Department of History:B.A. Student and Alumni News
B.A. Student and Alumni News
Tyler Vaughan (B.A., 2014) is attending Officers Candidate School in Quantico, Virginia.
Michael Faust (B.A., 2016) is a student at the Washington College of Law in Washington, D.C.
Regina Warriner (B.A. 2003) was named Midlothian High School's (Chesterfield County) Teacher of the Year in 2016.
Tyler Vaughan on his way to Officers Candidate School
Shakia Taylor
Shakia Taylor (B.A. 2016), Ted Constant Center, 17 December 2016.
Robert Gay (B.A. 2016) received the Outstanding Student Academic Achievement Award in the Department of History, Spring 2016. Congratulations Robert!
Raven Bland (current history major) has been selected as Norfolk's first Youth Poet Laureate (http://hamptonroads.com/2015/05/meet-norfolks-first-youth-poet-laureate), and has just published her first book, When the Raven Sings (2016).
Andrea Schlabach Blaschum (B.A. 2016) has been hired by Virginia Beach Public Schools as an AP History Teacher at Floyd E. Kellam High School. Andrea states, "I love that I am able to use my degree for something that I love and hope to instill a passion for history in the students I teach!"
Sean Danaher (B.A. 2015) is a law student at the University of Richmond. This past summer, he worked in the Commonwealth Attorney's office for King George County. He conducted researched, wrote briefs and appeals, and spent hundreds of hours in court. Last year, he was fortunate to be selected to have dinner with Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor.
Raven Bland
Meghan Frank in Tongo
Meghan (Peggy) Frank (B.A. 2013) is a Peace Corps Volunteer living and working in Neiafu Vav'u in the Kingdom of Tonga, and previously worked as an English teacher in a bilingual school in Prague, Czech Republic. She writes from Neiafu Vav'u: "My goals in Tonga are to promote student centered learning and provide my Tongan counterparts with the tools they need to make that possible, assess and teach English to students from Class 3 to Form 2 (grades 3-8) using real life applications (primarily through health and environmental topics), and involve the community in English education." Peggy also explains, "Cyclone Winston damaged my school and I had to abandon my idea for an on-campus library. This lead to the formation of a community library in an old corner shop. The library, which is becoming increasingly sustainable with one local librarian and three junior librarians, has become more successful than I could have ever imagined. We've been receiving donations from all over the world and if anyone at ODU is interested in donating, that they can contact me at spearcom-munitylibrary@gmail.com.
Sierra Funk (B.A. 2014) recently received her M.A. in Latin American and Caribbean Studies from Indiana University.
Allison Gunn (B.A. 2013) will graduate with both her MA in History and her Masters of Library and Information Science (known as the HiLS program) from the University of Maryland in December 2016. Her thesis for the History program is a social and demographic analysis of the shifting Jewish population in Portsmouth, VA from 1910-1930. In her MLIS program, Allison focuses on digital curation and preservation, primarily in cultural institutions. She has utilized these skills in a digitization effort at the historic Woodlawn Plantation, as a Pathways intern with the National Park Service on the George Washington Memorial Parkway, and as a Congressional Relations intern with the Government Accountability Office. Allison currently works at UMD's Center for Global Migration Studies and as an assistant for an environmental history course. She lives in Alexandria, VA with her husband, Matthew Ericson (M.A. 2013), her six-year old twins, and her Australian Shepherd.
Benjamin Ipson (B.A. 2015) is currently the Operations Manager at Ram Tool and Construction Supply Company. He just got engaged, and he and fiancé, Colleen Wilson, are both graduate students at ODU. Ben is working on his MPA and plans to merge his love of history and passion for business in his future trajectory.
Rachel Anderson Ross graduated in 2014 with a Bachelor's in History. Currently, she works for the in-house financing department for Priority Automotive, where she performs various tasks handling car loans that are designed to help build credit scores. Even in the world of finance, she continues to use the researching skills she developed as an undergraduate student of history. Since graduation she has married and is expecting a baby boy next month!
Thomas Tucker (B.A. 2015) was hired as a Management and Program Analyst at the U.S. Department of Justice in Washington, D.C. Thomas adds, "I'm still getting adjusted to being up in DC, which is so different from Norfolk. In my job, I definitely get to use the writing and editing skills that I learned in the history program at ODU!"
