The San Antonio Storyscapes (SASS) project is a partnership between the San Antonio Office of Historic Preservation and the Public History program at St. Mary’s University to produce student-created, place-based digital projects that address gaps in the historic record.

In Spring 2020 and 2021, the City of San Antonio’s Office of Historic Preservation (OHP) ScoutSA team, led by Dr. Jenny Hay, partnered with Dr. Lindsey Wieck and her St. Mary’s University graduate Digital Public History course. Together, we challenged Wieck’s students to produce innovative digital projects for the OHP using a consultant-in-training model to create a project-based learning experience. As a Hispanic-Serving Institution, our Public History program uses projects like these to provide opportunities to ensure our predominantly BIPOC students can grow as knowledge producers, providing space to them to tell stories of populations largely overlooked by scholars.

Based on the City’s database of historic sites, including landmarks and districts, and their own original research, the students produce place-based projects that address gaps in the historic record. The SASS site showcases their efforts to approach this challenge with critical and nuanced perspectives: https://stmupublichistory.org/sass/.

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Lindsey Wieck

Associate Professor of History, St. Mary's University

Lindsey Wieck joined St. Mary’s University in 2017 as the director of the Master of Arts in Public History program. She received her Ph.D. in American History from the University of Notre Dame in May 2016 and was a postdoctoral fellow there for 2016-2017. While doing her research, Wieck grew excited by the possibilities to integrate GIS, text analysis, and data visualizations into her work on Latino community formation and gentrification in the Mission District of San Francisco. She also specializes in the history of the American West, race and ethnicity, and American cities. She enjoys incorporating digital technologies in her teaching and also emphasizes digital writing and communication in her courses.

Jenny Hay

ScoutSA Program Manager, City of San Antonio Office of Historic Preservation

Jenny Hay is the ScoutSA Program Manager at the City of San Antonio Office of Historic Preservation. ScoutSA empowers people to explore the past by discovering and celebrating stories of San Antonio’s historic places through the City’s comprehensive survey and designation initiative as well as a robust community engagement and digital humanities portfolio. Prior to joining the City in 2016, she held the position of Preservation Outreach Manager at the Conservation Society of San Antonio. Jenny volunteered for several years with Historic Green in New Orleans and currently serves on the board of the Power of Preservation Foundation in San Antonio. Her research spans the intersection of community resilience, historic preservation, climate action, and heritage values. Jenny earned her PhD in Geography and Anthropology from Louisiana State University in 2014.