Jennifer O’Neal, Corrigan Solari University Historian and Archivist at the University of Oregon (UO) Libraries, is a 2014 recipient of the Diversity Award.
Throughout her career, O’Neal has made contributions that reflect the criteria for the Diversity Award, particularly to American Indian and other indigenous groups. O’Neal joined SAA in 2003, helping to found the Native American Archives Roundtable in 2005. After participating in the drafting of the Protocols for Native American Archival Materials in 2006, she participated in a multiyear process to bring awareness about the Protocols and advocated strongly for an SAA endorsement, which had a major impact on the profession’s discussion of Native American archives. O’Neal has continued to take leadership roles and advance issues of diversity via SAA’s Native American Protocols Forum Working Group and through the formation of SAA’s new Cultural Heritage Working Group, for which she currently serves as co-chair.
At UO, O’Neal was a lead instructor for the Oregon Tribal Archives Institute, an initiative that helped provide basic archival training to archivists, records managers, curators, and cultural resources specialists affiliated with Oregon’s nine federally recognized tribes. In addition, she co-teaches a UO honors college course on race and ethnicity in the American West, specifically focusing on the hidden history of the Northern Paiute tribal community.
One supporter noted that O’Neal’s “combined educational endeavors, publications, and continued service to the profession and to tribal communities across the nation make [her] an incredible model for other archivists to strive to emulate.”
O’Neal joins the Recovering the U.S. Hispanic Literary Heritage Project at the University of Houston as the 2014 recipients of the Diversity Award.