Workplace Learning (Theme: Discovering the Yorklands) (HIST*3480)

Code and section: HIST*3480*01

Term: Fall 2024

Details

Instructor: Dr. Peter Goddard

Workplace Supervisors: (The YorklandsGreenHub board) include Lynn Bestari lbestari@yorklandsgreenhub.ca, Alex Smith asmith@yorklandsgreenhub.ca, Ian Findlay lfindlay@yorkslandsgreenhub.ca, and Chloe Blair cblair@yorklandsgreenhub.ca.

Instructor consent required. Interested students should contact Dr. Peter Goddard at pgoddard@uoguelph.ca or on phone at 519-824-4120 x54460

Course Format:

Independent work with scheduled meetings.

Course Synopsis:

The Yorklands Green Hub (YGH) is a volunteer-driven non-profit working towards preserving and celebrating the unique cultural and natural heritage of the former Guelph Correctional Centre (GCC). The GCC is owned by the Province of Ontario and is maintained by Infrastructure Ontario. This presents opportunities for our community to secure this ecologically important landscape and permanently preserve its historic structures, while creating a compelling public space. The YGH currently runs guided walks, events and other educational programs. The board envisions an educational living ‘green hub’, with endless possibilities and areas for collaboration. Some of these may include urban agriculture, indoor and outdoor displays, rotating exhibits, workshops, lectures, events, and educational materials that bring community members closer to nature, and ideally will establish further conservation and education activities under the umbrella of the proposed National Urban Park and the establishment of a Heritage Conservation District.

The GCC, also known as the Ontario Reformatory, has a long history as a world leader in the move away from incarceration as a form of punishment toward the use of productive work and training as a means to rehabilitate inmates and give them employable skills for life in the community. As the Reformatory was operated as a self-sufficiently as possible, producing nearly everything needed and producing food and other goods for other surrounding institutions. The property was home to farming and industrial operations, where thousands of inmates received training and worked on a 100-acre farm and in many trades. From a cannery to a fish farm, from upholstery to milling shops, from planing mills to quarries, from farm and green house work to landscaping, the institute was mandated to function with the intent to be self-sufficient and improve with the times.

When the province chose to streamline the correctional system, the Guelph facility was among fourteen sites closed in 2001. It has remained vacant since that time. The YorklandsGreenHub continues to work to bring together businesses, organizations, and people of all ages and interests – to learn, work, share and innovate, with the common purpose of being engaged stewards of our land, food, water, and cultural heritage. The organization has helped further conservation in the Yorklands through its collaboration with Urban Park Guelph who is advocating for the establishment of National Urban Park, a project which will continue and could involve HIST*3480 students in Fall 2024.

There is an excellent opportunity to better understand the “Cultural heritage” embedded not only in the land and buildings, but also in the memories of shared values and traditions of the site. Student can help YGH by developing a full chronological history of the site which includes layers of Indigenous and non-Indigenous history which have been overlooked or fall outside of the common narrative. There is also an opportunity to carry out an oral history project with the many people still alive who can provide deeper insight into their lived experiences. This may even be accompanied by artifacts, photographs, and artwork which has never been shared with the public. And students may find opportunity to develop historical media and forms – guided walks; memorial plaques, podcast - etc.

Learning Outcomes:

By the successful completion of this course, an assiduous student will have learned to:

apply good research practices;
generate historical research for an interested public and for the Yorklands Green Hub community program in Fall 2024
communicate compelling history for use in media platform(s);
identify key factors and forces in the prehistory, the history and the evolution of the Ontario Reformatory/Yorklands
critically reflect upon their own work;
critically assess the strengths and weaknesses of Ontario Reformatory/Guelph Correctional Centre historical interpretation.

Methods of Evaluation and Weights:

Development of research and/or communication proposal - 10%
Execution of research and/or communication project - 50%
Weekly Critical Reflections that are submitted in two instalments - 15%
Final Report/finished research and/or communication 1,500 words - 25%

Project Timeline:

Week 1: Pre-arranged meeting with Professor Peter Goddard and members of the YorklandsGreenHub Board. Guidelines will be established for selecting topics and approaches to historical research and communication of the former Ontario Reformatory/Guelph Correctional Centre, and its associated heritage. This initial meeting will include a scheduled hike in the Yorklands; transportation to this two-hour walk will be provided.

Weeks 1-3: Historiographical Research and project conceptualization.

Week 3: Proposal due

Weeks 4-12: Research and development of communication approach

Week 6: First collection of weekly Reflections is due covering weeks 1-5

Week 12: Second collection of weekly Reflections is due covering weeks 6-10

Week 13: Final report/critical reflection/presentation of finished project.

Articles will be submitted at various points over the semester and meetings will be held with Dr. Goddard

*Please note: This is a preliminary web course description only. The department reserves the right to change without notice any information in this description. The final, binding course outline will be distributed in the first class of the semester.