Zoë Van Nostrand is transitioning out of her Community Engagement role at The History Center in Tompkins County at the end of March 2024.

Zoë joined The History Center team in November of 2019 as the Marketing & Visitor Experience Coordinator and after four and a half years is leaving behind a wealth of improved digital access, hands-on programming, strengthened community relations, and a revitalized volunteer and student worker program that stood the test of the early years of the pandemic. The History Center fully supports her in her transition and is deeply appreciative of all the projects she has taken on over her years here. Below are some highlights (but definitely not all) of her various projects and improvements she leaves behind for our local history community.

Whether you know it or not, Zoë has been the "voice" behind many of the communications you've seen, heard, or read from The History Center over the past 4+ years. She stewarded and grew our social media platforms on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter fully doubling our following and engagement numbers on each platform, as well as in general press coverage; and created from scratch active platforms on LinkedIn, a YouTube Channel with now over 80 local history videos and just shy of 200 followers; and a SoundCloud with playlists exploring oral history, local history radio segments, and local historic music performances. She has also written the majority of our monthly 'History Happenings' digital newsletters, and facilitated a lot of the press and articles about museum exhibits and public programs. As a new person takes over these digital spaces in the coming months expect that some of these communication practices will evolve to embrace the approach of our new marketing staff!

Zoë spearheaded the total re-design of our website thehistorycenter.net during the 2020 lock-down and has written and designed the content on at least 90% of the 100+ web pages we have available there in the four years since. The most elaborate of her projects has been the continued emphasis on telling historically  marginalized and underrepresented histories of our Tompkins County community across all our platforms. Since 2021 she facilitated student projects, co-researched, and co-wrote over a dozen history and heritage month web pages and corresponding social media posts. These women, Black, Asian, Filipino, Irish, Deaf, immigrant, Arab, disabled, LGBTQ+, and other often left-out histories are now more easily found. We hope that this effort will encourage more historically underrepresented communities to reach out to document their histories and donate materials to The History Center's archival collections supporting the institutions efforts in telling diverse and true histories of Tompkins County.

In addition Zoë spearheaded two major grants that completed the archival processing of over 230 interviews from our Oral Histories of Tompkins County Audio Archives, and the creation of seven identity-themed oral history collections.

She curated and co-designed two small-scale collaborative exhibits; Art of Wampum (November 2021), and Unfolding: A Timeline of Sexual Assault Activism in Tompkins County (May-June 2022), and supervised all public hours of the museum Exhibit Hall since we re-opened in August 2020.

Some of the projects that she's most proud to leave behind are the wealth of materials created through her supervision of dozens of docent, volunteer, and student workers and many community collaborations. The proof of which is present across every platform and aspect of our operations.  Especially her work with our volunteers and student workers on many accessibility and engagement initiatives. From the co-design of the 'Resources for Visitors on the Autism Spectrum' guides, completion of closed captions for 70+ videos on YouTube,

coordination of Spanish translations for four of our 'History at Home' children's activity booklets, coordination and promotion of 30+ audio versions of our self-guided walking and biking history tours, and finalizing over 200 transcripts for the Oral Histories of Tompkins County Collection. She is thrilled that each of these projects have the power to connect new audiences with our shared local history and archival materials. 

                

Keep in touch with Zoë's next pursuits on LinkedIn and wish her well in her new position (emails and snail-mailed messages of appreciation are welcome)!

Please offer The History Center a bit of grace as we get hire for the new position of Community Engagement Manager, and understand there may be a slow down in our public programs and collaborations as we get a new staff member up to speed.