Oberlin Village: A Living Lab for NC State Students

NC State psychology faculty and students have partnered with local preservationists to develop resources that help raise public awareness and deepen understanding of Oberlin Village’s rich history while providing students with real-world skills.

Professor Anne McLaughlin and her graduate Human Factors Psychology students collaborated last semester with the nonprofit Friends of Oberlin Village (FOV). Together, they designed an interactive database for the group’s website, enabling users to search for individuals buried in the three-acre cemetery at the heart of this historic African-American neighborhood just blocks from campus.

It is the latest collaboration between McLaughlin and FOV, which descendants of Oberlin Village established to preserve this significant chapter of the city’s past. For the past five years, McLaughlin and students of human factors psychology have worked on projects ranging from reimagining the nonprofit’s website to refining its tour guidebook.

The searchable database project also builds on other NC State units’ work with FOV. They include sociology and anthropology, history and Africana studies within the College of Humanities and Social Sciences (CHASS), as well as partnerships with the College of Sciences, the College of Design and the College of Engineering.

Through these partnerships university departments have digitally scanned the graves in the cemetery using advanced survey methods, conducted semi-annual clean-ups, lifted fallen grave markers, provided graphics, and designed signage and banners among other projects.

McLaughlin said the searchable database project, like earlier ones, is a great example of how human factors psychologists can inform useful, safe and people-centered designs. It also illustrates the college’s commitment to community engagement.

“Projects like this connect students with and embed them in the community around them, and allow the community to be part of the students’ lives and the life of the university,” she said. ”It’s a win-win situation.”

Sabrina Goode, FOV’s executive director, said her group’s collaboration with the psychology department and other NC State partners has been integral to its success. “These partnerships,” she added, “have advanced our goals by leaps and bounds, put us on a steady foundation and enabled us to present a more professional and polished appearance to the public and the community at large.”

The faculty in the College of Humanities and Social Sciences and the College of Sciences started a joint project with FOV at the end of 2015. The ongoing interdisciplinary and intercollege project includes digitally scanning the cemetery using topographic, pedestrian and geophysical surveys.

“This work was initiated as a class project, and later, John Wall pushed it forward as part of his Ph.D. work,” said Del Bohnenstiehl, professor of marine, earth and atmospheric sciences in the College of Sciences. “It is a great way to connect students to the community and show them how the skills they are acquiring can be applied beyond traditional disciplinary boundaries.“

John Millhauser and Dru McGill, professors in the Department of Sociology and Anthropology along with Alicia McGill, a professor in the Department of History,  both in CHASS, also worked on the mapping project as well as other initiatives over the last nine years. Those initiatives include documenting the graves and grave markers, repairing fallen markers, giving tours and establishing safe walking paths in the cemetery. 

“Our objective,” said Millhauser, “is to protect this essential part of African-American history, ensuring its preservation for the benefit of future generations.”

Along with preservationists and other NC State scholars, Dru McGill has also been documenting the history of Oberlin Cemetery, and his students have conducted research that helped place the area on the National Register of Historic Places.

His students have also cleaned, sorted and digitized artifacts excavated from the yard of the Turner House property within Oberlin Village. The artifacts provided evidence about early 20th-century African-American practices.

The surveys of the cemetery, said Goode of FOV, revealed 300 additional unknown gravesites, which were added to the 200 sites listed in her group’s records. A future project, she added, is to map the cemetery, marking the specific location of each gravesite and attaching the name of the person buried there so visitors can easily find their ancestors.

For the last six years, FOV has also partnered with Chandra Cox, an alumni distinguished professor of media arts, design, and technology at the College of Design. Cox, in collaboration with Michael Bissinger, a graphic designer and professor of the practice at the college, is working on the Oberlin Road Streetscape. The public art project includes two sculptures, banners and street signage, all located between Clark Avenue and Oberlin Road and Bedford Avenue and Oberlin Road, as well as signage for Oberlin Cemetery.

Cox said the two sculptures, called The Oberlin Staffs, were inspired by traditional African linguist staffs, which are regalia used to precede a message from the leader to the people about the people. The Oberlin Staffs, she added, symbolize ascension, upward movement and mobility.

“Our intent with the placements of the commemorative elements is to suggest the vast areas that once was the site of this thriving community; Oberlin Village occupied land from Hillsborough Street to Glenwood Avenue,” said Cox. “This project engages the university with its neighbor, helping to bring long overdue recognition to important and overlooked contributors to the history of Raleigh and the State of North Carolina. There are many more Oberlin stories to be told – so the opportunities abound.”

Goode said they also provide wonderful opportunities for students to gain real-life experience, expand their knowledge, work with a diverse population and get involved in a community close to the university. 

Oberlin Village was founded in the 1850s by free Black families and grew into a large, successful community in the decades after the Civil War. It is an example of a Reconstruction-era freedman’s settlement in North Carolina and played a vital role in the history of African-American life in the region.

At its heart is Oberlin Cemetery, a significant cultural site and one of four known African-American cemeteries in Raleigh. It is where the remains of hundreds of former residents of Oberlin Village have been buried since the 1800s.

Goode said having an interactive portal on FOV’s website will allow users to discover who is interred in Oberlin Cemetery and if they have family members buried there.

To that end, psychology students last semester did a needs assessment with community members. They asked residents what they wanted to know about their ancestors, how they wished to search for that information and how they wanted to interact with the database, among other questions.

Using the information they collected the students designed an easy-to-use prototype sketch of what they think the interactive portal of the website should look like. They also tested the prototype with community members to see if improvements should be made.

Students, McLaughlin said, are gaining important skills they’ll use in their careers while at the same time making a very personal connection to this one nonprofit.

Goode said the project is important to FOV because it will help fill in missing pieces of information about the people buried in the cemetery. “This will be the springboard for future generations to come back to find out about their families,” she said.

McLaughlin said the next step is for FOV to work with a computer science class at NC State”s   College of Engineering, to do the coding, making the interactive database operational.

“FOV,” said Goode, “is honored to have Oberlin Village serve as a living lab for the students of NC State.”

Goode said having an interactive portal on FOV’s website will allow users to discover who is interred in Oberlin Cemetery and if they have family members buried there.

To that end, psychology students last semester did a needs assessment with community members. They asked residents what they wanted to know about their ancestors, how they wished to search for that information and how they wanted to interact with the database, among other questions.

Using the information they collected the students designed an easy-to-use prototype sketch of what they think the interactive portal of the website should look like. They also tested the prototype with community members to see if improvements should be made.

Students, McLaughlin said, are gaining important skills they’ll use in their careers while at the same time making a very personal connection to this one nonprofit.

Goode said the project is important to FOV because it will help fill in missing pieces of information about the people buried in the cemetery. “This will be the springboard for future generations to come back to find out about their families,” she said.

McLaughlin said the next step is for FOV to work with a computer science class at NC State”s   College of Engineering, to do the coding, making the interactive database operational.

“FOV,” said Goode, “is honored to have Oberlin Village serve as a living lab for the students of NC State.”

This post was originally published in College of Humanities and Social Sciences.