Activist Archives: Prioritizing Student Group Records at Louisiana State University

Abstract

Efforts to preserve student voices are not a new practice, but a survey of the university history collections at Louisiana State University revealed a significant absence in archival material collected from students and student organizations. If the role of the university archives is to capture history from the materials that are created by, for, about and on behalf of the institution, then LSU was only fulfilling a part of its mission. With an undergraduate population of over 37,000 and records that date to 1860, student voices should play a larger role in the collective memory of the institution. With the appointment of a new university archivist in 2019, much of the department’s effort has centered on elevating the student perspective in the historical narrative. Student activism and engagement has seen a major resurgence at LSU and the university archives responded by prioritizing the collecting of student group records, particularly those groups that were engaged in social justice work including Black Lives Matter, political activism, COVID-19 response, storm & disaster recover, sexual violence awareness, and more. This article is a case study of the practices employed by the university archives to solicit and preserve these voices.