Recalling Main Street UCI
October 30, 2012
by Eileen Lee, Main Street UCI Blog Project Director
All of the hours logged creating catchy slogans, printing blue and gold flyers, updating Facebook pages, and staying up late applying for university funding were in the name of promoting the project. If promoting the project were the equivalent of running a mile in under 8 minutes, then getting people to understand our mission and contribute to the blog would be like running a marathon.
Let me chronicle for you my story behind the story.
Two years ago, as I stood on the Ring Road with the Main Street UCI photo displays, passing out flyers for the first time. I would make eye contact with someone, and say my spiel.
“Would you like to be part of UCI history?”
“Write yourself into UCI history”
“Be part of the UCI Library Archives.”
People would walk awkward circles to try and avoid me. With under 10 names written on our sign-in sheet per day, we realized that we needed a broader communication strategy. We created a Facebook account, contacted university communications, made classroom announcements, taped up posters on the Ring Road, and became a registered club. Yet, all of our efforts in the first few months got us about 30 contributions, most of which were recruited directly from the Main Street UCI team*.
Then, a realization hit me! FREE STUFF! We need to offer free stuff and people will write for us. After researching potential university organization funding and vendors for products, we spent late nights chasing deadlines and editing applications. All of our efforts got us 1000 totebags and waterbottles emblazoned with our logo.
Free totebags and waterbottles, what poor college student would not want these? So, the stereotype goes….These proved a lot harder to give away than we thought. For some reason, a FREE sign on the Ring Road is one to be avoided.
At one point, we had an email list of over 1,000 students, who had attended our events or were interested in the project. I recall speaking to many people, all of whom were hopeful to get their stories into the online blog and UCI HISTORY! But alas, life gets in the way, a quiz here, a midterm there, and the ever dreaded finals. But in all of the chaos, some people have found time to write for the blog.
We had deadlines, extended them, offered picture prizes, and other incentives to try and get people to write. I personally pestered many friends and colleagues always wondering why no one ever “has the time” to write. However, I was reminded of how I got caught up in the deadlines and also “had no time”.
In spring 2011, a student approached me and asked me something that I’ll never forget. In fact, I still see her around campus. She asked me a question that had been haunting me for over a year. “Did you write for the blog?” I was completely stumped. I managed to stammer out a response wherein I indicated something noncommittal about influencing other people’s responses and such.
The truth was, as I now realized, I did not know what to write. The thought of forever immortalizing my thoughts in an online blog as part of UCI history, as glamorous and wonderful as it sounded, was terrifying. What had I to say about UCI? And more importantly who was I to contribute anything? I hadn’t done anything!
I realized very recently what I wanted to write about. It was always there, but for those of you who had promised to give me a page of your thoughts and opinions about life at UCI but never did, I finally understand. Nonetheless, I encourage you to read what our 60+ contributors have written. We asked the question of “What do you think is important?” and we got 60+ different answers. See what they think and share it with others.
*The team originally started with Audrey Desmuke and I (Eileen Lee) participants of the 2010 UCI Summer Academic Enrichment Program. Audrey later left the project to pursue graduate school and research; at that point Marc Calilan and Caroline Gomes joined the team.
About the Main Street UCI Project
UCI is a rich and exciting place. We want this project to help people in the future understand what is happening here now.
When this documentation project began in August 2010 it focused on activities on Main Street UCI (the Ring Mall from Social Sciences to the Student Center).
That focus has broadened
Now the aims of the project are to:
- collect as many stories as possible about life at UCI and the experiences of UCI people (now and in the past) — all by June 30, 2012;
- include stories from all kinds of UCI people, especially undergraduates who are the majority, and staff, faculty, and off-campus visitors too;
- find and introduce as many points of view, as many voices, as possible.
The stories and other contributions will be displayed on this blog and then will be deposited in the university archives in digital form. There they will be permanently available to UCI people and the general public.
As an anthropologist I believe that we can learn a lot by listening to people talk about their lives – saying whatever is important to them. This is especially true in places where there are diverse points of view (like a university campus). I believe we often learn more from personal stories than we do from direct questions – because questions often hint at the questioner’s assumptions about the situation and thereby distort people answers. (Worse case: “When did you stop stealing from the cookie jar?)
