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Ehlman Receives Bigham Award for Oral-history Project

Dr. Mary Catherine Ehlman, assistant professor of gerontology, is the recipient of the second annual Darrel Bigham Historic Southern Indiana Faculty Engagement Fellowship.

She will use the $4,000 Bigham award to conduct an oral-history project called “Preservation through the Generations.” The project will contribute to recording and promoting the history of Southern Indiana.

Approximately 80 students studying gerontology will conduct two-hour interviews with family members and friends over the age of 75 during the summer and fall. The interviews will document each participant’s life history with special emphasis on life in the early 20th century.

The interviews will be digitally recorded, transcribed, and archived in the Rice Library. Tom Lonnberg, curator of history for the Evansville Museum of Arts, Science, and History, anticipates including oral histories from the project into a long-term exhibit that will examine Evansville in the era of the 1920s through World War II.

Ehlman also is director of the College of Nursing and Health Professions’ Center for Healthy Aging and Wellness. She said the oral-history project is an experiential activity that will benefit the interviewers, interviewees, and the Southern Indiana community.

As a doctoral student, Ehlman collaborated with two fellow students to study how participation in an oral-history project can change the interviewer’s attitude toward older adults. The resulting research paper “Oral History in the Classroom: Fostering Positive Attitudes toward Older Adults and the Aging Process” will be published in the March 31 issue of the Journal of Aging, Humanities, and the Arts, a publication of the Gerontological Society of America.

Ehlman has employed the collection of oral histories in gerontology classes over the past four years. Reflecting on the assignment, one student said, “The stereotypes that I had going into this assignment disappeared after the experience.”

Another said, “I have learned from this interview that I need to do more for my community and the people around me.”

Ehlman’s interest in working with older adults began during a year she spent teaching English in Japan following completion of an undergraduate degree in history at Quincy University. Many older adults signed up for her classes.

Upon returning to the states, she began working as an activity director at independent apartments for senior adults in St. Louis, Missouri, where her commitment to working with the elderly continued to grow.

“I enjoyed every aspect of learning about their life stories and getting to know them,” she said. “They were interested in my life and in building relationships. I got to know them on a personal level.”

Ehlman completed a doctorate in health-related sciences – gerontology in 2008 at Virginia Commonwealth University. She holds a master’s degree in social work from St. Louis University and a master’s degree in business administration from Webster University.

She has experience as an administrator at senior living centers in St. Louis and has served as education coordinator for the St. Louis chapter of the Alzheimer’s Association. She holds a Missouri nursing home administrator license.

Ehlman joined USI in 2001 as project coordinator for the Worksite Link to Wellness program. She has served as an adjunct and part-time instructor and was named to her present position in 2008.

The Bigham award provides financial support for scholarly work in the areas of consulting, research, service learning, or creation of workshops/institutes by USI faculty. Dr. Darrel Bigham, director emeritus of Historic Southern Indiana and professor emeritus of history, was a USI pioneer in regional engagement.

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