Andre Taylor Named Global Change Fellow

Incoming Public History Masters student Andre Taylor has been named a Global Change Fellow for 2018-2019 by the Southeast Climate Science Center, operated by the Department of the Interior and NC State University. Taylor’s research explores West African agricultural traditions employed by contemporary Gullah farmers in South Carolina and Georgia, focusing on the effects of climate change on Gullah culture. The research promises new insights on cultural change and resiliency and will produce a new body of primary source material in the form of oral history interviews.  He notes that from this method “we could learn the intricacies, from those involved in the farming, that have preserved a unique farming community and ponder possibilities in the evolution in the methods already in use.”

Dr. Tammy Gordon, Associate Professor of Public History and faculty advisor for the project, added that “oral history generates data about the past that informs contemporary decision-making. It is an underutilized method, one that could be employed more broadly not just to document change and communities’ responses to it but also to inform decision-making and public dialogue on contemporary issues…. Andre Taylor has a demonstrated excellence in all elements of this method from protocol design to implementation to the narration of the stories in a public forum. I look forward to seeing the results of his work.”

Andre Taylor is a veteran journalist and recent graduate in History at North Carolina A&T State University. He begins work as a masters’ student in public history at NC State and as a Global Change Fellow in August of 2018.