Tyler Vaughan: (B.A. 2014) is a Corporal in the United States Marines Corps, stationed aboard Marine Corps Air Station Camp Pendleton. He serves as the Education Officer for two squadrons, helping Marines further their education while furthering his own. He is currently enrolled in an MA Program in Museum Studies. He is also up for Officer Candidate School so he can become a commissioned officer in the Marine Corps. In 2015, he married ODU alumna, Crystal Almodorvar. Tyler and Crystal live in Oceanside, California.
Joshua Weinstein (B.A. 2011) currently juggles three positions; one of them full time, one of them part-time, and the other as a volunteer. He works full-time as a "gallery host" at the Chrysler Museum. He must be able to discuss art intelligently with museum visitors, and he reports that the research skill set absorbed from his history studies prepared him well for this type of work. One day a week, he works at the museum's art library on ODU's campus, assisting the librarian with cataloging, creating finder's guides, and performing research. Josh also works at Norfolk Southern on Mondays, fulfilling research requests from the public and assisting with exhibits in Norfolk's Southern's small railroad history museum in their headquarters downtown. In addition, Josh is on the Board of the Norfolk Society for Cemetery Conservation, a local historic preservation non-profit dedicated to maintaining the city's historic cemeteries. This is a volunteer position and aside from its administrative aspects, he also gives tours of Elmwood Cemetery and speaks publically with media outlets about the work the NSCC has completed. Josh acknowledges, "Volunteering has opened many doors, and the historian's spirit is still with me after all these years."
Scott Moore (M.A., 2005), recently finished his Ph.D. dissertation at the University of Maryland, College Park. His dissertation, "Teaching the Empire: Education and State Loyalty in Late Habsburg Austria," won the E.B. and Jean Smith Award for Political History.
Angelo Letizia (M.A., 2003) is an assistant professor of graduate education at Newman State University in Wichita, Kansas.
Current student Raven Bland has been selected as Norfolk's first Youth Poet Laureate (http://hamptonroads.com/2015/05/meet-norfolks-first-youth-poet-laureate).
Congratulations to Tiffany R. Desnoyers (B.A., 2015), who received the Academic Achievement Award in History in 2015. She was honored by the College of Arts & Letters at Reception for Outstanding Students on May 8, 2015.
Charles Ross Patterson, current M.A. student, presented his work on "Prodigal Sons: Battleship Division Nine in the Grand Fleet" at the ODU Graduate Research Achievement Day.
Gerald Gaidmore (M.A., 1999) is Director of Special Collections at the Swem Library of the College of William & Mary.
Melissa Invoskis (B.A., 2015) is Archives Assistant at Perry Library of Old Dominion University.
Adam Rosenbaum (M.A., 2004) recently published an article in Journal of Tourism History, vol. 7, nos. 1-2 (2015), called "Leisure travel and real existing socialism: new research on tourism in the Soviet Union and communist Eastern Europe."
Rachael DeLaCruz (M.A., 2014), presented a paper called "No Asylum for the Innocent: Gendering the Discourse on Salvadoran Victims."
Several Department of History students contributed to OUR Journal: Old Dominion University Undergraduate Research Journal. The publication is based on undergraduate and graduate student work tied to the history course, "Paris/Auschwitz" (https://www.odu.edu/research/student/undergradresearch/publications/journal#tab129=1).
Benjamin Ipson won the Diversity Champion Award from Old Dominion University, 2014, and was also the runner-up for the Kaufman Award (2015).
Heather Brown was the runner-up for the Evon Broderick Award, which recognizes community service and engagement (http://www.odu.edu/success/stories/awards/evon-broderick).
Lisa Pennington (M.A., 2012, now at Virginia Tech) and Amanda Williams (M.A., 2008, now at The MacArthur Memorial in Norfolk) presented "Put Yourself in their Shoes: World War I and Interactive Resources" at the November 2014 annual conference of the National Council of Social Studies in Boston.
Robert Moyer (M.A., 2014) recently published "'When that great ship went down': Modern maritime disasters and collective memory," International Journal of Maritime History, vol. 26, no. 4 (2014), 734-751. The article emerged from his completion of the Advanced Graduate Certificate in Maritime History and his work with Professor Ingo Heidbrink.
Paul D. Newcomer (M.A., 1976), attended the summer 2014 conference of the Society for Historians of American Foreign Relations in Lexington, Kentucky. He reports fond memories of seminars led by Department of History professors in the 1970s, and currently lives in Wayne, Pennsylvania.
