Today’s Project 100 memory comes from Paulie Wenger.  He was born in Mount Holly and raised in Southampton, New Jersey.  His mother is a nurse, and his father is a furniture mover.  He has one older sister.  He is the only one of his immediate family to go to college.  He went to public schools and graduated from Seneca High School in 2017.  He went to Rowan College of Burlington County, spending three semesters there before transferring to Rowan University in the Spring of 2019.  Two and a half years later, in 2021, he graduated from Rowan with a Bachelor’s degree and majors in both history and philosophy.  He stayed in Glassboro for Master’s degree in history, finishing in 2022.  Even before graduating, he began working for several museums and historic sites, including Whitesbog Preservation Trust, the Princeton University Art Museum, and the Villa Philmonte site in New Mexico.  While in the graduate program, he began working for an auction house named Goldin Auctions based in Runnemeade, New Jersey.  In 2022, he was promoted to Auction Manager for non-sports collectibles.  In his time at Goldin, he has assisted in auctioning off a wide variety of very valuable items, including the first appearance of Superman (Action Comics #1), all the props and costumes from the television show The Walking Dead, and an entire set of game-worn jerseys from the 1992 Olympic basketball “Dream Team.”  He now works as a freelance social media content creator for Goldin Auctions.  In addition, he is an adjunct faculty member at Atlantic Cape Community College, teaching both United States history and World civilization.

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As a kid growing up, I had a short book on Abraham Lincoln, which I loved.  I also grew up in the Pine Barrens, and the history and mythology of the area always resonated with me.  I knew from an early age that I really wanted to do something related to history.  At some point, I realized that this would require going to college and began taking college preparation courses.  There were many of these courses at my school, which was in an affluent town.

During my junior and senior years, my sister developed a serious drug problem.  In fact, she had an overdose during my senior year.  To make matters more challenging my father had left years earlier after our parents divorced.  So, as a result of having to help my mother navigate this challenging situation, I knew that I could not leave home upon graduating high school.  I was also not the best student, although I had decent grades and scores on standardized tests.  In any event, attending RCBC was certainly my best option at this point.

While I was at RCBC, things improved slightly at home.  My mother got engaged and had someone else in her life who could help support her.  My sister was also better.  This allowed me to transfer to Rowan in the Spring of 2019.

From a very young age, I always had a job outside of school.  This continued to be the case at RCBC and at Rowan.  Some of these jobs included being a picker in a cranberry field, moving furniture, and being a medical background checker.  When I started at Rowan, I was a lifeguard instructor, teaching individuals how to become lifeguards.  In August 2019, I took a job in the Housing Department at Rowan.  It was a strange job for me because I had never lived on campus.  I was commuting every day 45 to 60 minutes.  My job was to answer the phone and give answers to various questions about the dormitories.  Having never lived on campus, this was not as easy it would have been for others.  Still, I had a great time.  I worked the night shift, from 4pm to 9pm.  Almost no one came in, and I got so much work done while sitting in that office.  There was always a second person sharing my shift, and I became close to all of my co-workers. 

I was working in the Housing Department when we began to hear about covid.  We didn’t take it seriously.  I remember when the news came out that the first person in New Jersey had contracted the virus.  We thought little of it, thinking it would be something like earlier outbreaks of H1N1 or Ebola.  Soon, however, the job became a lot harder as people began taking the virus more seriously.  We began getting lots of questions about what Rowan was going to do.  They wanted to know if the students were going to be kicked out of the dorms, if they were going to be charged for the rest of the year if they did, etc.  We had no answers for them as our superiors had no answers.  No one at Rowan knew at that point.  It was certainly distressing to hear the anxiety felt by so many parents at this time.  This was in February. 

By March, the University decided to extend Spring Break to two weeks, with plans to return afterwards.  Then, during this time, they extended the “break” and eventually moved all courses online and declared that the dorms would not reopen.  I was not part of the meetings that decided all of this, but I saw the people going in and out, and it was clear these were dramatic, stressful, and important meetings.  While most of the students returned to live with their parents, there were some students, especially international students who could not return home, that remained in the dormitories.  The University laid off all but one or two of the housing student workers. I was one of those laid off.  At first, I worried this might be the end of my college career as I could not afford otherwise to pay for college. However, the government’s generous expansion of unemployment benefits was a life saver.  I was able to use that money to not only continue at Rowan but to even pay off some loans that I had taken out earlier.

Of course, I was also a student during the pandemic.  It was interesting to see how my various professors responded.  There was a great range.  Some professors were not that technically proficient.  Scott Morschauser simply set up a podium and recorded his lectures.  They were simple, but his lectures were awesome.  Jen Janofsky was, by contrast, a wizard with technology.  Her online classes were richly infused with media content and other materials. 

Overall, I think that Rowan went back to in-person teaching more quickly than other places.  After the pandemic, I had several great classes in person.  One of them was with Dr. Melissa Klapper.  I loved her class, Readings and Research in United States history.  She made you work, and I am certainly a much better reader and writer today because of that class.  I also really enjoyed all of my classes with you Dr. Carrigan, including Senior Seminar and History of New Jersey to 1877.  I have a great memory of the field trips that I went on with you Dr. Carrigan, especially one to the Millville Airfield Museum where we met a World War II veteran who had helped liberate one of the concentration camps.

I never returned to working for Housing.  One of the reasons for this was because I had a talk with you, Dr. Carrigan.  I began to look for positions at museums so that I could enhance my resume.  I loved those jobs, but I made so little money that I eventually I took my current position at Goldin Auctions.  In this position, I get to interact with historical materials from time to time, and I really like doing the research and writing required for the videos I post on social media.  It may not be quite as academically rewarding as some of the other positions I held, but it pays much better.

Although it has only been a short time since I graduated, I look back on my time at Rowan University as being very valuable.  I took courses in so many different areas and became adaptable.  This is something that is directly relevant to my work today.  I also made great friends while I was here.  Rowan was also fairly affordable for me in the end, and I only have a small amount of debt.

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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 100^th anniversary of the founding of Glassboro Normal School, later Glassboro State College, and now Rowan University.  Thanks to Laurie Lahey for helping proofread and edit the final versions.  Email carrigan@rowan.edu with questions or corrections.  You can find the Link to all of the Project 100 entries on the Web:  https://chss.rowan.edu/departments/history/alumni_highlights/project_100/