Alfred Beaver

Alfred Beaver

  “The Foundation”: Al Beaver (‘00) Reflects on His Time in the History Department -- Memory #52 of 100  

Today’s Project 100 memory comes from Al Beaver.  He was born in Cherry Hill and raised in (Delair) Pennsauken Township, New Jersey.  He has a younger brother and a younger sister.  He attended Pennsauken public schools and graduated from Pennsauken High School in 1996.  Al’s father was a police officer for Pennsauken, but he always had second or third jobs to better support the family.  Al’s father owned a trucking company, Beaver Trucking, that made local deliveries for Unclaimed Freight and helped move families. He was also a volunteer fireman at one time, serving as Deputy Chief of the Delview Fire Department.  While still a police officer, he began working for Cisco Systems, developing and then selling computerized record maintenance programs and computer equipment to police departments around the country.  Al’s father met Al’s mother when she briefly had a job at the police department.  She later moved, however, to the Pennsauken School District where she is still a paraprofessional in a classroom for disabled children. She has done that work now for over 30 years.  Both of Al’s parents were Pennsauken graduates and grew up in town. After graduating from Rowan University in 2000 with a B.A. in history and certification in secondary education, Al worked for a few months as a paraprofessional in the Marlton School District at DeMasi Middle School.  He then taught history and coached at Pennsville Memorial High School in Salem County for two years.  After Pennsville, he moved to Kingsway Regional High School where he coached track and taught history and government.  During his over seven years at Kingsway, he became President of the Kingsway Education Association (KEA) and met his wife, Kathy, a special education teacher.  While serving as the KEA president he began working for the New Jersey Education Association (NJEA) as a UniServ Consultant part-time.  Later, he left Kingsway to work full-time as a NJEA UniServ Representative. He has been working there ever since and is now in his fourteenth year.  His current title is Director of Government Relations - Office of Member and Political Organizing where he works to protect our public school system and the public school staff that serve our communities. 

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I was the first person in my family to attend college.  Rowan was the only place that I applied.  I knew that I wanted to be a teacher and most of my teachers had gone to Glassboro State, and they recommended it.  I also had to go to some place that I could afford, and I liked the class sizes at Glassboro.  I also needed to be able to commute, and Rowan was an obvious choice for all these reasons.

While I knew that I wanted to be a teacher, I wasn’t as certain about what I wanted to teach at first. I was blessed with many incredible teachers like Mr. Marc Cannaris, who made me want to teach and share what he gave me, and Mrs. Fran Yost and Mrs. Fran Bennet.  However, my high school history and government teachers had great passion for their subjects, and they shared that passion with me.  Two fantastic teachers at Pennsauken who had incredible influence on my decision to teach history and government were Mr. Bruce RanSone and Mr. Bill Sia, both of whom also taught my mother, Carol. Mr. Sia use to carry the Constitution in his back pocket which we all thought was silly, but I must admit I did the same thing for the nine years I taught history and government. I think it helped express our passion for our subject. Students used to try to pick my pocket to get it from me or swipe it off my desk.  

I began at Rowan in the Fall of 1996, just as the name had changed from Glassboro State.  The Department of History had a culture around it when I arrived.  Students often hung out in between classes in Robinson Hall.  In particular, there were four of us history majors who became close this, name myself, Dawn O’Leary, Andrew Hodlofski, and Megan Kerry.  We always felt so welcomed by the Department.  Denise Williams, the secretary, was vital to this environment, but many of the faculty contributed to this feeling as well by always having their doors open and being willing to talk to us outside of class.   This was very true of Drs. Wang, Hunter, Blake, Lindman, Morschauser, and Kress.  Together, Denise and the faculty created a sense of family.  While the four of us were all secondary education majors as well, we felt closer to the History Department because of this culture. 

I took two courses with Dr. Hunter, and I really remember his course on historical methods or historiography.  He really helped me understand how historians think and analyze the past.  I still use lessons and methods that Dr. Hunter taught me about how to see things from different perspectives.  I used them in my high school classes, and I use them in my current job as well.  Dr. Hunter also forced us to go out to a historical society for research, which was a great experience.  

One of the lessons I used to do with my students on the first or second day of class was getting them to explain what history is and how historians pick primary sources to craft a story of our past. Dr. Lindman’s stress on women’s history also always stuck with me and I loved telling my high schoolers that there is no History without Herstory.

I think it was Dr. Wang who recruited me and my friends to help out with Phi Alpha Theta.  That organization was also part of the community ethos in the Department.  It helped created a sense of collegiality between the students as we worked for this organization outside of our classes.  It also helped us connect with faculty in a different way.  Dr. Blake was the advisor and always available for us.  I can’t remember all that Phi Alpha Theta did during my time at Rowan.  I became President in my senior year, and I spent quite a bit of time with Dr. Wang who was chairperson.  We helped recruit history majors, attended a regional conference where we presented our research, organized a banquet, and helped in the interview process that eventually led to the hiring of Professor Patrick McDevitt and you, Dr. Carrigan.

My time at Rowan shaped me deeply.  It provided the foundation for my teaching, shaping not only specific lessons I used but providing me with a deep understanding of the philosophy of history.  I always emphasized how history was created, how it was shaped, and how historians chose what to include and what to leave out. I was also honored to receive the 2000 Academic Medallion award for Excellence in History. It was my high school teachers and my professors that made that possible.

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This is part of the Department of History’s “Project 100,” the collection and sharing of one hundred memories by Glassboro State College and Rowan University alumni and staff in celebration of the 100th anniversary of the founding of Glassboro Normal School, later Glassboro State College, and now Rowan University.