Submissions:2018/WikiHBCU


 * Title: #WikiHBCU - building a network of HBCU students, faculty, staff, alumni and administration as editors to create equitable and diverse articles on Wiki products and platforms.


 * Theme (optional): Relationship Building & Support, Editor Recruitment & Retention, Inclusion & Diversity


 * Academic Peer Review option:  Yes


 * Type of submission: Panel & Workshop


 * Author: Darold Cuba


 * E-mail address: @


 * Wikimedia username: LumaNatic


 * Affiliation(s) (optional): Wikimedia NY, AfroCROWD, Columbia University Oral History Masters program (OHMA)


 * Abstract:

I’m proposing a panel with students, faulty, staff and leadership of the HBCU experience with how to increase sustained participation of people of color, particularly on the collegiate level with all of its passion, resources and sustained alumni loyalty. And explore whether or not creating chapters - unofficial or official - on all of the 101 HBCUs throughout the country, would be a viable route to create a sustainable model of retention for diversity of content and editors on Wikipedia, to be eventually replicated at all of the universities, institutions and other such organizations throughout the world.

As the current graduate intern for Wikimedia’s AfroCROWD, and a member of Wikimedia NYC (as well a graduate student at Columbia’s Oral History Master’s program where I’m #MappingFreedom - creating a database of all of the “freedom colonies” who resisted Western colonialism) I’m well aware of the representation, equity, and diversity and inclusion issues with Wikipedia. I’m also the descendant of the HBCU experience in America - both of my parents are HBCU grads, as well as 2 of my siblings and my only college-aged nephew - someone from all branches of my family has attended an HBCU since the founding of the first one, Cheyney, in 1837.

The HBCUs are a plethora of knowledge and a repository of culture, not just of the African-American experience, but of the Native and European-American experience as well - it encompasses all of the American experience, and beyond, the African and European diasporas included. My godmother has spent her career in HBCU administration, becoming the president of Langston University, and current chancellor of Hampton University where she raised her children - my god-siblings - on campus during our childhoods (I grew up not too far). Hampton U is the location of the country’s oldest museum dedicated to African-American history (and it doesn’t even have a wikipedia article dedicated to it), and is representative of all of the HBCUs as repositories of culture waiting to be made into content, using their most devoted base - students, faculty and staff- to mobilize a sustainable model of equitable content creation and editors, and equitable representation of diversity and inclusion.

The panel would consist of a cross section of HBCU students/alum, faculty, staff, administration and a representative of Wikimedia/Wikipedia. I’m also proposing a separate #WikiHBCU workshop where any and everyone interested can participate in an HBCU-inspired & themed Edit-A-thon and Record-A-thon where articles related to the HBCUs are created, explored and dissected.


 * Length of presentation: Panel: 45 mins, Workshop: 75 mins


 * Special requests: projector for quick 5 min deck presentation at panel


 * Preferred room size: Thinking 50 -100 people will show up at both panel and workshop
 * Have you presented on this topic previously? If yes, where/when?: No


 * If you will be incorporating a slidedeck during your presentation, do you agree to upload it to Commons before your session, with a CC-BY-SA 4.0 license, including suitable attribution in the slidedeck for any images used?: Yes


 * Will you attend WikiConference North America if your submission is not accepted?: Yes

Interested attendees
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 * 1) LumaNatic (talk) 20:37, 15 August 2018 (UTC)
 * 2)  Blue Rasberry   (talk)  17:45, 16 August 2018 (UTC)
 * 3) James Hare (talk) 19:38, 19 August 2018 (UTC)