Opportunities
Study and engagement with the past in the History Department of Trinity College takes place in a number of academic venues at the college, in Hartford, in the region, and globally, especially in our study abroad programs in different continents. Below is a list of the special opportunities available to History majors and students in general enrolled in our courses.
The Colin Leroy Research Fund
The Colin Leroy ‘10 Research Fund in the History Department of Trinity College was established in honor of Colin A. Leroy, who graduated as a history major in 2010. Sadly, he died one year later on July 4, 2011. His parents, Craig Leroy and Bethany Alvord, decided to honor his memory by establishing a fund in the History Department. The Leroy Fund provides grants to History majors and minors engaged in research projects for advanced seminars and theses in any field of history. Grants may include, but are not restricted to, such purposes as special library acquisitions, travel to libraries and archives during the summer or academic year, purchase of library cards with stack and borrowing privileges, and study of foreign languages needed for research. Recent grants have supported travel to Boston, New York City, London, Hong Kong, and Harare. The chairperson of the History Department awards grants in consultation with colleagues supervising student research and sends letters from students to the family about their research.
The Leroy fund has supported advanced research for well over a decade. The first grant went to Emma Sternlof ’13 who used it to travel to Chicago’s Newberry Library to use the archive of the D’Arcy McNickle Center for American and Indigenous studies. The second grant went to Michael McLean ‘14 who traveled to the Research Center at the Oklahoma Historical Society to consult documents relevant to his thesis on the Civil War on Indian Territory. In January 2014, Mollie Scheerer ’14 traveled to western Honduras in Central America to research and carry out archival research at the Center for Archaeological Investigation (CRIA) in the town of Copàn Ruinas, contiguous to the ancient Maya City of Copan. The Mayan City of Copàn is a UNESCO World Heritage Site, and Mollie’s thesis examined the Mayan Hieroglyphic Stairway in the Acropolis of the ancient city of Copàn. Major pieces of the Stairway currently reside in the Peabody Museum of Ethnology and Archaeology at Harvard University, to which they were transported at the end of the 19th century.
In these ways, the History Department encourages students to apply for grants from the Leroy Fund to further their research and to honor Colin’s memory. Any History Department major who has been approved to complete a thesis (H498-99) in their senior year can submit a grant proposal to the Chair of the History Department for consideration. Students in the History Workshop are also highly encouraged to apply for support. A student must submit an application to the History Department setting forth plans to do research, citing the reasons for the off-campus research as it relates to the prospectus of the thesis. The application should include a budget detailing the cost of travel, lodging, meals and miscellaneous expenses (library fees, photocopying, etc.). The application must include approval from the thesis advisor or History Workshop instructor. After the research trip, students must submit a report to the department Administrative Assistant, detailing where the research was done, what documents, maps, and photos students consulted while doing their research, and their relevance to the thesis project. Receipts documenting expenses must be provided. Students applying for funds supporting research in upper-division history courses follow the same procedure, assisted by the professor teaching the given course.
Global Scholars, Global Students
Equally significant when advising history students wishing to study or research the past abroad is the fact the History Department faculty have lived, researched, taught and lectured in many countries in the world, including Italy, Greece, Turkey, Finland, Germany, Austria, France, Spain, Poland, Israel, Syria, Morocco, Japan, China, the Phillipines, Cambodia, Korea, South Africa, Tanzania, Mexico, Argentina, Honduras, Guatemala, Chile, Costa Rica, Jamaica, Puerto Rico, Trinidad and Tobago and many, many others. Some of our faculty has earned degrees, masters and doctorates, in countries other than the United States. Jennifer M. Regan-Lefebvre, a historian of modern Britain, Ireland and the British Empire, earned her MA and PhD from Queen’s University Belfast, and has taught at the University of Exeter, the University of Cambridge, and the American University of Paris. Professors Zayde Antrim, Darío Euraque, and Seth Markle hold dual appointments with International Studies, and Professor Clark Alejandrino participates in the Asian Studies program.
The global reach and presence of the History Department faculty studying the past globally has and also remains matched by the study-abroad experiences of our students and majors. Around half of all History Majors study abroad. History students have studied away in Italy, France, Spain, England, China, South Africa, Argentina, and in Trinidad & Tobago. Classes offered here in Hartford such as Professor Kathleen Kete’s Paris: Capital of the Nineteenth Century, Professor Seth Markle’s South Africa and the Anti-Apartheid Movement, and Professor Sean Cocco’s Italian History in Four Keys connect to our students’ opportunities abroad.
Public Engagement and Historical Research
History faculty members and students are committed to public engagement. Professor Channon Miller is a leading organizer of public programming and research engaged and in partnership with Hartford’s Black and Caribbean communities. Trinity’s International Hip-Hop Festival has been directed by Professor Seth Markle for two decades. The college’s Center for Caribbean Studies has been co-directed by Professor Darío Euraque for a decade. Trinity’s Indigenous Studies Working Group is co-convened by Professor Tom Wickman. Professor Scott Gac has partnered with the Stowe Center for numerous events. Professor Zayde Antrim has planned programming with the Trinity Coalition for Justice in Palestine. History students have worked with faculty members through classes and internships to develop experience in public humanities.
Archival research often begins here in Hartford at the Paul E. Raether Library and Information Technology Center, named in honor of a Trinity History Major from the class of 1968. The Watkinson Library—the rare books library– is another fundamental resource for student and faculty research at the college. Courses such as Professor Jonathan Elukin’s “History of the Book” are centered on its holdings. Faculty and students carrying out primary research in virtually all regions of the world will find unique, and rare books, documents and maps at the Watkinson Library.Our department’s faculty nurtures close relationships with library colleagues including research librarian Jeff Liszka and Watkinson colleagues Christina Bleyer, Eric Stoykovich, Eric Johnson Debaufre, and Casey Machenheimer.
Complementing the rich collections at the Watkinson Library is the Connecticut Museum of Culture and History, located in the historic West End of Hartford. Founded in 1825, it is one of the oldest national historical societies in the United States. The Connecticut Historical Society features a non-profit museum, a terrific library, as well as an education center. Its holdings include 270,000 artifacts, graphics and over 100,000 books and pamphlets, and one of the largest costume and textile collections in New England. In the recent past its holdings have been enriched by projects to document, via oral history and photos, immigration to Hartford and the region from the Caribbean, from Puerto Rico and West Indian countries like Jamaica, Barbados and Trinidad. Currently, The CMCH is the largest of innumerable local historical societies in the state. Another regional opportunity for research in the state is the Connecticut State Library, located a few blocks from Trinity College. Its mission is to provide “a variety of library, information, archival, public records, museum, and administrative services for citizens of Connecticut, as well as for the employees and officials of all three branches of State government. The State Library also serves students, researchers, public libraries and town governments throughout the state. Our faculty members have other connections to the Mark Twain House, the Harriet Beecher Stowe Center, and the Mashantucket Pequot Museum and Research Center.
Understanding the past at Trinity, in Hartford, and in the region occurs bearing in mind the Mission of Trinity’s Center for Urban and Global Studies (CUGS): “advancing Trinity College’s strategic mission of integrated urban and global education on campus, in Hartford, and globally.” CUGS is “the first center of its kind at a top liberal arts college in the United States.” The center “promotes curricular initiatives, research projects, and civic engagement with a broad urban and global focus by working closely with the departments and programs at Trinity, a variety of organizations in the city of Hartford, and international partners.”
