Dr. Christopher J Levesque

During Library Week 2025, the UWF University Libraries will host a participatory transcription event of letters and ship’s logs that are part of its Digital Archives. While the National Archives’ Citizen Archivist model is well-established, this project will use the From the Page platform supplemented with Handwritten Text Recognition (HTR) to engage students, faculty, and the larger UWF community. Providing transcripts of historical documents written in cursive is an example of universal design that allows their use by broader audiences who either cannot read cursive or who use screen readers. The use of collaborative transcription platforms reduces the time it takes staff to create transcripts by crowdsourcing transcription. This talk will discuss selection of materials, logistics, training, recruiting volunteers, and implementation of the project.

From the 1864 Sand Creek Massacre in Colorado through the 1968 My Lai Massacre in Vietnam, Americans both condemned and praised soldiers for their participation in war crimes. This phenomenon continued into the 21^st century as the United States military struggled to punish servicemembers who tortured, murdered, or raped civilians and enemy combatants during the invasion of Iraq and the Global War on Terror. The conflict in the reactions of the American public and their political leadership is best typified by their responses to the My Lai Massacre and the cases of First Lieutenant Clint Lorance, Major Mathew Golsteyn, and Chief Petty Officer Edward Gallagher for murders committed during their tours of duty in Afghanistan and Iraq.

In the case of My Lai, reactions ranged from praise for Lt. William Calley for his service in Vietnam, which included the release of popular songs, including the “Battle Hymn of Lt. Calley” which reached #37 of the popular music charts in the United States and solid out its pressing of singles. Calley’s conviction received criticism from supporters of the war and reinvigorated the American anti-war movement. Protests over Calley’s court-martial led President Richard Nixon to order his sentence be changed from imprisonment to house arrest. Lorance, Golsteyn, and Gallagher similarly received presidential support when Donald Trump pardoned them.

This paper explores the complex reactions of Americans when confronted by war crimes committed by U.S. troops against non-white, non-Christian civilians and prisoners, from 1864 – 2020 with a focus on the nexus of condemnation and support for their actions. This reveals deep conflicts between public perceptions of acceptable behavior in irregular warfare and the prosecution of these conflicts.

A systematic review of trends in academic hiring was conducted using literature from the library and information science and broader disciplines over the past twenty-two years in the United States. The review aimed to identify growth in interest in hiring practices and discuss the need for more academic research on hiring practices. While searches initially produced 1,142 results on academic hiring in library environments, the researchers could only find 49 results that addressed hiring practices in higher education related to their specific parameters.

A systematic review on diversity, equity, and inclusion in academic hiring was conducted using literature from the library and information science and broader disciplines over the past twenty-two years in the United States. The review aimed to identify a growth in interest in DEI hiring practices as well as to discuss the lack of academic research being conducted on hiring practices. While searches initially produced 1,142 results on academic hiring and diversity, equity and inclusion, the researchers could only find 49 results that addressed hiring practices in higher education as related to diversity, equity, and inclusion. Learning Outcomes: Define Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion as it relates to recruitment, retention, and professional development in academic libraries. Identify and address gaps in the scholarly literature pertaining to hiring and retaining diverse hires in academic libraries. Critically examine the role of DEI initiatives in academic library personnel recruitment and development.

As American involvement in Vietnam intensified after the introduction of U.S. ground forces in March 1965, so did opposition to the war. Despite the efforts of the United States military to instill its corporate identity on new recruits, they remained representative of changes and opinions in American culture. One of the results was that as opposition to the war increased among other Americans, so did opposition to its prosecution by both active duty servicemembers and veterans of the conflict. As with other segments of American society, opposition to the war by the military community took on varying forms and was based on varying perceptions of the war. This paper argues that the types and venues of protest that servicemembers and veterans adopted reflected both their level of ideological commitment to the military and to their trust in American institutions, peaking with combat refusals, membership in antiwar organizations, and the development of the underground GI Press. One of the key elements to opposition to the war is illustrated in their decision to report war crimes in Vietnam and the venues they selected to express their desire to end the war, with service members who were committed to the American project in Vietnam relying on military or government channels, while those who no longer trusted the government to enact changes in war policy turning to the media and then to public antiwar activism.

In this session I will outline the university libraries' pilot project creating an asynchronous program for library instruction for students in the First Year Experience cohort during the COVID-19 pandemic. For this project librarians developed Canvas modules addressing major topics in information literacy to provide a baseline for incoming students who may not have had sufficient experience with library to be successful in college classes. Each module included assessments, and after successful completion received a badge that they could share with instructors showing that their mastery of the topics. The goal was to gamify instruction, provide a portable credential to students, and to supplement in-person or synchronous instruction in our "Classes for the Masses" library instruction sessions. In addition to explaining the pilot and its theoretical basis, we will discuss successes and failures of the program and its expansion during a second year.

