Organization Services

	ORAL HISTORY CONSULTING A LIFETIME LEGACY

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ORGANIZATION SERVICES

Oral histories form the foundation of historical knowledge from time immemorial. Oral History Consulting offers the following services to organizations:

Oral History Interviews
Review and Evaluation of Oral History projects and grant proposals
Oral History Training Workshops
Project Oversight and Development, including creating interview protocols, selection of narrators, and mentoring volunteers
Management of secondary services, such as transcription, and collection of historical documents and photographs

PREVIOUS WORK

JAPANESE AMERICAN MEDICAL ASSOCIATION

Over a two year period, Dr. Jensen conducted an oral history project for the Japanese American Medical Association which involved collecting over 22 oral histories of Japanese American physicians highlighting their World War II internment and armed services experiences, personally conducting 18 of the interviews in four states. She identified and located potential interviewees, helped develop the interview schedule for project interviews, compiled staff progress reports, and coordinated the flow of fieldwork. She worked with writer Naomi Hirahara on Silent Scars of Healing Hands, a recently published book, based on the oral history interviews that recount the experiences of the physicians.

Silent Scars of Healing Hands by Naomi Hirahara and Gwenn M. Jensen, published by the Center for Oral and Public History California State University Fullerton in 2004. It is available for purchase from Cal State Fullerton at COPH Bookstore and the Japanese American National Museum Bookstore or call toll free 1-888-769-5559, Tues.-Sun., 11 am-5 pm, PST.

DOUGLAS COUNTY LIBRARIES
Gwenn Jensen presented a series of programs for Douglas County Libraries called "Wisdom Givers." Using a four step process, she taught participants how to write letters sometimes called legacy statements or ethical wills to pass on their legacy and enduring messages to their families for generations to come.

LITTLETON HISTORICAL MUSEUM
Along with the expansion of their premises, the Littleton Historical Museum has doubled their efforts to collect oral histories from community elders and leaders. Dr. Jensen presented an oral history workshop to museum staff and volunteers training them in techniques of collecting life stories from initial contact to final disposition including ethical and legal considerations. Each participant received a 28-page booklet summarizing the information provided in the training session

HIWAN HOMESTEAD MUSEUM
Hiwan Homestead Museum, in Evergreen, Colorado, had collected a sizable number of oral history interviews which had not been indexed or cataloged. As part of a Colorado Endowment for the Humanities grant, Gwenn Jensen provided one-on-one training in oral history techniques, equipment, and methodologies to museum consultants. She reviewed the museum's oral history collection and made recommendations for improving accessibility and usefulness of the collection to potential users.

JAPANESE AMERICAN NATIONAL MUSEUM
Each year the Japanese American National Museum creates a video of five honorees based on videographic oral history interviews. In 2004, the museum contracted with Gwenn Jensen to conduct one of these interviews with noted tissue transplant research pioneer, Dr. Paul I. Terasaki, who was named the recipient of the Nisei Legacy award.

NOTABLE AMERICAN WOMEN
In a volume completing the 20th century, Dr. Jensen was invited to contribute an essay on Kazue Togasaki, MD, based on oral history interviews with surviving family members and documentary research. It appeared in Notable American Women, A Biographical Dictionary Completing the Twentieth Century, Susan Ware, Ed., Cambridge, MA: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2004.

NIKKEI LIFE HISTORY PROJECT
In addition to community projects, Dr. Jensen has established the Nikkei Life History Project and over the past nine years has conducted life history interviews with Americans of Japanese ancestry with a focus on health and their World War II experiences, an outgrowth of her dissertation research. The majority of the life history material is deposited with six museum and university archives.

OTHER ASSIGNMENTS
Gwenn Jensen has consulted with the CU Department of Family Medicine on a five-year statewide Senior Wellness endeavor that involved a series of informational interviews at annual and semi-annual intervals and ethnographic observations at annual statewide conferences and program constituent interviews. As a consultant, she conducted interviews and analysis of a Colorado community on a health education curricula project developed by the Colorado School Health Education Initiative and performed follow-up evaluations to assess progress toward initiative goals for the Rocky Mountain Center for Health Promotion and Education.

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