Welcome to my Blog of sorts! I am a MA student in Public History at Central Connecticut State University (CCSU), with a propensity for innovation. I am nontraditional in my path to Graduate School, and have spent a great deal of my life outside of the world of academia. My current interest resides in Digital Humanities, and I was a recipient of the 2019- 2020 Digital History Fellowship at the Roy Rosenzweig Center for History and New Media at George Mason University, and am currently the full time Digital Projects Manager at Connecticut Collections, which is a project of the Connecticut League of Museums.
In a previous life, I was a Specialty Retail Manager- a career that provided many opportunities for relocation and professional development- also, a career path that is essentially vanishing. With over fifteen years of specialty management experience, I decided that it was time to return to school and complete my degree in order to utilize my business acumen within the Corporate realm. Unbeknownst to me, my exposure to Liberal Arts inadvertently changed the trajectory of my future. After enrolling in a World History course in Community College, I realized my passion and potential in writing and research. After graduating Summa Cum Laude with my AA in Liberal Arts, I was admitted to Eastern Connecticut State University with a full grant funded tuition. I decided to follow the History BA path, and discovered Digital History through an Independent Study.
Digital History granted me an innovative method of ‘doing history’… a phrase that is so commonly referenced, in a field that is often referred to as ‘dying’. Technology has undoubtedly allowed humanities academics to ask new questions, as well as revisit research and primary sources in the hopes of adding scholarly discourse to the field. There is a need for historians to present material to the world, in a vernacular that provides open access by means of literacy to everyone, and I would argue that Digital History has and can deliver this. It is the lifeline of History in our digital age.
The purpose of this blog is to discuss topics that are important to History. My goal is to provide resources to contemporary digital scholarship, as well as write posts regarding my own digital journey. The goal is that the content is interesting-and thought provoking information (the writing will sometimes be stream of consciousness, sometimes formalized writing) that may entertain the average person. My hope is to spread an infectious love for all things historical- sans academic jargon.