The Community Histories Workshop (CHW) is a mission-driven, innovative, collaborative, and community-engaged organizational structure based at UNC-Chapel Hill. Through collaborative efforts, we develop new avenues for communities to explore and enjoy their history. We create valuable educational and professional experiences by connecting UNC staff, faculty, graduate students, and undergraduate students to everyday people, historical organizations, and historical reuse developers in recovering, preserving, and sharing the narrative of a community’s past and future transformation.

Since growing out of the UNC Digital Innovation Lab in 2016, CHW has been affiliated with UNC’s Center for Urban and Regional Studies (CURS). Join the CURS listserv to stay updated on our projects and to be informed about events. 

To learn more about us and our other projects, visit our website http://communityhistories.org/ or email us at communityhistories@unc.edu.

Read our Statement of Principles 

 

MISSION

Community Histories Workshop creates new avenues for communities to explore and enjoy their history by connecting with local partners in recovering, preserving, and sharing the narratives of past and future transformation.

VISION

Inspired communities engaged in the process of their own revitalization.  

VALUES

We believe in:

Serving the public first through accessible technology and community history

Honoring shared narratives and memory

Encouraging and facilitating private, public, academic, and local collaboration

Building integrity and trust in all of our relationships

Connecting local expertise with academic expertise

Capacity building in local community organizations

Leading mission-driven work at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill with undergraduates, graduates, staff, and faculty

Exploring interdisciplinary approaches to finding a community’s story