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How Projects in Special 
Collections Help Students 
Find Their Faith and Voice
Carisse Mickey Berryhill, Abilene Christian University
Bob Turner, Harding School of Theology

ABSTR AC T In this session, Bob Turner and Carisse Berryhill share 
their experience of using archives as a component of a class in 
Stone-Campbell History at Harding School of Theology. Berryhill 
teaches the course as an adjunct professor. As the library director, 
Turner has partnered with her to receive items that students wish to 
study and then donate to the Meredith Restoration History Archive.

This project began as a collaboration between Bob Turner and 
Carisse Berryhill that was focused on how they could strengthen 
special collections of their religious heritage (Churches of Christ) 
through a pedagogical innovation within Berryhill’s Stone-Camp-
bell History course. The basic premise is that the student project of 
the course is to obtain an archival piece, study it, write about it, and 
deposit that piece into the Meredith Restoration History Archive at 
Harding School of Theology.

The project has a few aims:

1) By thinking about how students might contribute to the 
archives, they become aware of archives, special collections, 
and forms of documentation beyond the published historical 
works found in the stacks.

2) By contributing to special collections, students participate in 
a two-way relationship between the library and the student. 
While we affirm the importance of curated programming by 
libraries/archives, we also recognize that there is tremendous 
value in allowing students to find their voice and story in the 
collections.

3) The experience orients the student not only to the product 
of history-writing, but also to the process of history-building. 
They see how small deposits can fund future research. They 



Listen and Learn Sessions  193

contribute to collections that will be useful to future histori-
ans.

During the presentation, Berryhill shared how students doing such 
projects not only found a connection with their religious heritage 
but perhaps experienced something more personal and transforma-
tive. They found their voice, faith, and story. They might see exist-
ing archives that feature their grandparents, but they might also 
contribute and study a piece that shows a side of their rigid childhood 
preacher that they had not personally witnessed. They witness play-
ers in Churches of Christ (a low church tradition) who rarely get into 
the history books. Further, since Churches of Christ lack a centralized 
headquarters/archive, schools such as Harding and Abilene Chris-
tian are on the frontlines of not only telling the movement’s history, 
but also collecting it.

During the presentation, Berryhill and Turner shared some of 
the lessons they’ve learned during the past few years of offering the 
project:

• Small collections are often preferable. This gives the students 
an opportunity to have the dual experience of contributing to 
the special collections as well as doing a deep dive into a partic-
ular piece in a way that they wouldn’t be able to with a large 
corpus.

• The better projects document small stories in a detailed way 
rather than documenting large subjects in a generic way. 
Some of the best projects are a one-page letter, a significant 
photo, or a small handwritten journal.

• Projects help Special Collections fill needs. Churches of Christ 
don’t have a strong tradition of documenting the ministry of 
women. This project allows students to contribute to this gap 
by conducting oral histories of prominent women, for example. 
Some of the best projects are historical pieces/episodes from 
historically Black Churches of Christ.

• Students need instruction on what this means. While we 
want to encourage creativity, it’s really important to share the 
vision for the projects (and possibly show projects from earlier 
semesters).