When Marine Corps Lieutenant Colonel Stuart Scheller denounced the American withdrawal from Afghanistan and claimed he intended to prefer charges against General Kenneth McKenzie, Jr. with dereliction of duty under the Uniform Code of Military Justice in September 2021, he was embracing a pattern of behavior that dissenting service members had embraced in the last stages of the American War in Vietnam. In January 1971, three junior officers serving in the United States Navy publicly called for an investigation of senior leaders under Article 138 of the Uniform Code of Military Justice. They were inspired, in part, by Telford Taylor's contention that "A commander is responsible for the conduct of his troops. You cannot probe these things in a court-martial proceeding at Ft. Benning… That's not the level at which the real responsibility for these things originated." The Concerned Officers Movement organized active duty service members to protest the Vietnam War. By the end of April 1971, they had encouraged seven hundred junior officers to participate in an antiwar service at the National Cathedral. Over the course of 1971, sixty-seven officers signed antiwar statements, risking their careers in the process. While Scheller embraced the methods of his predecessors, his goals appear quite different. Rather than seeking to end a war that tarnished the values of the service in the mode of the Concerned Officers movement, he represents a tradition of dissenters who seek to blame their leaders and the public for their feelings of betrayal after sacrificing so much during their service. This paper will examine the connections between the dissents of active duty personnel from Vietnam through the end of the American war in Afghanistan, and argues that Scheller's arguments are in-line with the post-Vietnam stabbed-in-the-back theory.

Responses to the My Lai Massacre represent a watershed in American soldiers’ willingness to report war crimes they witnessed during the Vietnam War. Before Ron Ridenhour reported the slaughter at My Lai to Congressional Representatives, leading to Lt. William Calley’s court-martial for murder, the majority of service members who witnessed atrocities either did not report them, or made allegations through their chains of command. Soldiers’ reasons for doing so ranged from believing that atrocities were just part of war, in the case of many who remained silent, to having faith that their superiors would fully investigate their claims and that perpetrators would be punished.
This paper argues that the widespread publicity following Seymour Hersh’s exposé of My Lai and led soldiers like Stephen Rose, who reported atrocities he witnessed in Vietnam after returning home, after seeing the furor caused by My Lai reporting because only then did he see why these events deserved special attention. Similarly, SP4 George Lewis wrote to Major Generals William Enemark and Orwin C. Talbott about war crimes he claimed to have witnessed in the Mekong Delta due to coverage of Calley’s court-martial. Soldiers like Dennis Stout and William Patterson made atrocity allegations in the media because they believed that Calley served as a scapegoat for superiors. Patterson used war crimes reporting as a platform to argue that the Army was not fighting to win the war. Far from being evidence of a so-called “atrocity industry” these reports represent a dramatic change in how some soldiers understood whether they should report war crimes, why they should report them, and to whom. As a result, soldiers increasingly contacted members of Congress, ranking officials in the Department of Defense, President Richard Nixon, and journalists to describe what they had witnessed and to seek changes in war policy.

After Seymour Hersh’s reporting about the My Lai Massacre created a public scandal, a significant number of veterans and GIs began reporting atrocities they had witnessed in Vietnam to government officials. While the timing of reports made between December 1969 and February 1971, suggest coverage of the massacre inspired individuals to make war crimes allegations, the details the cases illustrate a variety of motivating factors. Until October 1970 the Uniform Code of Military Justice required soldiers to report potential war crimes through their immediate chain of command, leaving soldiers no effective way to report potential war crimes committed or countenanced by their direct superior officers. Many soldiers who desired to report atrocities did not believe that doing so through their chain of command would produce any results. This paper argues that soldiers who still believed in the Army’s mission in Vietnam or had faith in the institution of the Army, but still believed that they should report war crimes that they witnessed chose one of two options – contacting members of Congress or senior DoD officials. Ranking officers were part of the Army hierarchy, but soldiers who contacted them believed that their positions separated them from the biases of combat commanders. Contacting inspectors general or members of the Joint Chiefs of Staff required soldiers to engage in similar activities to writing the President or members of Congress because it required complainants to locate contact information, and then write and mail a letter without discovery. This required a different type of resolve than walking into the local Criminal Investigation Division office. Further, while some atrocity allegations were self-serving, like seeking reduced prison sentences, they represent a small proportion the war crimes made. Ron Ridenhour, who reported the My Lai massacre officials, personifies the methods used by other soldiers. He acted in the belief that remaining quiet about my Lai would make him complicit in the incident, which tarnished the sacrifices of troops killed in Southeast Asia. The courts-martial of Lt. William Calley and his men for My Lai motivated many veterans to make their own allegations, if only because senior officers were held accountable.