12/17/2025
What a semester! I’ve been busy since the moment I started and all the way to the end (we’re done in two days!!). Looking back at this semester, I’ve had a really wonderful Vivero season, and made large strides in my work that I am very happy with. I think the most important thing that I’ve learned this semester was to stick with my work and really commit to what I was doing, as well as to block out more time during my week to actually work on my projects. In comparison to last semester, I worked much more during the week and logged about 9-10 hours per week instead of 6-7. In terms of advice I’d give to my past self about becoming a Vivero Fellow and learning how to keep this up, I’d say just to be consistent and block out small chunks of time to work. In addition to the 4 hours of drop in work, finding an hour or two each other day to put some little work really pulled together the whole project.
This semester I actually really enjoyed the work I did both in terms of the training model and the Virtual Tithead Project. In the past, I really struggled to keep up with the weekly training model and learning every software we had to know in time. Now that I’ve completed that training, the model I am working with now—documentation training and professional development—allows me much more freedom and self-guidance during the process that I was hoping to find in a self-driven position like this. It was really nice to be able to work on learning and teaching programs that I, myself, was passionate about doing. Getting through the hard weekly training last semester was definitely worth it to get to this point!
The next steps for the Virtual Titular Head Project next semester are going to be returning to the omeka site, logging more Titheads on it, and prepping for both the on-campus TitHead event as well as the Virtual Alumni Tithead Reunion, which will both be towards the end of next semester. I also have a personal component to this project which is that I’d like to create a thorough transition document for the new Fellow working on this project, as I will be graduating in the spring. For the work I’ve done this semester, I was able to fully revamp the wordpress site and create a style guide for it going forward. Next semester, I am also hoping to explore accessibility as a digital humanities concept which I can implement into the project to ensure the new sites are available for all.