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Managing Brown events was a constant challenge,
not least because it was not always clear what counted as a Brown event.
To help sort out Brown programming, we configured an online “calendar” with
a link through one of our WebBoard conferences. In our ambitious beginnings,
we had hoped to schedule event attendance online, with everyone signing
up for events throughout the week. This never happened; instead, in the
early months of EBC, we devoted much of our weekly meetings to determining
who would attend what. That this scheduling did not happen online reflects
more than technical glitches. First, there was no single, up-to-date comprehensive
clearinghouse of Brown events we could consult. More importantly,
we had agreed that we would not limit our research to only those events
that were officially sponsored by the Brown Commemoration, and
therefore searched for additional race and diversity-related events. As
it turned out, however, most negotiation as to who would cover what happened
quite easily among the ethnographers through e-mail, and often in a flurry
of messages exchanged just before an event. As Nicole recalled, “No
matter the amount of meeting time devoted to event coverage, the student
ethnographers would have to e-mail one another rather frequently to confirm
plans and/or alter meeting times and/or locations (i.e., in the case of
interviews).” (Chapter 3) |
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