Notes and Updates – Paige Hildebrand (’19) Receives Outstanding Leader Award

A celebratory note from last spring, as we look ahead to another graduation season. History major Paige Hildebrand received the 2019 Prince Woodard Outstanding Leader Award. This award is given to a graduating senior who has made a substantial impact on campus and beyond, while exemplifying honor, leadership, and service.

A critical member of the Students Helping Honduras Executive Board, Hildebrand served as treasurer for the organization. She was noted for reorganizing all the club’s funds and also planning the For the Kids 5K event.

Hildebrand also completed her senior thesis, “The Empress Matilda: Sex, Gender, and Leadership in Twelfth Century England,” in fall 2019 with Dr. Bruce O’Brien.

Original award image and story from UMW News (4/19/2019).

Eric Halsey – History Careers Outside of Academia and the U.S. (10/16)

Talking History (4/9): Kerri Kline, “UMW History Training and the National Museum of the U.S. Army”

kline

Career Talk: Eric Halsey (UMW, ’11) – Monday, 9/25, 4 pm

Eric Halsey photoEric Halsey, recent UMW alumnus, History major, Fulbright grantee, and Study Abroad student, will discuss his independent career as a startup strategist based in Sofia, Bulgaria, and how he parlayed his collegiate study abroad experience into an international career.

​The talk will take place on Monday, Sept. 25, at 4 pm, in Monroe 210. 

This talk is jointly sponsored by the HISA Department, International Relations Organization, and Center for International Education.

 

Career Night This Thursday (2/5, 5-6 pm): Meet Marissa Allison

 

Career Night

Marissa Allison

Thursday Feb. 5th, 5-6pm, Monroe 210

 

Come hear advice from an alumna about how to find a career

A graduate of UMW in 2010, Ms. Allison has gone on to become a highly regarded Middle East consultant. After graduating with a history degree and a certificate in Middle East Studies, she has held several DC-based research and analysis positions including working at the prestigious Booz Allen Hamilton consulting firm. Ms. Allison has recently accepted an offer for the Head of Technology for HSBC’s new Financial Intelligence Unit in Dubai.

For all History, American Studies, Political Science, and International Affairs Majors!

Rebecca Erbelding (’02) Featured in Washington Post Article

Rebecca Erbelding, UMW History alumna (class of 2002), was recently featured in a story entitled “Holocaust Survivors Reunite with the Woman Who Cared for Them After the War,” by Emily Langer (25 December 2013).

The story offers touching portrait of Martha “Manna” Weindling Friedmann, a German Jew who cared for Holocaust refugee children in England after the Second World War, and two sisters, Tatianna and Andra Bucci, who’d known her as a beloved caretaker at that time. Years later, Rebecca would accompany those sisters as adults on a tour of the Holocaust museum and its archives. The story also shares the two sisters’ recent, warm reunion with “Manna,” as retiree in the United States. For the full, heart-warming story and the complex history it invokes, see the link above.

Internships: Dana Puga, ’02

This summer, we’ll be introducing History and American Studies students and alums who are currently engaged in internships or who have held internships in the past. The series will answer simple but important questions: Where are they interning? What kinds of projects are they exploring? And how have internships helped students build a career after college?

We’re happy to have Dana Puga, Class of ’02, lead off with her own story:

“I attended MWC from 1998-2002.  As a budding history major, I knew I wanted to pursue a career in museums.  As Freshman year drew to a close, I wrote several museums in Richmond to see if they had any summer jobs available.  One museum, the Valentine Richmond History Center, called me back and offered me a position as a camp counselor for a day camp they ran with two other area museums.  I worked at the camp every summer of college and I became the camp coordinator during my third summer.  This experience opened the doors for me to explore museum education and I had the opportunity to help install an exhibition during Spring Break one year.  My contacts at the Valentine gave me a network of museum professionals to call on and provided guidance on how to get my start in the field.

During the Spring semester of my senior year I was accepted as an intern at the National Museum of American History in the Photo History Collection. Every Tuesday and Thursday I woke at 5:30 to catch the VRE up to DC and I wouldn’t have traded it for the world.  My intern advisor became a career advisor for me and taught me about curatorship and collections management.   When I graduated I applied for anything and everything museum related.  A couple of months after graduation I interviewed for the job I have now as Prints and Photographs Collection Specialist at the Library of Virginia.  I know beyond a shadow of a doubt that my internships helped me get this job; especially my Smithsonian internship.  They wanted someone with a MA, but because I had hands on experience with photographic collections, I got the job.”

Dana (Angell) Puga ’02
Prints and Photographs Collection Specialist
The Library of Virginia
Richmond, VA 23219

Image from the Valentine Richmond History Center