Call for Applications: Announcing the Launch of the Sharing Stories from 1977 Editorial Fellows Program

Call for Applications: Announcing the Launch of the Sharing Stories from 1977 Editorial Fellows Program

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Deadline: April 1, 2025

Application Site: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1EPboKDMgxT-l2Q2TcSwrZ5BcULZeR-p2uHFfdMKvwAA/viewform?edit_requested=true.

Sharing Stories from 1977, a nationally recognized digital humanities project, is pleased to announce we are forming an editorial board for our peer-reviewed, open-access website. Sharing Stories from 1977: Putting the National Women’s Conference on the Map is the central hub for documenting and interpreting the 1977 National Women’s Conference (NWC).

We are seeking twelve graduate student Sharing Stories Fellows who will be competitively selected in a national search to serve as an inaugural class of editors in 2025-2026.

Fellows will conduct editorial review of biographies drafted primarily by undergraduate researchers to be published on the Sharing Stories site and will participate in a mentorship network supporting graduate scholarship and advancement.

Program Benefits

  • An honorarium for your service of $400 will be provided at the completion of your term.
  • One-on-one engagement with a nationally recognized faculty mentor will be another benefit of the program.
  • Participation in program-wide virtual social mixers and the chance to present works-in-progress at an annual Sharing Stories Fellows Research Workshop.
  • A certificate of service will be provided and recognition as a Sharing Stories Fellow will be included on the Sharing Stories site.

Time Commitment

  • Fellows will serve on the board from September 2025 to July 2026 with the possibility of reapplying.
  • The time commitment is 5 hours per week with flexibility to complete hours based on individual schedules and to bank hours to accommodate scheduling needs.
  • Onboarding to introduce fellows to the NWC and the Sharing Stories editorial process will take place in September through a few required virtual workshops.
  • This training will continue within each editorial group (four fellows and faculty lead) during monthly check-in meetings to ensure strong support for editing tasks.

Sharing Stories Editorial Board Team

The Sharing Stories network is dynamic and growing with educators, practitioners, and scholars mentoring student researchers across North America. Editorial Fellows will be integral contributors to this network. In 2025-2026, the Editorial Board will be led by faculty long associated with the Sharing Stories project:

  • Stacie Taranto (Ramapo College of New Jersey)
  • Emily Westkaemper (James Madison University)
  • Judy Tzu-Chun Wu (University of California, Irvine)
  • Nancy Beck Young (SS Co-director, University of Houston)
  • Leandra Zarnow (SS Co-director, University of Houston)

Our Project’s History

The Sharing Stories from 1977 digital public history project was launched in 2017, shortly after University of Houston hosted a 40th anniversary conference to commemorate the 1977 National Women’s Conference (NWC). The NWC—the first and only federally funded conference and arguably the most diverse gathering of American women of its kind in US history—stands out for its bi-partisanship, inclusiveness, and democratic decision-making. In 1976, Representatives Bella Abzug (D-NY) and Patsy Takemoto Mink (D-HI) shepherded the NWC law appropriating $5 million through Congress. Their purpose was to ensure that women’s rights would be a central focus in the wider human rights debate, and they capitalized on the momentum of the United Nations International Women’s Year initiative.

Because of a diversity mandate written into the law, the nearly 2000 delegates elected to deliberate and pass a 26 plank National Plan of Action reflected a cross-section of American women more diverse than the US Congress was then or is today. No single biography can capture the story of the highly active NWC participants. For this reason, the Sharing Stories from 1977 team launched a prototype open-access website in 2022 to bring equal visibility to the lives of all NWC participants.

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Our Project’s Ambition

As a digital humanities project, we have short and long term goals. Most immediately, we aim to publish the biographies and demographic data of nearly 2000 elected delegates by the 50th Anniversary of the NWC in November 2027.

But this goal will be just the beginning. Ultimately, we aspire to capture 150,000+ participant stories including state/territory meeting attendees, volunteers, reporters, torch relay runners, dignitaries, and observers, and we will trace the numerous political networks and legislative legacies of the NWC. Our site will bring greater visibility to the NWC, fostering new scholarship as an interpretive engine and hub for researchers seeking historical data and resources. 

Why We Are Launching an Editorial Board

To reach our 2027 goal, we have created a national crowdsourcing network powered by and empowering student researchers who conduct the first layer of research on NWC participants. To date, over 3000 students in more than twenty states have drafted biographies, conducted oral histories, written interpretive essays, and gathered demographic data.

Because our project is rigorous, we abide by the scholarly standard of a multi-tiered, peer-review process outlined in our Editing Procedures guidelines. Our small team at University of Houston cannot keep up with the backlog of biographies in our editorial review pipeline deserving of publication. As of 2025, we are over 75 percent of the way towards our goal of drafting 2000 biographies, but only 15 percent of drafted biographies have been published on the site.

To meet our 50th Anniversary goal, we must scale up the editorial crowdsourcing component of our project. Launching a Sharing Stories Editorial Board and Fellows program also aligns with our Feminist DH Manifesta, in which we commit to collaborative research that is focused on promoting open-access feminist scholarship and public engagement.

How to Apply to the Sharing Stories Fellows Program

We welcome applications from graduate students at any stage of their program and seek an interdisciplinary cohort. No editing or digital humanities experience is required.

Please submit as one PDF:

  • CV
  • Letter of interest. This should outline any familiarity or interest with the topic, individual research concentration and dissertation/thesis/projects underway, and any digital humanities, public humanities, and/or editing experience (no more than two pages)
  • Short writing sample (no more than ten pages)

This attachment should be uploaded after completing a short questionnaire on this site by April 1, 2025: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1EPboKDMgxT-l2Q2TcSwrZ5BcULZeR-p2uHFfdMKvwAA/viewform?edit_requested=true.

 

Twelve fellows will be selected for the 2025-2026 cohort. Applicants accepted to this competitive national program will be notified on May 9.

Questions? Check out our FAQ Page.

More questions? Reach out to our project manager Dr. Sandra Davidson: sddavids@central.uh.edu