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The Project for Writing and Recording Family History

Joni Adamson
Professor of English and environmental humanities
Email: Joni.Adamson@asu.edu

Joni Adamson, professor of English and environmental humanities and a senior sustainability scholar in ASU's Julie Ann Wrigley Global Institute of Sustainability, has taught courses on American Literature and Folklore, the Literature of the American Southwest, Nature Writing, and Creative Non-fiction Prose for more than 10 years. In 2006, after living for many years in the “sky-islands” of Cochise County, Dr. Adamson joined the Faculty of Humanities and Arts at ASU’s Polytechnic campus. As a folklorist, she has collected the oral histories of American Indian Boarding School students and the ranchers of Southern Arizona. As a writer and literary critic, she has written about American Indian oral and written literatures, her travels throughout the Southwest, and the importance of a developed sense of place.

Denise Bodman
Principal lecturer, T. Denny Sanford School of Social and Family Dynamics; Barrett, The Honors College
Phone: 480-965-8335
Email: dbodman@asu.edu

Denise Bodman is a Barrett Honors faculty member who teaches both graduate and undergraduate courses related to family relationships, human development, kindness/empathy/hope, and diversity. Bodman has received numerous teaching awards, provided keynote addresses to various organizations, and has been invited to teach as far away as in Chengdu, China. Denise has taught family history classes for years and is quick to assist people who want to discover their roots! In family history, she has taught classes on paleography (deciphering historical manuscripts), meaning of names, writing life histories, and finding female ancestors, as well as how to use online research tools. Recently, Bodman teamed with DNA experts on how to uses DNA to find lost or adopted family members. From her perspective, family history helps us learn about ourselves, where we came from, and where we are going (all part of her field of human development). She especially enjoys hearing family history participants say, “LOOK WHAT I FOUND!!”  or “I can’t believe this!  This is so exciting!” or “This totally supports (or contradicts) our family stories!”  

Larry Edmonds
Lecturer emeritus
Email: Larry.Edmonds@asu.edu

Larry Edmonds is an Emeritus faculty member at ASU. Larry was awarded the Outstanding Faculty Award in ASU's College of Extended Education in 2005. He is also a professional public speaker and trainer and well-known Chautauquan/Living History presenter. Larry has spoken to numerous family history/genealogy groups in Arizona. He is a member of the Western Social Science Association, the World Communication Association, and was the Arizona workshop facilitator for the U.S. Library of Congress' Veterans History Project, when President Clinton authorized the project inception. Larry is also a past Dessie E. Larsen Fellow.


Vanessa Fonseca Chávez
Assistant Professor, Interdisciplinary Humanities and Communication
ASU College of Integrative Sciences and Arts  
7271 E. Sonoran Arroyo Mall, Suite 233
Mesa, AZ 85212
Email: vfonseca@asu.edu

Vanessa Fonseca Chávez is an assistant professor of English at ASU Polytechnic campus, where she teaches courses on Chicana/o and indigenous literature and film. She co-directs the Following the Manito Trail project, which looks at the Hispanic New Mexican, or Manito, diaspora from the mid-1800s to the present. The project team has conducted about 40 interviews of New Mexicans who migrated to Wyoming in the early 1900s and is now looking at Eastern Arizona as a migration point for New Mexicans who found work in the sheepherding and mining industries. She is interested in oral histories, folklore, digital stories, and how one develops a sense of place for home and for new environments as a result of migration. 
 

Angela Giron
Clinical assistant professor, Master of Liberal Studies Program
Email: angela.giron@asu.edu

Angela Giron is clinical assistant professor in the College of Integrative Sciences and Arts, teaching in the master of liberal studies program. Angela has facilitated Story Circles for the faculty of South Mountain Community College and has worked with the Katavik School Board of Montreal, Quebec, collecting oral myths and tales from the Inuit people of Inukjuak, Quebec, for the crafting of Cable TV tele-plays for children. As a performing storyteller, Angela has participated in a unique partnership between the Mayo Clinic and the Herberger College of Fine Arts. An article on her work with the Mayo clinic is included in the following link: ASU in the Community - Teaching the Art of Compassion: Herberger College of Fine Arts and Mayo Clinic Partnership

 

Donald G. Godfrey
Professor emeritus, journalism 
Phone: 602-496-8661
E-mail don.godfrey@asu.edu

Donald G. Godfrey, Ph.D., is a media and family historian and ASU Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication professor emeritus. He is active in historical document preservation as well as work on his own family’s history.  Godfrey is a former editor of the Journal of Broadcasting & Electronic Media. His publications appear in the major media journals and he has written more than a dozen books. His latest family histories include: C. Francis Jenkins: Pioneer of Film and TelevisionPhilo T. Farnsworth: The Father of Television; and The Diaries of Charles Ora Card: The Canadian Years.  He is a member of the American Journalism Historians Association, the Mormon History Association, and the Broadcast Education Association.

 

Patricia Murphy
Principal lecturer, English
Email: trishm@asu.edu

Patricia Colleen Murphy, senior lecturer in English in ASU's College of Integrative Sciences and Arts, teaches courses in creative non-fiction, fiction, and poetry. Trish is founding editor of Superstition Review, ASU's student-produced and -designed online literary magazine.

 

Duane Roen
Professor of English
Phone: 480-727-1190, Fax: 480-727-6344
Email: duane.roen@asu.edu

Duane Roen has been tracing his roots since his teenage years, building a database with more than 32,000 ancestors. He and his wife, Maureen Roen, have also been recording their family history since 1978 by writing more than 16,000 daily journal entries on their children and other family members. Combining his professional and personal interests, Duane worked with colleagues to establish courses on writing and recording family history at ASU, where he is founding coordinator of the Project for Writing and Recording Family History in the College of Integrative Sciences and Arts. Although Duane loves family history, he spends most of his waking hours focused on serving students in courses at ASU Polytechnic campus.