Carlton Bennett (B.A., 1972) is an attorney at Bennett & Zydron, P.C. in Virginia Beach.
Dr. Hugo Walter, who received his M.A. in the Humanities from ODU in 1989, acknowledges the inspiration of former ODU professors John Kuehl and Doug Greene in his recently published book, Sanctuaries in Washington Irving's The Sketch Book (Peter Lang, 2012).
Participants in the 2014 "Paris/Auschwitz" Study Abroad course Julius Lacano, Lauran Henderson, Emma Needham, Ciara Clark, and Stephanie Hawthorne at Jagiellonian University in Krakow, Poland.
Samantha Seltzer (B.A., 2011), completed her law degree from Nova Southeastern University Shepard Broad Law Center in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. She recently wrote to her former history department professors at ODU: "To this day I still speak with great fondness of the classes I took with you and all of the things I learned. You were so instrumental in helping me on my journey and I would not be where I am today without you and your efforts. Please know that your enthusiasm and guidance left a lasting impression that I will always reflect upon with endearment and admiration. Thank you again."
Kim Schmidtmann (M.A., 2007) is a Museum Educator for the City of Virginia Beach's Historic Houses.
Dan Kamienski (B.A., 2010) has entered the Ph.D. program in the Department of History at the University of Montana, Missoula.
Sierra Funk (B.A., 2014) is a student in the Ph.D program in history at Ohio University, with a focus on Latin American Studies.
Homer Babbitt (M.A., 2003) is assistant director of development at the Chrysler Museum in Norfolk, Virginia. He previously worked in nonprofit development work for Physicians for Peace, WHRO, and the YMCA of South Hampton Roads.
Bryan Wetterlin and his mother at the Arts and Letters Award Ceremony, May 9, 2014
Bryan Wetterlin won the 2013-14 Academic Achievement Award from the Department of History.
Several ODU M.A. students presented papers at the Southern Humanities Conference in Richmond, Virginia from January 30 to February 2, 2014. The ODU paper contributors to the large conference on "Memory, History, Fantasies" included Clara Van Eck, "Violence in the Home: Federal Domestic Violence Legislation in the 1980s," Rachael DeLaCruz, "Bracero Families: Remembering Mexican Migrant Women and Children in the United States, 1942-64," and Christopher De Matteo, "Drafting for Liberty in a Den of Slavery: Implementing the Union Draft in Maryland." For further information on this conference, see http://www.southernhumanities.org/.
Howard Coe (B.A., 1976) has taught middle school for 20 years in the Santa Rita School District in Salinas, California.
David Kays (M.A., 2002) has served since 2006 as Pastor at Timothy Christian Church in Ayden, North Carolina.
Stacey Evans (B.A., 2008) is a Deputy Sheriff at the Chesapeake Sheriff's Department.
Professor Ervin L. Jordan, Jr. (B.A., 1979) is Research Archivist at the Albert and Shirley Small Special Collections Library at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville. He is the author of Black Confederates and Afro-Yankees in Civil War Virginia (Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 1995), and serves as a senior advisor to the Norfolk State University Board of Visitors and administration.
Cindy A. Jones (M.A., 2001) is an adjunct faculty member in the Department of History at the University of Alabama in Tuscaloosa.
Tonya Kobito (M.A., 2013) is pursuing a Master of Science in Secondary Education at Black Hills State University in Spearfish, South Dakota.
Yucel Yanikdag (B.A., 1991; M.A., 1994), Assistant Professor in the Department of History at the University of Richmond, is the author of Healing the Nation: Prisoners of War, Medicine and Nationalism in Turkey, 1914-1939 (Edinburgh University Press, 2013). In 2013-14 he was a visiting scholar at the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton University, working on a cultural history of World War One in the Ottoman Empire.
Dale Rielage (M.A., 1998) is a Captain in the U.S. Navy assigned to the Chief of Naval Operations. He recently accompanied the Vice Chief of Naval Operations on an official visit to the Chinese Navy.
Nichelle Mack (B.A., 2005) received a M.S. in Library Science from Clarion University of Pennsylvania in 2008. Recently, she accepted a faculty position at LeMoyne-Owen College, a private HBCU in Memphis, Tennessee, as the Circulation and Reference Librarian.