Please explore the postings on this blog, look at the Ways to Contribute and other tabs, think about it, and become the next contributor. Your story will make our world richer, one where we all have more chances to learn how other people see everyday events.
PS: I began this project this summer (2010) after many months of photographing activities, eating food, seeing/hearing speakers and performers, and talking with many people along Main Street UCI. There’s more about the origins of the project, and about my background, in August 2010 statement below.
Frank Cancian
Professor Emeritus of Anthropology
msuci news
19apr2012
The Blog is still open for new contributions.
We will accept email submissions through June 30, 2012
Caroline and Marc will be at Wayzgoose to answer questions from individuals and groups interested in contributing.
You can email contributions to us at . . . We will post your contribution soon.
Click the “How to Post” tab above for details.
This is our seventh and last quarter of accepting posts for the Blog.
Caroline and Marc will be available for spring quarter
Eileen will be work by email through June 30.
Frank will be continue to be available by email and phone.
Here’s our contact information:
Eileen Lee, Blog Project Director
6th Year
Sociology and Psychology and Social Behavior major
Caroline Gomes, Blog Project Associate
3rd Year Anthropology major
Member of Lambda Sigma Gamma Sorority, Inc
Marc Calilan, Blog Project Associate
4th Year Anthropology major, History minor
Frank Cancian
Emeritus Professor of Anthropology
msuci news
27jan2012
We are pleased to report that we will soon post our first group of contributions from a sorority – twelve accounts of their journeys to UCI and their sorority written by sisters of Lambda Sigma Gamma, Inc. Two individual contributions, from Henry Wang, an alumnus, and Edward Martinez, an anthropology major, will also be posted soon.
With these we will have more than fifty individual contributions − the vast majority of them from undergraduates. JOIN THEM. Contribute something of yours soon.
We will stop collecting contributions at the end of Winter Quarter 2012, Monday March, 26. After that we will work to transfer everything we have collected to the UCI library archives where it will be available to the public.
Frank Cancian’s photos taken along the Ring Mall between theStudentCenterandSocialSciencePlazaare on display for winter quarter at the Courtyard Study Lounge in theStudentCenter. The 66 photos in CSL and more than 2,500 others will also be transferred to the UCI library archives.
Contributors to the Blog will be given a free digital file or print of any CSL photo they choose. If you would like a photo, be sure to contribute by our March 26 deadline. Details at . . . Caroline, Eileen, Frank, Marc, and Robbie, all introduced in the News sections below, continue to work on the Blog project. Robbie is a grad student preparing for his oral exams.
msuci news
27april2011
Our goals and our personnel have changed since we began the Main Street UCI blog about eight months ago.
Our new goal is to collect accounts of life at UCI/the experiences UCI people. Our original goal was quickly redefined by the posts sent to us when we set out to document UCI life as it was lived on the Ring Mall, and emphasized that topic and form were OPEN. Soon we had posts about commuting on 405, a sofa in the Science Library, and walking in Aldritch park at night, as well as many accounts of personal transformations experienced here. They were all obviously important to life at UCI. Thanks to early contributors our focus is now: life at UCI – form and content OPEN.
Audrey Desmuke and Eileen Lee were the “founding” project assistants (in late summer 2010). Both are advanced undergraduates in Social Ecology/Social Sciences. Audrey built the blog, managed the posting and helped find contributors. She left late in winter quarter to concentrate on graduating in June and future alternatives. (Thanks to Audrey for taking us from nothing to a manageable blog, and for being fun to work with.) Robbie Kett, an anthropology graduate student, now does the blog. Eileen, now the Project Manager, does almost everything, including planning for a Wayzgoose booth and orienting Marc Calilan, 3nd-year and Caroline Gomes, 3rd-year, both Anthropology majors, who will fill in for her while she is away in fall.
