You made history today. In fact, you make history every day. This may sound romantic, but it is literally true—and worth considering as Singapore turns 60 this year. Among the institutions that have both witnessed and shaped the country’s story is the National University of Singapore (NUS), older than the state itself.
As the University celebrates its 120th anniversary in 2025, the NUS History Society will celebrate its 60th. The Department of History, part of the Faculty of Arts & Social Sciences (FASS), reached the same milestone last year. Together, they are marking the moment by reflecting on their shared legacy—as told through the lived experiences of their alumni.
REFLECTIONS ON THE JOURNEY
A new exhibition, opening in August 2025 at the NUS Central Library, is the result of a collaborative oral history project between the History Society and the Department. Undergraduate students are currently interviewing 12 History alumni from the past six decades. The interviews span the alumni’s time at the Department and what happened in their lives after, documenting their experiences as students, historians, and citizens across a changing century.
“Oral history allows us to find [and understand] connections between what we have known in the past, and how people remember it,” said Dr Matthias Wong (Arts & Social Sciences ’14), Senior Tutor at the Department of History and a staff member overseeing the project. “[These viewpoints of the alumni] really enrich the way that we understand ourselves as a department, and who we are as students and faculty here at NUS.”
LIVED EXPERIENCES
Students were instructed in the techniques of conducting oral history interviews by Associate Professor Li Na. As she explained, the approach helps to illuminate the often inaccessible and personal aspects of human experience. “The consciousness of each human person is totally interiorised — known only to that person and inaccessible to any other person… Oral history, through the interview space… brings the interiority of orality out into the public.”
According to the team, their project became a way of collecting and preserving those experiences and memories. What also makes the project special is that the student interviewers are all in the same ‘place’ that the alumni once were, making for a unique type of intergenerational discourse.
SHAPING THE PAST
“For me, the beauty of [the process] is that you get to know somebody on a more personal level. More than just reading a document…it allows you to sympathise and empathise with the [narrators],” said Kendra Thaddaeus Tang, a history and Southeast Asian studies student from the Class of 2028. One alumnus she interviewed studied at NUS in the 1960s and still has a strong passion for Singaporean history. His recollection of his work with history textbooks showed her “how history is something that evolves and changes.”
“We were not there to get historical facts or ask leading questions,” said fellow student interviewer Saw Yone Yone, a political science major from the Class of 2028. “We were trying to [record] the feelings of the narrators about the period of time [that they were relating].”
Assoc Prof Li added that the point was to go beyond merely ‘collecting’ experiences or having productive conversations. “Stories people tell about themselves should be conceived less as documents to be restored but as texts to be read, in which historical consciousness becomes the medium through which oral testimonies present the shape of the past.”
EXPLORING THE ARCHIVES
Complementing the oral interviews, History students—including Liu Huiran, who is pursuing a master’s in the Applied and Public History programme—are also researching archival records from the Department, including past student journals and magazines, as part of the exhibit.
“Our students’ outputs point to a widening in the ways we do, and understand, history at the Department,” said Dr Wong. “History majors and students from beyond our Department investigate a wide range of historical topics, including food culture, adoption practices, mosquitoes, and railroads.”
The exhibition is a key initiative under the new public history programme at the Department. “Through these opportunities to conduct oral interviews and to curate exhibitions, we equip our students with the skills and experience to create historical outputs that speak meaningfully to a wide range of public audiences,” explained Dr Wong.
WEIGHT OF RESPONSIBILITY
The undergraduate members of the History Society certainly understood the weight of the process and its importance in shaping the eventual exhibition.
As Daryl Lee, Vice President of the History Society and a Class of 2026 history and political science student, noted, “We are as old as [the modern state of] Singapore and we would like to capture this moment in time for those who come after us, and also as a moment to reflect on what it means to be a historian at NUS.”
Dr Wong agreed, noting that this was about exploring and contextualising the identity of NUS historians. "It's really a sense-making process — a meaning-making process — and an anniversary is a fantastic opportunity for this project to happen. As we celebrate a milestone, we are thinking about who we are and where we're going.”
The exhibit will be open at NUS Central Library from August through October 2025, and will include artefacts, along with video and audio recordings of the oral history interviews.
Text by Ashok Soman. Photos by Dillon Tan and Kelvin Chia.