Kendall & I did our first interview with one of our professors, Dr. Eckelman, on Friday, March 14th, 2019. We found that some of the questions are a bit repetitive, but I think they serve their purpose in digging deeply into individual thoughts and opinions regarding the non-discrimination ordinance. Editing the audio was easy, there was only one portion of the audio which we redacted, and the cut is clear but not distracting.

Audio recording was done using a Tascam DR-05. The interview wound up being exactly 14 minutes after editing, which I felt was an incredibly reasonable amount of time for an individual to listen if they were interested. Editing was done on Audacity. Typing the transcript of the interview only took about 45 minutes, and the transcript does include some notes in brackets which allow for a reader who is not from Montevallo to better understand some of the language used by Dr. Eckelman. The only con about the audio recording is that it picked up every little bit of noise, and since this interview was done in an office adjacent to an elevator, at times you can hear the elevator moving in the background. I didn’t personally find it difficult to listen to, and not obnoxiously loud, but Dr. Eckelman does project her voice to allow for the audio to be as clear as possible, which was very helpful.

Dr. Eckelman also gave us some further resources for opposing opinions to the non-discrimination ordinance. She mentioned post-recording that she had taken pages of notes during the opposition panel (mentioned in the interview). We asked if she felt comfortable sharing them with us, at least to give us some context on what exactly happened (neither Kendall nor I were in attendance of the panel). She said she would look for the notes, but if not, she gave us some information on who to speak to otherwise. She did mention that many of the opposition panelists were from our of town or even out of state, making their opinions less salient in the context of the city of Montevallo’s cultural atmosphere. Regardless, we are still digging for further information regarding the opposition. It’s important to us that we present this in a more level-handed way.

Since Dr. Eckelman is a professor who both Kendall and I have a previous rapport with, she was easy to talk to and made the interview incredibly easy. This was such good practice for interviews with officials which we have not met before, especially in my case, since I’m typically incredibly shy. Pro-tip for interviews: talk to someone you’re candidly comfortable with before speaking to someone you aren’t! Everyone in Montevallo is very inviting and kind, so I don’t think we’ll run into many issues, especially since the questions are open ended and allow for endorsement or opposition.

UPDATE: Found the oral history consent form on the course website. I have privatized pages with the transcripts of interviews and Sound Cloud interview link until we can obtain the signed form from Dr. Eckelman. The only thing which we were unsure of is if we needed a signed consent form from interviewees before posting their interviews online? Dr. Eckelman gave us express consent to use audio and transcript, and we do have documentation through messages with her, and we can always ask for her signature on a printed document as needed. This may have already been covered, but I don’t remember.

Again, this interview process so far has been incredibly positive and I’m glad to be gaining the experience. Dr. Eckelman hit on many of the points which we are interested in taking on in our project, and reinforced many of the ideas which we had discussed in putting together the narrative form of this conflict.

Overall, off to a great start on the most intimidating part of this project (interviews), in my opinion. Hope everyone is having a great weekend and will see everyone in class on Thursday! – Lillian