first case study that came to mind from which hypothetical models could be developed and tested was the education of pioneering African American intellectual William Edward Burghardt Du Bois (1868-1963). Du Bois grew up in a predominantly white, politically liberal New England town, and the town's leading citizens funded his undergraduate education at Fisk. His academic performance at Fisk earned him the attention of the people who became his benefactors at Harvard, and that placed him in the position to learn about the fellowship that would ultimately make it possible to attend the University of Berlin.

It seems to me that we ought to be able to model Du Bois' educational trajectory as a series of small network problems. The first step would be to look at the likelihood that a poor colored boy would get a scholarship to Fisk. The second would be the leap from Fisk to Harvard, then Harvard to Berlin. Modeling these steps seems to me to be relatively simple because the numbers of people involved are small

If all of this works, it might provide a way of mapping an individual's structures of opportunity, and of conceiving strategies for maximizing the optimal use of such small networks. I suspect that this would be a rather difficult thing to model. This is the second part of what I was thinking about. The networks that supported Du Bois were, in some cases generated, you might say, activated, by stories. By this I mean that the town fathers of Great Barrington had certain beliefs about themselves, a common story that formed part of the basis of their working relationship. Descended from one of great Barrington’s old black families, Du Bois presented himself in a way that fit their story about themselves as former abolitionists.

The storytelling part of the network building becomes particularly important when Du Bois tries to get his fellowship to go to Berlin. Rutherford B. Hayes, by then a
former President, headed a foundation that was supposed to support black students who were pursuing advanced degrees. He gave a speech saying that they hadn't found anyone to give the money to. Du Bois heard about what Hayes was saying, and wrote Hayes a letter saying, essentially: Hey, I'm here, and so are several other colored Harvard men, why haven't we been given a chance to apply? Ultimately, because Du Bois was supported by such people as William James, he got to apply, and he got the fellowship. Du Bois’ network enabled him to make Hayes act in a way that's consistent with his story.

It seems to me that Du Bois' experience is similar to what happens to students who are successful beneficiaries of affirmative action. Much of the value of my Princeton experience is related to the small networks I have been able to join. I would submit that our access to those networks has been mediated by the stories that govern their internal behavior, the stories told about us as potential new entrants and, to a lesser extent, the stories we tell about ourselves. These stories don't exist by themselves, of course -- they are cultural products -- but I am focused on their function.

One of the ways in which stories may affect the functioning of networks of educational opportunity is in countering a phenomenon that Stanford University social psychologist Claude Steele calls “stereotype threat.” According to Steele, stereotype threat occurs when an individual feels as if he or she is being evaluated according to a stereotype. Although Steele asserts that anyone can be affected by stereotype threat, he has studied the phenomenon’s effects on middle-class African American college students and women students in scientific and technical fields. Steele’s research suggests that stereotype threat accounts for academic underperformance in well-prepared students with high self-esteem.

Let me illustrate how I think the right combination of stories and networks can create opportunities while subverting stereotype threat. About 20 years ago, I had the privilege of profiling a pioneering black engineer, Dr. Walter Lincoln Hawkins for Black Collegian magazine. “Linc” Hawkins was the first black scientist at Bell Labs. Even though he came of age during the Great Depression and in an era of virulent racism, Linc came from segregated Washington DC to graduate first, from the city’s fabled Dunbar High School, followed by an undergraduate degree from Renssalear Polytechnical Institute and a doctorate from Mc Gill University. At Bell Labs, he earned 14 patents, including one for the polymer that allows us to put telephone cables underground and at the bottom of the sea. He spent his retirement years working to create programs that help women and students of color become successful scientists and engineers.

Along the way, Linc admitted that he had encountered plenty of racism – lots of stereotype threat. He didn’t talk much about those kinds of experiences, but a few examples emerged from conversations with him and others. For example, when his mother trekked from Washington, D.C. to Canada to hear Linc defend his dissertation, she was initially barred from the meeting room because of her race. Other Bell Labs old-timers told me that Linc spent his first decade there without any lab assistants, because there were no black assistants available, his managers couldn’t envision him giving orders to a white male, and they thought that it would be unseemly for him to have a white woman working under him. Ultimately, he did get a white female assistant, but for many years, he had to wash his own test tubes and tend to his own supplies.

When I asked him about the key to his success, he credited the foundation that his high school had given him – not just academically, but psychologically and practically. First, it should be understood that in its heyday, Dunbar was an exceptional place. The segregated, selective public high school was staffed by some of the best-educated black people on the planet – including such Harlem Renaissance cognoscenti as Georgia Douglas Johnson, Angelina Grimke and Jessie Fauset. They were graduates of such schools as Cornell and the University of Pennsylvania, but Dunbar was one of the few teaching jobs available to them. However, the faculty’s high-toned backgrounds gave them connections that they used to steer students into and through the kinds of schools they, themselves, had attended.

Attending Dunbar at the height of the New Negro movement, Hawkins recalled being taught African history and African American literature, in addition to the traditional elite high school curriculum of that day. He particularly remembered a physics teacher he called Prof. Weatherless, who drove a new Reo car every year as a royalty for his participation in the invention of the starter. He said that he knew he could succeed at RPI, Mc Gill and Bell Labs because he knew his heritage, and he had living examples in front of him.

The lives such people as Du Bois and Hawkins are sufficiently well documented that one ought to be able to graph the ways in which these networks and stories worked for them. However, I have no idea how to go about it.

I have discussed elements of this idea with mathematicians and social scientists who tell me that it’s worth exploring, although there isn’t a neat existing structure through which to do it. So, I am sharing my idea with the world with the hope of finding the people who can take it as far as it deserves to go.