Hear Here - Spring 2020

William(&Mary Students)burg

Abigail Hartless

ABSTRACT

My podcast, William(&Mary Students)sburg (read as William & Mary Students in Williamsburg) focuses on the relationship between William & Mary students and the Williamsburg community. While one might expect that students are active in their college towns, whether it be through shopping, dining, or entertainment, the relationship between William & Mary students and the Williamsburg community is very different. William(&Mary Students)sburg shares student perspectives of their relationships with the greater Williamsburg community. Most William & Mary students discuss how they do not feel like they are a large part of the greater Williamsburg community, and they do not spend much time in the Williamsburg community. In fact, many students discuss how they do not really ever leave William & Mary’s campus. This is shocking, especially as many William & Mary students log hundreds of hours of community service during high school, and can be assumed to have many hometown favorite businesses to frequent. I discuss volunteer data from William & Mary’s Office of Community Engagement, as well as discuss research done in Kuwait about university students’ civic involvement. The purpose of this podcast is to bring attention to some of the limitations placed on students by both William & Mary and Williamsburg, and how those limitations affect students’ interactions with Williamsburg. It is also to bring awareness to the lack of student involvement in Williamsburg, and hopefully convince as many people as possible to become more involved in the Williamsburg community

TRANSCRIPT

00:00

People talking

00:08

Narrator 1: The city of Williamsburg, located in the piedmont region, is an East coast tourism hub. With over 500 thousand people visiting Colonial Williamsburg’s living history museum each year, and almost three million people visiting the nearby Busch Gardens theme park, there is always something to do in the city of Williamsburg. Unless, however, you’re one of 6,000 students at the College of William and Mary, one of America’s oldest academic institutions, which is second only to Harvard College. Then, you might feel like there is a limit to what you can do in Williamsburg. The following is an interview with Morgan Flaherty.

00:45

Interviewer: Um, how much of Williamsburg did you see at that point? I mean, when did you start venturing off?

Flaherty: Um.

Interviewer: I mean, I guess you lived off-campus actually in Brown, right, I mean?

Flaherty: Well, it’s okay, yeah, pretty much off-campus in Brown. But, I mean, what we would do, I mean, we were the typical, you know, freshman, like, what we would do for fun was in the middle of the night, we would just like walk around Colonial Williamsburg, and like, go ghost hunting. Yeah, we were, we were those freshmen, um [laughing].

Interviewer: We were all those freshmen [laughter].

Flaherty: Yeah. Um, so, and then it’s hard if you, you can’t have cars here until you’re like Junior, so, basically I lived in Brown, um, I enjoyed CW, but, the only going off campus was to Prime Outlets or Target on the bus.

1:31

Narrator: Many William & Mary students feel that they aren't really a part of the Williamsburg community. Even though the population of the city of Williamsburg is 14,000 to William & Mary’s 6,000 undergraduate students, William & Mary’s Office of Community Engagement only reports roughly 7,000 student service hours are logged annually. This averages out to about an hour of community service from each undergraduate student per year, implying that there is most likely a significant amount of the William & Mary community that is not involved in any community service aspects around the Williamsburg community.

These numbers are not surprising though. In fact, in 2008, two Kuwaiti researchers found that even though college students were concerned about their communities, they were not active in their communities. This seems true with William & Mary students, who have reported realizing that they are lacking in community involvement around their senior year. In the following clips you’ll hear from some William & Mary students about their perceived involvement in the William & Mary community.

The student opinions shared are taken from assignments completed by students enrolled in the Williamsburg documentary project. Interview excerpts are taken from test oral histories that students gave about their own lives. Every student involved in that course has to create a map diary, which is a map of their daily actions, both on and off campus. Most quotes come from reflection essays written after the completion of the map diary assignment. While many quotes are read in my voice, they are not my ideas, but they are the opinions & statements of the following William & Mary alumni

3:10

Interviewer: What’s your favorite thing about Williamsburg?

Ede: About Williamsburg? Um, hm, I haven’t really been out that much it’s kind of, I don’t have a car it’s kind of sad, I like Colonial Williamsburg it’s nice to just go walk around, I like to tourist watch, I really like people, I’m kind of, I’m not creepy, but I think they’re interesting, you know just like watching different people interact and things like that so I like to go down to CW

Ede: The map diary also made me realize how little I interact with Williamsburg outside of campus.

Ede: I suppose I do not really utilize Williamsburg to its fullest potential as the space where I live most of the year. Having a car would, of course, make exploration more possible although it could also simply be termed as a lack of convenience and a bit of laziness on my part.

Narrator: You just heard from Jessie Ede, next you will hear from Frank Enriquez.