Study On The Application Of Oral History In The Culture Construction Of Universities

Oral history originated from the folklore in ancient times,which is the earliest form of history whether in China or the West.The symbol of the rise of modern oral history is the establishment of the oral history Laboratory of Columbia University in 1948.Oral history not only enriches the research methods of history,but also is widely used in many fields of social science and natural science.In recent years,various forms and types of oral history projects and achievements have sprung up showing the trend of prosperity in the culture construction in university.However,the oral history “produced by external factors” still suffer from old chronic ills instead of carrying on the past heritage and open up the future.The theory of oral history is scattered and weak,the concept is misused,the operation method and technology is not strict and so on.Therefore,it desperately need to examine the mirror source and course,to distinguish the academic chapter,to clarify the mistakes,to learn lessons,and to constantly improve work level and research quality during perfecting the specification.There are two aspects of significance of applying oral history to the culture construction in university.From the theoretical point of view,it will benefit to construct and perfect the basic theory of oral history in higher education.Meanwhile,it can enrich and deepen the theoretical research of the history of higher education and higher education.In practice,it will help solving regulation problems and improving the working mechanism of oral history in the culture construction,and then promoting the university spirit heritage and culture's educational function.In this paper,first it expounds the meaning and characteristics of oral history,and explains its authenticity from the perspective of philosophy and the construction of history on the basis of literature review,case analysis and school-based semi-structured interviews.Then,it discriminates some aspects of the relationship between the oral history and culture construction in university,including the meaning of oral history and history of culture,connotation and composition of culture construction in university,the necessity of oral history applied in the culture construction etc..Thirdly,it analyzes the status and problems of oral history in culture construction in university.Based on carding and researching a number of domestic university oral history work and results,and interview of students and teachers,it also analyzes the existing problems and causes of oral history in the culture construction in university.Finally,in order to improve the effect of oral history on the culture construction in university,the author puts forward normative procedure of oral history work,some methods to improve the effectiveness of oral history,and the perfect mechanism.This paper focuses on five aspects.The first is to expound the significance of oral history for caring the value of life of the old college teachers and workers from a new perspective.The second is to card the existing university oral history results from two angles of the characters and events.The third is to enhance the authenticity of oral history from the standardized procedures,and puts forward some specific methods like focusing on the figure and event,the related person interview method,the “process-event” analysis method,and the annotation method.The fourth is to produce the work norms and mechanisms of applying the oral history to the culture construction in university combined with related reality and integrate the oral history into the main daily work such as culture construction,discipline construction,personnel training and alumni service work in university for attracting the majority of teachers and alumni to participate in the work of oral history.The fifth is to establish the collaborative work mechanism across department,change the weak situation of university oral history with the characteristic of autobiography or fragmentation,and promote the development of university culture and the inheritance of university spirit.