Ready to make history? - Incite at Columbia University

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    Ready to make history?

    Feb 1, 2025

Stories have the power to transform—if only they're listened to. Oral historians around the world are working to preserve and amplify critical narratives of our time.

Home to the Columbia Center for Oral History Research, Incite Institute is home to groundbreaking public history projects like the Elders Project, Obama Presidency Oral History, and Mott Haven History Keepers—advancing how stories are preserved, shared, and activated in meaningful ways.

We're training the next generation of oral historians and story keepers through our graduate program, summer intensive, and free workshops. Read on to learn more about joining our community.

Oral History Master of Arts (OHMA)
A group photo taken indoors showing 11 people in a classroom or office setting, arranged in three rows. The photo shows a diverse group smiling at the camera, with some people standing and others seated in office chairs. They're dressed casually, wearing v

Offered as a full-time or part-time degree program.

OHMA is the first and only program of its kind in the United States: a one-year interdisciplinary degree training students to record and amplify first-person stories using a range of technological, creative, and analytical tools. We teach oral history as a practice of co-creating dialogic, critical conversations about the past, in the present, which are oriented towards the future.

Our graduates work in museums, historical societies, advocacy organizations, media, the arts, education, human rights and development. As independent contractors, they manage oral history projects, teach interview workshops, and offer project consultations to leading institutions and community organizations. They earn doctorates in fields like anthropology, sociology, history, journalism, and American studies or professional degrees in law, education, or social work.

  • Priority application deadline: March 1
  • Final application deadline: May 1

Learn more

Oral History Summer Institute
A group photo taken outdoors on a college campus, showing about 13 people arranged in two rows in front of a Gothic-style stone building. The group is professionally dressed, with people wearing a mix of business and business-casual attire. The setting inc

Since 2001, the Oral History Summer Institute biannual week of advanced oral history training with a community of historians, artists, and activists. Learn from world-class projects and faculty. This year's Summer Institute will run from July 14-18 in New York City with the theme "Speaking Up for Democracy: Oral History and Political Change".

  • Priority application deadline: Feb 17
  • Final application deadline: Feb 28

Learn more

Other ways to engage with oral history at Incite Institute

A well-dressed older man in a black leather jacket and white shirt standing in what appears to be a home with walls covered in framed photographs. The walls are painted in contrasting colors - light blue on one side and orange on the other. There's a large
Incite's Mott Haven History Keepers invests in grassroots humanities work in the South Bronx. Pictured: history keeper Willie Estrada in his home.

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