Barbara Gannon
Professor, Department of History
In 2017, the NCA selected UCF as one of three schools awarded contracts as inaugural VLP partners. In 2018, it became one of nine schools participating in the VLP nationwide. As Dr. Barbara Gannon put it, UCF “was made for this program.” The History Department and the Center for Humanities and Digital Research (CHDR) are committed to doing publicly engaged research. Our partnership with NCA builds on a number of ongoing and relevant research projects, including the UCF Community Veterans History Project, Florida-France Soldier Stories, and RICHES digital archive.
Undergraduate and graduate students in UCF courses in 2017, 2018 and 2019 created digital learning tools, conducted research to find primary sources, and wrote biographies of over 130 veterans commemorated at four national cemeteries—two in Florida and two in eastern France: Florida National Cemetery, St. Augustine National Cemetery, the Aisne-Marne American Cemetery and the Meuse-Argonne American Cemetery. In 2018, our research focused on the history of two major conflicts in US history: the Seminole Wars and World War I. Over many months, our team of graduate and undergraduate research assistants wrote, edited and finalized biographies, created digital resources, assisted area K-12 teachers in the construction of instructional materials, and assisted with the website.
Between 2022-2024, UCF partnered with the Florida National Guard to develop a program that to be able to share the historical research methods we have developed. We work with educators who want to tell the stories of veterans buried in Florida’s national cemeteries in engaging, innovative lessons that follow state standards in their classrooms. As part of this, in June 2023 and 2024, we held our Veterans Legacy Program Institute for Florida K-12 educators from around the state, where they wrote Veteran biographies, themed mini-tours, and created curricula for their classrooms.
Our partnership honors Veterans and brings cemeteries alive for students—at universities, elementary, middle and high schools—through a range of instructional materials and interactive digital history tools. Our work is a collaborative, public-facing research program that employs more than a dozen UCF students, undergraduates, MA History students, and Texts & Technology PhD students each year. These students learn a range of skills, from researching, writing, and editing, to becoming proficient with digital tools and working with the public. A big part of this partnership is to showcase, as Dr. Gannon put it, “what the humanities can do in a real-world setting.”
Project Team
Project Lead
Amelia Lyons
Associate Professor, Department of History
Alison Simpson
Command Historian, Florida National Guard
Contributors
Jessie Oldham
Program Coordinator, Department of History
Katarina Monroe
Academic Program Coordinator II, School of Performing Arts
Anne Prucha
Senior Instructor, Department of Modern Languages and Literatures
Kacie B. Tartt
Senior Instructor, Department of Modern Languages and Literatures
Vandy Wood
Associate Professor, School of Performing Arts