We have begun to solicit contributions from UCI faculty and staff – as well as from students, who have made most of the contributions already posted. As always we’ll appreciate posts from anybody with a UCInetID – and others who once had them.
msuci news
16sep2010
This is the first day of the Main Street UCI blog. All members of the UCI community are welcome to add stories to this record of UCI as we are living it now. We hope it will soon be filled by contributions from you and others.
The “we” here is now three. I have been joined by Audrey Desmuke and Eileen Lee. They are fourth-year students. Audrey is an Urban Studies major (formally in Engineering); Eileen’s majors are Psychology and Social Behavior, and Sociology. I met both of them at the Summer Academic Enhancement Program (SAEP) directed by Professor Caesar Sereseres in July when I gave a presentation there. Audrey has done most of the work on this blog. Eileen has done most of the work on the Flickr site that will soon open. The three of us will administer the project. We hope to find volunteers to join us − especially ones that have special knowledge of and interest in different aspects of life on Main Street/The Ring Mall and in student organizations.
If you have questions or want to join us, please go to the contact tab.
I want to thank two people who made contributions to this first publication of the blog. Kameko Mitchell, also a participant in SAEP, provided an account of the March 3, 2010 Silent Protest by the UCI Black Student Union. It is a model of a good way to do a personal statement − for two reasons. She provides background on the organization and the event. It locates them in UCI history and relates them to events on other campuses. And, she gives details of her concrete activities and emotions during the protest.
Spencer Olin, a Professor Emeritus of History, was a founding member of the UCI faculty in 1965. Since then he has been an outstanding UCI citizen. His books include Postsuburban California: The Transformation of Orange County Since World War II (with Rob Kling and Mark Poster). His contribution here raises basic questions about how the original spatial use plan for the campus may have shaped the experience and social networks of those of us who live, work and study here.
We are grateful for funds received in August from the office of Vice Chancellor for Student Affairs, Manuel Gomez. They pay our expenses. We hope to find research projects suitable for funds offered by the Undergraduate Research Opportunities Program.
When I make my next report, in a month or so, I hope that there will be many more posts (several are already “in the pipeline”). We will maintain a search system that it will make it easy for you to find your friends (and your own contribution) and to pursue the topics that interest you.
Origins of the Main Street UCI Project
August 2010
Since February 2009 I have photographed activities along the Ring Mall road between the Student Center and the Social Sciences Lecture Hall at the University of California Irvine. This strip, about 300 yards long, is the most active part of the mile-long circular pedestrian road around the core of the campus.
On most week days during fall, winter and spring dozens of booths and tables are set up by student organizations, off-campus vendors and organizations, and university offices and programs. They recruit people, sell products and food, and inform, argue, and protest in support of their causes.
Aldrich Hall (the administration building), Langson Library and the plaza at the main entrance to the campus are at its center. That is why I call it Main Street UCI.
My goal as a photographer is to document the great diversity of activities. I’ve saved more than 2,500 of the photos taken during the last 18 months and am organizing them and preparing for a show in 2011. My record will be partial. A look at a few of the overview pictures would suggest that the scene is too complex to be completely recorded. Lists of the 513 campus organizations (see www.campusorgs.uci.edu), many of which appear frequently on the Ring Mall, should convince skeptics.
My goal as an anthropologist is to collect comments, personal statements, and historical descriptions − as many as possible from people who live part of their lives on this Main Street. The vast majority of these are UCI students. They are the people who know the place best. Soon some photos will be available for viewing on line. A description of how to submit comments and descriptions will be with them. I am now recruiting students who want to make statements and/or help reach out to others who would like to contribute. This fall I will teach a short course for volunteers.
All my photos, and all the statements from people who contribute will be deposited in the UCI archives in digital form. They will be available to the university community and the public for personal and scholarly/educational use.
About Frank Cancian
In fall 1976, I came to UCI as an anthropology professor. I retired in June 1999. Since then I’ve been an emeritus professor and have often taught on a part-time basis. After I retired I published a book, Orange County Housecleaners, that combined first-person life stories and photos of seven women. More about my work is available on line: for anthropology google frank cancian uci, for photography see www.frankcancian.net