Today’s Project 100 memory comes from Sean Fischer, who was born in Washington Township and raised in Collings Lakes, New Jersey.  His parents were both born and raised in Philadelphia.  His mother worked a number of jobs in the medical field before becoming a middle school social studies teacher.  His father was a Unionized painter and paper hanger whose work was primarily in Atlantic City.  Sean is one of five children.  He has an identical twin brother, an older brother, and two older sisters.  He went to public schools and graduated from Buena Regional High School in 2000.  He graduated from Rowan University with a history degree in the Spring of 2005.  That Fall, he worked for the election of then Senator Jon Corzine in his successful campaign for Governor of New Jersey.  Sean was a Field Organizer in Ocean County.  After the election, he turned down an opportunity to work for the state government and instead took a job at Atlantic Cape Community College (ACCC), having concluded that he might do more by helping raise money for students to attend college than in politics.  He eventually became Chief of Staff to the President and later Dean of Executive Operations and Resource Development.  After ten years at ACCC, he left for a similar position at Rowan University in the College of Engineering.  He continues to work at Rowan and enjoys being able to give back to his alma mater.  In 2018, he finished his doctorate in Interdisciplinary Leadership at Creighton University, and he has enjoyed being able to teach undergraduate students from time to time at both ACCC and Rowan.  In many ways, he has come full circle, even teaching one of his classes in the exact same classroom where he first took a course as a first-year student.

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My family was not affluent but not poor enough to qualify for the most generous forms of financial aid. So, my college options were not wide.  I wanted to study history and to become a teacher.  Rowan University had a legacy of preparing teachers, and my sister had gone to Rowan and done well.  Although I was accepted at several places, Rowan made the most sense both financially and academically.  My time at the University transformed me in many ways, and I decided that I wanted to pursue other career paths instead of teaching. 

I was fortunate at Rowan to be able to study history with faculty and a diverse set of peers who helped me see the world from new perspectives. I became invested in my own learning and took great care in what I produced for my classes.  What was really exciting to me was that the faculty encouraged me to do original research, to find topics that had never been analyzed by historians before or to find something new to say about more well-known topics.  For example, in my Field Service in History class, we had to analyze a monument or other marker of public history in a local community.  I decided to do research on the creation of a Christopher Columbus monument in Hammonton, New Jersey.  I interviewed those involved in the creation of the statue and was able to situate the statue’s creation not in the mere desire to remember the accomplishments of Christopher Columbus but in the desire of local leaders to preserve key elements of their history amidst the demographic transition of the town.   I was able to present this paper, and two others eventually, at three different conferences dedicated to undergraduate and graduate student research.  Two of my papers won awards at these conferences, which gave me confidence and reflected on my work but also on the quality of the mentorship that I received.

In addition to the mentorship of the person interviewing me, several faculty members deserve special mention for their contributions to my education.  Scott Morschauser’s passion led me to be interested in topics in which I had little previous interest.  Dianne Ashton helped me grow tremendously through an Independent Study course that I took with her.  David Applebaum challenged me in ways that I had never been challenged before.  Lee Kress’s classes always resonated with me, as I admired the way he injected local history in all of his teaching.  I never had a class with Jim Heinzen, an advisor for Phi Alpha Theta, but he made a great impression on me through our work together.  Joy Wiltenburg helped push me to keep growing during Seminar at the end of my undergraduate career. 

In addition to the work that I did for my classes, I was involved in quite a bit of activity outside of the classroom. I was involved in the re-launching of the Student History Association, and this collaborative effort gave me such great experience outside of the classroom.  In addition to the work with SHA, I also served as the President of Phi Alpha Theta, the history honors society.  My fellow officers and I were responsible, with the help of faculty advisors, for creating and following budgets, inviting speakers, recruiting members, and organizing events.  One of my highlights as President was planning the annual banquet, and I was able to invite Nelson Johnson, author of Boardwalk Empire, to speak to the initiates.  This was before HBO created the series based on the book, so he was more available.  What I learned in the planning of events such as this one and in my role as an officer more generally, proved of great benefit to me after I graduated.  When I left Rowan, I felt that I had a rich set of skills, especially in communication, research, planning, and the ability to synthesize and interpret source material.  I knew that these skills would help me to succeed wherever I went.

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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/