Charlotte Mahan and Sean Edwards at graduation ceremony, Spring 2013
Anthony R. Williams (B.A., 1967), a longtime Senior Intelligence Officer at the Central Intelligence Agency, has most recently served as a Visiting Professor of Security Studies at Dickinson College, a Distinguished Fellow of the US Army War College, and the Francis De Serio Chair for Strategic Intelligence at the US Army War College.
Kennis Austin (M.A., 1993) is a Student Services Specialist in Education for the Worcester County Board of Education in Newark, Maryland.
Amanda Williams (M.A., 2008), Education Manager at the MacArthur Memorial in Norfolk, Virginia, and Jim Zobel (M.A., 2001), Archivist at the MacArthur Memorial, both contributed to the production of an educational video on WWI.
Gregory Eatroff (B.A., 2004) teaches history at Churchland Middle School in Portsmouth.
Taryn Darling (B.A., 2012) teaches geography at John Yeates Middle School in Suffolk.
Lisa Pennington (M.A. 2012) began the History and Social Science Curriculum and Instruction Ph.D. program at Virginia Tech in the fall semester of 2013.
Nicole Dressler (M.A. 2011) began the History Ph.D. program at Northern Illinois University in the fall semester of 2013.
Michael Shackelford (History B.A. 2004, GPIS M.A. 2010) is the Grants Manager for the Judeo-Christian Outreach Center in Virginia Beach. He works closely with city officials and other non-profit groups to eliminate homelessness in Virginia Beach.
Jaclyn Spainhour recently published an article, "Symbols of Slumber: Children's Funerary Sculpture in Norfolk's Elmwood Cemetery," in 19th Century, a publication of the Victorian Society of America.
Colleen Parker is presenting a paper, "A Passionate Path: Women's Place in the Christian Cultural Revolution and the Fall of Rome," at the 16th Annual Brian Bertoti Innovative Perspectives in History Graduate Conference at Virginia Tech in Blacksburg.
Robert Moyer presented his research at the annual conference of the North American Society for Oceanic History (NASOH), held in Alpena, Michigan on 15-18 May 2013. The conference was dedicated to "Maritime Borderlands and Cultural Landscapes," and was hosted by the Thunder Bay National Marine Sanctuary.
Janet Hakki has been invited to present her work at the Colonial Academic Alliance Undergraduate Research Conference at the University of Delaware in April 2013.
Josh Wilson, Jackie Spainhour, and Gregory Eatroff contributed to the panel, "Students in the Archives: Seeing 'Greater Virginia' in the papers of chronicler Alf J. Mapp, Jr.," Virginia Forum, James Madison University, Harrisonburg, VA, 30 March 2012.
Josh Wilson participated in a panel on "Creating and Using School Desegregation Resources at Old Dominion University Libraries" at the "Emancipation & Human Rights in History" Conference in Richmond, Virginia, 21-23 March 2013.
ODU students Ben Ipson, Diona White, Alyssa Santuk, Julie Davis, Susan White, Sean Edwards, Michael Barnes, Jordyn Armstrong, Charlotte Mahan, Stephanie Hawthorne, and Rachel Chasinshared their thoughts and experiences at a Kornblau Alumni Center event dedicated to the "Paris/Auschwitz" Study Abroad Trip led by Professor Annette Finley-Croswhite. The moving event took place on 21 March 2013, and was sponsored by the Alumni Association, the Institute for Jewish Studies & Interfaith Understanding, and the Study Abroad Program. To read more about the event, click here.
Charles Davison (M.A. 2012) published an article, "The Army of Discontent: the Effect of a Thoroughly Antagonized George Washington upon Maj. Gen. Charles Lee," in Northern Neck of Virginia Historical Magazine (December 2012).
Amanda Williams and Lisa Pennington contributed to a panel on "The Other Nuremberg: Teachers, Museums, and Engaging Students in History" at the National Council for the Social Studies Conference in Seattle, Washington, 16-17 November 2012.
Adam Rosenbaum (M.A. 2004) completed his Ph.D. at Emory University in 2011. His dissertation, "Timeless, Modern and German? The Re-Mapping of Bavaria through the Marketing of Tourism, 1800-1939," has won two major prizes: the Parker-Schmitt Dissertation Prize awarded by the Southern Historical Association, and the Fritz Stern Dissertation Prize awarded by the Friends of the German Historical Institute in Washington, D.C. He currently works as an assistant professor of history at Colorado Mesa University.
