Digital Harrisburg wins award

The Digital Harrisburg Initiative (DHI), a collaborative project of Messiah University, Harrisburg University and community partners, recently won a Leadership in History Award from the American Association for State and Local History (AASLH).

The application for the award centered especially on Messiah’s work with the Commonwealth Monument Project but also included the Pennsylvania History special issue and the wide range of public humanities projects that University students and faculty carried out in collaboration with local organizations.

The AASLH awards recognize achievement in the preservation and interpretation of state and local history.

It is always inspiring to see the amazing work of individuals and organizations across the nation through the Leadership in History Awards program,” said Christy Crisp, national awards chair, “but the challenges we have all faced over the past 18 months make the incredible work displayed through this year’s award-winning projects all the more extraordinary.

DHI is marketed to audiences in our region via public programming, social media and a dedicated website that functions as a portal to various projects. Professors David Pettegrew, Jean Corey, and Bernardo Michael at Messiah University spearheaded the initiative, framing the historical questions through programming of the institution’s Center for Public Humanities, while Professor Albert Sarvis at Harrisburg University directs all geospatial elements. Their work builds on partnerships with historians, humanists and computer science professors at Messiah; community organizations; state librarians and archivists; and many university students in the humanities and geospatial studies.

“On a simple level, we’re trying to build a more inclusive narrative of the region’s significant but often forgotten past through digital storytelling and public humanities activities,” said Pettegrew. “We want local residents to discover value in the history of the region.”

—Staff report