Today’s Project 100 memory comes from Tessa Knight Belluscio.  She was born in Shrewsbury, Massachusetts, but she was primarily raised in Rhode Island.  Her father is an aircraft technician.  Her mother was a stay-at-home mom and hand weaver until her parents divorced.  After the divorce, she continued weaving while also working as an administrator and, later, a chef.  She has two sisters, a brother, and a stepbrother.  She attended public schools and graduated in 2005 from South Kingston High School in Rhode Island.  After graduating high school, she joined the Americorps program City Year and did a year of volunteering in Newport, RI with at-risk youth.  In the Fall of 2006, she enrolled at Rowan and graduated four years later with degrees in history and secondary education.  For the 2010 College of Liberal Arts Dean’s Tea Recognition Ceremony, the Department of History named her their Senior of Distinction.  In the Fall of 2010, she began teaching world history and United States history at Torah Academy Girls High School (now Kosloff Torah Academy).  In 2020, she won the James Madison Fellowship and began pursuing a master’s degree at Rutgers-Camden.  She will complete that degree in 2024.  In 2022, she began partnering with the Case Method Institute for Education and Democracy through Harvard Business School to integrate their approach to analyzing and solving complex problems into her United States history courses. 

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I chose Rowan for the foolish reason that I was following my boyfriend.  We had met during my freshmen year of high school and began dating the following year.  His family moved to New Jersey after our sophomore year, and we continued to date long distance.  After I finished my year of volunteering, I decided to join him at Rowan.  I knew that I wanted to teach, and I loved international relations.  History seemed liked the best major for me.  I never considered any other college than Rowan.  

I had culture shock coming from New England to New Jersey.  I had grown up in a rural town in the middle of woods for most of my early life.  We had no television and no radio, and our shopping center was 30 minutes away. Even after my parents got divorced, my mom was an artist, so we never had much money. The towns we lived in were old New England towns, nothing like the busy suburbs and commercial sprawl of South Jersey. Southern New Jersey seemed a bastion of commerce to me. I came to Rowan intending to focus on academics for the first time.  I had not really applied myself in high school and I really wanted to push myself and get the most out of college that I could.  

One of my most memorable college experiences was taking a trip with Emily Blanck as her research assistant.  We went to the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C. and then to several places in Massachusetts, including Harvard University and the Nantucket Historical Society.  At Nantucket, I did some work on my own research project, as well as helping Dr. Blanck.  That trip was the first time that I had ever visited an archive and held really old documents.  My non-conformist family had not really had given me the opportunity to do such things, so those experiences really stood out to me. 

There were so many professors at Rowan that were willing to engage with students outside of class if you showed any intellectual curiosity.  One of them that I remember very fondly was Matthew Lund in the Philosophy and Religion Department.  I had many great conversations with him about philosophy.  Of course, you and Emily Blanck were both very important mentors to me.  You were not only influential classroom teachers for me, but you provided me with important advice.  In many ways, you were parent-figures for me in this place far away from my family.  I really enjoyed your American Labor History class.  I also have great memories of Dr. Blanck’s United States Constitutional History course and her Honors course on Key Moments in 20^th Century History.  Two other courses that I really enjoyed were taught by Cory Blake.  One was on Islamic Civilization and the other on the history of the Ottoman Empire.  Taking both of those courses during the Iraq War was incredibly revealing to me.  I took Senior Seminar with Melissa Klapper.  It was the first time that I really had to push myself to write a paper.  It was super hard.  I did it, and she then recommended me for the job that I still have to this day. 

I remember doing some stand-up comedy at the Student Center during an open mic night. I talked about my observations of other students as they got ready for going out on Friday night, and I had a lot of fun, even though I didn’t end up doing it again.  

One of my very favorite memories of my time at Rowan was spending all day at the Campbell Library with my boyfriend, Tony.  We would sit there reading and writing papers together.  He was an English major.  Whenever we needed a break from our work, we would wander up and down the stacks, take down random books, read selections to each other until we were recharged and ready to go back to studying.  

I left Rowan with many things, including debt!  As an out-of-state student who got no money at all from her parents, I had to borrow a lot of money to attend Rowan.  I am still paying off those loans. That part of the college experience has taught me how to budget and be careful with money.  However, I got more from Rowan than loans.  I got a new home. It was my first experience with a place very different from where I grew up. I never saw it as perfect, but it grew on me, and I came to see southern New Jersey as my home.  I have never moved away and can’t imagine doing so now.  I think that one of the reasons that I bonded with the area was that my move here coincided with my decision to push myself intellectually.  Of course, it was also important that my foolish decision to follow my boyfriend worked out.  We have been happily married since 2011, and we now have a six-year-old daughter. 

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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/