People
Get Involved!
Volunteering
We are always interested in potential interviewees and persons interested in conducting interviews. Volunteers can help by typing, transcribing, editing, cataloguing and indexing interviews for our collection. Please contact Roberta Peacock at 352.392.7168 if you are interested in volunteering.
Director
Dr. Paul Ortiz
email
Curriculum Vita (PDF)
CLAS website article
- Dr. Paul Ortiz is our incoming director and will serve as an associate professor in the Department of History beginning in August 2008.
- Dr. Ortiz served as a professor in the Department of Community Studies, University of California, Santa Cruz, between 2001 and 2008 where he received the Excellence in Teaching Award. He is also the founding co-director of the University of California, Santa Cruz Center for Labor Studies, as well as a founding faculty member at UC-Santa Cruz’s Social Documentation graduate program.
- Dr. Ortiz was a graduate student interviewer and research director of the NEH-funded “Behind the Veil: Documenting African American Life in the Jim Crow South,” oral history project at the Center for Documentary Studies at Duke University during the 1990s. He was part of the research team that received the Oral History Association’s inaugural Outstanding Oral History Project Award.
- Dr. Ortiz is the recipient of the Lillian Smith Book Prize, awarded by the Southern Regional Council and the Harry T. and Harriet V. Moore Book Prize awarded by the Florida Historical Society.
- His publications include Remembering Jim Crow (New Press) and Emancipation Betrayed (University of California Press). He has also written essays on Latino workers, farm labor movements and Hurricane Katrina. He is currently working on books on the Jim Crow South, as well as the history of struggles against race and class inequalities in the U.S.
- Dr. Ortiz is a veteran of the U.S. Army (1982-1986). He attained the rank of Sergeant E-5, and served with the 82nd Airborne and Special Forces in Central America.
Director Emeritus
Dr. Julian Pleasants
- Dr. Pleasants retired from the University of Florida in December 2007 and moved his residence to his home state of North Carolina
- He will continue to work as an interviewer, consultant, researcher and fundraiser for SPOHP.
- He has been working on a book with Dr. Harry Kersey (Florida Atlantic University): a compilation of interviews on Florida Seminole Indians titled, And My Values Are Still There: Seminole Reflections on Their Changing Society, 1970-2000, which will be published sometime in 2008.
Distinguished Service Professor Emeritus
Samuel Proctor
Office Manager
Roberta Peacock
email
Personal Information
Resume
- Roberta has worked for the Samuel Proctor Oral History program for over 26 years.
- She is very knowledgeable about the program, its functions and materials held in the collections.
- She is the Digitization Project Coordinator for SPOHP.
- She travels to research prospective projects for SPOHP and collaborates with other oral history programs to enhance our archives.
- She handles all administrative functions of the office, including personnel, travel and purchasing, as well as, scheduling all appointments, interviews, conferences and workshops.
Oral History Coordinator
Dan Simone
- Dan is a history graduate student and has been hired as an interviewer and researcher for our St. Johns River Water Management District Project.
- He is currently working on his Ph.D. in American history, focusing on motorsports history.
- He was awarded an MA at North Dakota State University in May 2002, and earned his BA from Rowan University in Glassboro, New Jersey, in May 1995.
Audit-Editor
Steve Davis
Office Assistant | Grant Writer & Researcher
Sarah Eiland
- Sarah is assistant to Roberta Peacock.
- She is helping SPOHP pursue a number of grant opportunities that will help the program further campus and community involvement.
- She is also working on a Lake City Oral History Project with Roberta Peacock.
Publicity Coordinator
Caroline Dragiff
- Caroline is an advertising graduate from the College of Journalism and Communications at UF.
- She hopes to pursue a career in outdoor and international advertising.
- She is currently working on building a digital index to track interviews and their status and finding ways to promote the program.
- She is also a transcriber for SPOHP.
Transcribers
Asha Davé
- Asha is a telecommunications—news undergraduate student at the College of Journalism and Communication at UF.
- She is very involved in the National Broadcast Society and the Baptist Christian Ministry in Gainesville.
Jacquelyn Snyder
Jessica Snyder
Video Consultant & Editor | Archivist
Deborah Hendrix
- Deborah received her bachelor’s degree in history in 2005.
- She has been a SPOHP volunteer formore than six years and is currently working on the SPOHP videotaping studio.
- She works with Roberta Peacock and the director to organize sitting arrangements for interviews, working with the lighting, background and office surroundings.
- She has compiled a "how to" list for persons who will be videotaping interviews and has gathered data to purchase new equipment for our video studio, as well as new digital audio recording equipment.
- She provides instruction for our office staff and downloads digital tapes to high quality DVDs and CD-ROMs.
- She has been hired as a cataloguer to archive our collections in our new storage area in Pugh Hall, and is an extremely important asset to our program.
Indexer & Interviewer
Ann Smith
- Ann is a retired faculty member of the UF College of Nursing.
- She is currently working with Roberta Peacock on a project for the Peace Corps.
- She has volunteered for SPOHP for 10 years.
- She is a professional personal historian.
Historian & Editor
Diane Fischler
- Diane is a former editor and writer for Florida Living Magazine.
- She edits and proofreads UF dissertations.
- She is a freelance writer.
- She is a Civil War re-enactor at Gettysburg.
- She summarizes all oral history transcriptions, adds bracketed, historical information and corrects interviewees’ historical mistakes.
