During Towson University's sesquicentennial celebrations, it dawned on the Towson University Retired Faculty Association (TURFA) Executive Committee that the institutional history of any university comes from three potential sources: (1) students, (2) faculty, and (3) administration. As members of the TURFA Executive Committee conversed with the University Archivists, we were surprised to discover that the faculty voice was the least well documented aspect of the institution's history. It was in response to this void that the Executive Committee came to realize that collectively our membership possessed a treasure trove of institutional memory, and that we had an obligation to commit as much of that memory as possible to the public record. Thus, the TURFA Oral History Project was born.

The plan is to select a representative crosssection of retired faculty from each of the university's six colleges and to have them discuss their life and career with a designated TURFA interviewer. As they are completed, the videos will be accessioned into the University Archives located on the Fifth floor of The Albert Cook Library preserving for posterity, the faculty perspective of the institution's evolution.