Humans of Washtenaw County

By Nicholas Ketchum

Staff Writer

Beginning Dec. 4, a new student-created exhibit entitled “Humans of Washtenaw County” will occupy the Bailey Library’s Active Learning Center adjacent to the library’s main entrance.

The exhibit will showcase student-led interviews with various local residents about their lives and background, career histories and trajectories and more, similar to the hit “Humans of New York” web/book series by Brandon Stanton.

Audio recordings—along with transcripts of each interview—will be available to the public, as well as other printed materials.

Roughly 40 students from two ENG 111 sections, both led by instructor Aaron Smith, are participating in the exhibit, which he assigned as a graded project.

The assignment includes: selecting an interview subject; preparing questions; setting up and conducting (and recording) the interview; compiling a transcript; and writing a reflective evaluation of the interview.

Smith said the idea for the exhibit originally came from Bailey librarian, Jenn Mann.

“It’s an idea librarian Jenn Mann had. . . . Her idea was to take the human library project, that was starting to connect students in the library, and move it to connecting students back into Washtenaw County,” he said.

Smith said he worries “face-to-face [interaction] is a lost art,” and hopes the project will help students learn to connect to people more directly—away from our distracting screens and shaky social climate.

“This [project] is a way of encouraging students to make these face-to-face connections. . . . Students have to take on the role of the interviewer, which is a step up from just talking casually with someone. It gives them a sense of stepping into a role where they have some accountability,” Smith said.

The exhibit will be on-display Dec. 4 through mid-January at the Bailey Library.

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