Today’s Project 100 memory comes from Stephen Hague.  He was born and raised in Binghamton, New York.  His father was a police officer, and his mother was an administrative assistant.  He had a brother who passed away tragically when he was 39 years old.  He went to public schools and graduated from Vestal Senior High School in 1985.  He then attended the State University of New York at Binghamton, graduating in 1989.  One of his memorable undergraduate experiences was studying abroad in London in his junior year.  It was not only the first time he had been out of the country, but it was also the first time that he had ever been on an airplane.  It was a life changing experience.  In addition to courses, he served as an intern for a member of Parliament and travelled on the European continent as well.  The highlight of the year for him was a class with an expert in security studies named Professor Anthony Glees, who was an outstanding lecturer and frequently appeared on the news.  After graduating, Stephen enrolled at the University of Virginia and received a Master’s degree in European history in 1992.  He then became the Museum Director at the Abraham Lincoln Museum at Lincoln Memorial University in Harrogate, Tennessee.  After serving there for three years, he moved to Philadelphia and became Director of the Highlands historic site in Fort Washington.  After three years at the Highlands, he moved to Oxford University where he became a Fellow of Linacre College and did development work.   After three years at Oxford, he returned to the United States and became Director of the Stenton historic site in Philadelphia, where he worked at Stenton for seven years, during which time he got married and decided to make a mid-life career change to realize his life-long dream of being an academic.  In the Fall of 2008, he returned to Oxford to pursue a doctorate in history, which he completed in 2011.  Returning again to the United States, he applied for various academic jobs and began teaching at Temple University in the Fall of 2011.  His first Rowan course took place in the Fall of 2012 after Joy Wiltenburg hired him to teach Western Civilization to 1660.  In 2012 and 2013, he had a very busy period of teaching at multiple universities.  He successfully applied for a position at Rowan teaching British history and began full-time in the Fall of 2013.

***** 

I had never heard of Rowan before my research for jobs uncovered the university.  I remember really enjoying my first semester teaching.  I had my second teaching assignment sadly cancelled, but I ended up teaching that semester regardless when, one week after the semester had begun, Joy called to ask me to take over a course from an adjunct who had failed to appear.  When the full-time position was posted, it was a stroke of great fortune for me.  The phone call that I received from Dean Cindy Vitto offering me the position was the single best call of my life.

My initial teaching load at Rowan was quite high, four courses per semester.  I enjoyed all of my classes, but I really delighted in my participation in the CLIO program. I taught Western Civilization for these students, and I very much enjoyed getting to know first year history majors and then following them through their four years in the Department.  I continue to be involved in CLIO all these years later, now taking over the role held by Scott Morschauser before he retired.

Early on in my time at Rowan, I took on the role of coordinating the Liberal Studies program.  While this was an interesting experience, it was quickly supplanted by a different administrative opportunity.  This took place a year or two later when I learned from chairperson Bill Carrigan of the University’s interest in starting a center for the study of the Holocaust.  I indicated to the chair that I would be interested in helping get this idea off the ground, and I soon found myself discussing the topic with Dean Cindy Vitto. The subsequent founding of the Rowan Center for the Study of the Holocaust, Genocide, and Human Rights is one of the most significant and important things with which I have been involved at Rowan. One of the great things that made this chapter of my time at Rowan especially rewarding was co-founding the Center with Dr.  Jenny Rich, a brilliant unicorn among academics, subsequently joined by fellow historian Jody Russell Manning, now the Program Director for the Center. Together with my wonderful mentor and next-door office neighbor Emily Blanck in History, who is such a calm, collaborative presence (‘Lavender in human form’, another colleague quipped), we have all shared many fun and intellectually engaging times together over meals, discussions, debates, study abroad trips, and writing retreats.   

More recently, I have become involved with the Hollybush Institute for Global Peace and Security, which is named after the historic home on Rowan’s campus that hosted the 1967 Summit between United States President Lyndon Johnson and Soviet Premier Alexei Kosygin. I have had the true pleasure to work for several years with the distinguished Soviet specialist Jim Heinzen and now Latin America and Human Rights historian Debbie Sharnak. Our work is dedicated to educating students and the larger community about international relations in order to support peaceful resolutions to ongoing global problems.

While administrative duties have been a major part of my time at Rowan, I continue to enjoy working with students, helping them to improve their skills and especially trying to convey a love of learning and broaden their horizons. I have had the good fortune to teach a wide variety of classes at Rowan, which have included not only surveys in Western Civilization but occasionally Historical Methods and frequently Senior Seminar.  I have found teaching Seminar to be particularly enjoyable as I appreciate seeing the development of student papers over the course of the semester.  Among the numerous upper-level courses that I have been fortunate to teach, one of the ones that I enjoy the most began as “Britain in the Age of the World Wars,” which I developed my first semester at the request of then chair Joy Wiltenburg.  I later adapted this class into an Honors course with a new title, “Hobbits and Bohemians: Britain Between the World Wars.”  Teaching this course led directly to my current book project, which looks at British culture and society in the 20^th century.

Yet another source of immense satisfaction has been leading Rowan University Study Abroad programs.  I have accompanied students to England and several European countries on multiple occasions.  When I see students and alumni who joined those trips, they invariably mention that their study abroad experience was an absolute highlight of their time as a Rowan student.

I have now been at Rowan for over a decade, and the Department has been a wonderful place to be a faculty member.  Everyone has been collegial and supportive and informal chats have been a great part of this existence. Among many such episodes, I recall occasional spirited discussions about our shared twentieth century interests with super-smart Melissa Klapper. Our Works-in-Progress seminar is another element of the Department that has been both particularly useful and a good example of the Department’s collegiality.  Two other initiatives merit special attention.  First, at the instigation of Professor Manning, a group of us formed what we call “Secret Book Club” to discuss recent scholarship related to the Holocaust and Genocide.  We continue to convene regularly, and it is a source of great learning and camaraderie that helps us to understand better a very difficult subject.  Second, a few years ago, Jenny Rich, Emily Blanck, and I began an informal “Writer’s Group,” where we discuss drafts of our scholarship over a meal and/or coffee.  This group has grown to include several other members of our History Department as well as faculty from other disciplines. It now meets about twice a month and is a great opportunity to share my own work, push my thinking, and to read the research of excellent colleagues.

Rowan has doubled in size since I began on the faculty.  This growth has not been without its growing pains, but it has also come with obvious benefits.  When I first began, my mother-in-law had never heard of the place.  Now, Rowan is frequently in the news and if I mention I teach here, most people usually offer a vigorous nod of recognition and a comment about “Oh yes, Rowan has really grown.” It has been most rewarding to share that time with History students and valued colleagues dedicated to fostering a challenging, mind-expanding learning experience.

*****

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/