Donna Sinclair

Donna Sinclair Term: Spring 2013

Ph.D. candidate in Urban Studies at Portland State University (PSU) with field areas in Policy and Narrative Theory and Methods

Topic:

“Multicultural Mandates: Transforming the U.S.D.A. Forest Service in the Civil Rights Era”This dissertation project relies on oral history interviews, historic documents and reports, and demographic data as the foundation for an administrative, social, and place-based case history of workforce diversity in the U.S.D.A. Forest Service.

This project examines the agency’s history through the prism of events, policies, and individuals who have served in Region 6 (Oregon and Washington) and associated locales. It explores how the Forest Service has incorporated non-traditional employees into the workforce since the 1964 Civil Rights Act and what role individual decision-makers play in facilitating or hindering that process. The investigation focuses on legislative mandates compelling employment diversity, resulting agency policies, and the experiences of minorities as agency employees. These three arenas, law, policy, and individual experience provide a foundation for understanding how the idea of workforce diversity has developed and changed since the 1960s with the incorporation of non-traditional employees into the agency.

This dissertation project relies on oral history interviews, historic documents and reports, and demographic data as the foundation for an administrative, social, and place-based case history of workforce diversity in the U.S.D.A. Forest Service. This project examines the agency’s history through the prism of events, policies, and individuals who have served in Region 6 (Oregon and Washington) and associated locales. It explores how the Forest Service has incorporated non-traditional employees into the workforce since the 1964 Civil Rights Act and what role individual decision-makers play in facilitating or hindering that process. The investigation focuses on legislative mandates compelling employment diversity, resulting agency policies, and the experiences of minorities as agency employees. These three arenas, law, policy, and individual experience provide a foundation for understanding how the idea of workforce diversity has developed and changed since the 1960s with the incorporation of non-traditional employees into the agency.

In addition to archival research materials, this project relies on biographical and programmatic interviews to provide deeper qualitative understanding of workforce diversity. Interviews with civil rights and special emphasis program managers at the regional and national level, forest supervisors, and select minority employees focus on individual background, education, career path, and workforce experience related to diversity issues in the agency. Interviews collected for this project will be housed at the Forest History Society, used in the researcher’s dissertation, and may later be included in print and/or digital publications.”>In addition to archival research materials, this project relies on biographical and programmatic interviews to provide deeper qualitative understanding of workforce diversity. Interviews with civil rights and special emphasis program managers at the regional and national level, forest supervisors, and select minority employees focus on individual background, education, career path, and workforce experience related to diversity issues in the agency. Interviews collected for this project will be housed at the Forest History Society, used in the researcher’s dissertation, and may later be included in print and/or digital publications.

Testimonial:

My Grey Towers fellowship has been instrumental in moving my work forward. Because the fellowship covers travel funds and provides housing, as well as contemplative space in the lovely towers of the estate and on the grounds, I have been extremely productive. I wrote half of my first chapter during the initial week I was at Grey Towers and during the second week headed to Arlington, Virginia where, hosted by the agency historian I gave a short presentation to Forest Service employees. I then led a discussion about progress made by the agency toward increasing diversity since the 1960s.
While in Arlington, I interviewed ten people and during my third week onsite at Grey Towers I have combined writing, transcription, and interview analysis. I will return to Washington, D.C. halfway through the fourth week to conduct additional interviews with agency leaders and to do research at the National Archives. Because I hail from the West Coast, the Grey Towers fellowship made it possible for me to spend more time in the East than I would have thought possible! Not only has it facilitated writing, the opportunity for a home base at Grey Towers and the friendly support of staff has also allowed me to make great strides in terms of collecting information, networking, and writing my dissertation. Thank you Grey Towers Heritage Association!

Awards:

2013 Catherine Prelinger Award

The Prelinger Award will allow her to complete her dissertation, “Multicultural Mandates: Transforming the U.S.D.A. Forest Service in the Civil Rights Era.” Sinclair’s dissertation project examines the extension and limitations of liberal democratic rights within a bounded historical context that connects environmental and social history with policy, individual decision making, gender, race, and class in American history. It documents major shifts in a homogeneous patriarchal organization, constraints placed upon women and minorities, and identifies tools for change. It tells a story of expanding and contracting civil liberties that shift from women and people of color to include the differently-abled and LGBT communities. It includes oral history as a tool for empowerment and a key to uncovering individual narratives that help to explain historical institutional change. With gender and race as primary categories, this inquiry shapes an historical narrative that is evocative, meaningful, and critical to understanding federal bureaucratic efforts to meet workforce diversity goals.
This project began with a service learning partnership between the Forest Service and PSU in 2004. Under Sinclair’s direction, students collected more than 30 interviews with diverse employees and leaders. The stories that emerged involved race and class based systems of the sharecropping South, the agricultural fields of the Southwest, rural and urban Western and Eastern communities, and serendipitous connections to government programs that have shaped lives. These and dozens of other interviews collected by Sinclair with agency leaders and employees at the national level ground a history that also draws from government and agency reports and archival materials. Additionally, and perhaps most importantly, by placing women and people of color at the center, rather than the periphery, this project opens new windows to understanding the role of women and minorities in shaping historical institutional and social change.