[012]GORE RESEARCH CENTER LEADERSHIP CHANGING HANDS AUG. 1

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: July 11, 2008
EDITORIAL CONTACT: Lisa L. Rollins, lrollins@mtsu.edu or 615-898-2919

GORE RESEARCH CENTER LEADERSHIP CHANGING HANDS AUG. 1
Pruitt Set to Focus on Teaching, Scholarship; Williams Taking Center Reins

(MURFREESBORO)—Dr. James H. “Jim” Williams, a 12-year member of the history faculty, will become the third director of the Albert Gore Research Center at MTSU on Aug. 1.
Williams will take over the directorship of the center, which is a manuscripts repository dedicated to preserving research materials related to Tennessee history, from Dr. Lisa Pruitt, who has overseen the archive since July 1, 1999. “As I look back over my nine years as Gore Center director, I'm amazed at how much we accomplished with extremely limited resources,” Pruitt said. “Our operating budget seldom exceeded $10,000 a year (and) staff consisted of 60 percent of my position,” including Betty Rowland, executive aid, who retired on June 30, along with two graduate assistants each year and student workers. Recalling some of her most memorable center projects, Pruitt said, “We managed the never-ending process of making our collections accessible to students and other researchers, mounted many photographic exhibits and published a photographic history of the university, implemented a highly successful oral history project that still continues and secured a new facility.”
During the first seven years of her directorship, Pruitt also oversaw the Rutherford County Archives, in addition to collaborating with a group of concerned citizens to successfully lobby the county commission to build an archives facility, worked closely with the architects on the design of the building and assisted former Rutherford County Mayor Nancy Allen in creating and filling the position of county archivist.
“What I enjoyed most was the interaction with people—students, members of the County Archives Committee, members of local organizations such as the Rutherford County Historical Society and, of course, MTSU's
faculty, staff and alumni,” remarked Pruitt, who now will place her focus on scholarship and full-time teaching.
“As much as I've enjoyed being the Gore Center's director, the administrative load has prevented me from being as actively engaged in teaching and scholarship as I would like,” she explained. “I am already an associate professor of history, but now I will be teaching full time.
“I have also begun to delve into my new research project on the history of childhood disability in the United States,” she added. “I'm looking forward to continuing to be a part of the MTSU and Rutherford County communities—just in a different role.
As the center’s incoming director, Williams said, "I have big shoes to fill following Dr. Jim Neal, who got the center off the ground and established an ambitious mission for it, and Dr. Lisa Pruitt, who oversaw the move to the
center's current location and also spun off the Rutherford County Archives into an independent body."
Regarding his goals for the center, "I hope to build quickly on the solid foundation my predecessors laid," he noted, including hiring of full-time archivist and a new staff member for the Gore Center. Then, Williams continued, he hopes to turn his attention to developing new collections, recruiting new users at MTSU and in the surrounding communities, and initiating several fundraising and outreach efforts.
“By bringing along (my) coordination of the American Democracy Project at MTSU, a campuswide program in the Office of the Provost, I expect new
synergies to emerge between the Gore Center's collections and its focus on political and civic engagement and the mission of the ADP to increase the levels of civic engagement among MTSU students,” he said.
"Fall 2008 will be exciting for me in a new position in the college and for the many events we'll be planning,” he continued, “beginning with Constitution Week in September and running through the presidential election in November.
There won't be a dull moment."
Opened in 1993, the Albert Gore Research Center—in addition to serving as a manuscripts repository devoted to preserving primary source materials related to Tennessee history—offers public programming, educational activities, oral history program and exhibits. The center also goes beyond preservation by promoting the active study of region's history by its citizens.
According to its Web site (http://janus.mtsu.edu/), the center's collections focus on the history of politics and public policy and on MTSU and the region it serves. The papers of Albert Gore Sr., who served in the United States House of Representatives from 1938 to 1952 and in the Senate from 1953 to 1970, form the cornerstone of the center's collections.
Located in MTSU’s Todd Hall, the center serves a variety of researchers, from undergraduates, graduate students, MTSU administrators, faculty and other scholars, to media and citizens of the local community. In addition to serving the public, the staff prepares exhibits, record oral histories, conduct research and supervise interns and graduate assistants from MTSU's public history program, among other activities.


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• ATTENTION, MEDIA: For editorial needs, including interview requests with center staff, please contact Lisa L. Rollins in the Office of News and Public Affairs at lrollins@mtsu.edu or 615-898-2919.