History Spotlight
Spring Break 08
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This course includes a travel program. It is these last six words in the course description of History 30408 that gave 27 Notre Dame students, Professor Kevin Spicer, C.S.C. and Martina Cuccharia (a third year European history graduate 
student) a unique opportunity to experience the history they had been learning. During Spring Break (February 29 – March 9) the group traveled to Poland (Warsaw, Lublin, Krakow), the Czech Republic (Prague) and Germany (Berlin) to visit sites related to Jewish religion, culture and life and the Holocaust.
Each student integrated the course in to his or her coursework, and many students wrote grant proposals to subsidize their journey. (See below for a list of campus organizations that sponsored the trip.) In one obvious sense a trip of this sort did not make for a fun spring break. The soberings sites continually reminded students of the horrific crimes and suffering endured by Jews and other victims of Nazi persecution in mid-twentieth century Europe. In other sense, of course, the trip made the history of the period real, and cemented the interest of these students in one of the central events of modern history.
“I can only describe the Travel Program as the trip of a lifetime. Seeing the actual camps and other sites where the holocaust was planned and carried out makes the events tangible in a way all the readings I have done on the subject have never been able to do….The experience was emotionally much different than I expected. Rather than being overwhelmingly intense, the camps were incredibly sobering in a way that was completely mentally draining.” – Pat Grainey
The trip itinerary took the class through former ghettos, to Jewish synagogues and cemeteries, resistance monuments and memorials, Schindler factory, and the concentration and death camps Majdanek, Plaszow and Auschwitz I, II, and III.
“I kept thinking about the rich Jewish culture that had disappeared from the cities except for tiny preserved microcosms and memorials for the much smaller group of people left. So because this was in my mind for most of the trip, I was glad that we took time to look at old Jewish neighborhoods, the old Warsaw cemetery and old synagogues. I think that as well as mourning the people we murdered and being horrified at what people were capable of, it is also important to Mourn the rich culture that nearly disappeared.” – Beth Neiman
Financial support for the trip was provided by the Nanovic Institute, Department of History, the Kellogg Institute, Learning Beyond the Classroom and the Office of International Studies. Eight students also received UROP grants and will complete research papers for the course.
“My experiences at Auschwitz were undeniably the most jarring of the entire trip. Before we arrived at the complex, I decided that it would serve as the setting of an assignment for my fiction writing course. Thus, I critically examined Auschwitz and compiled [ages of detailed notes about each nook and cranny of the camp. The barren, gnarled trees shaped like devils’ pitchforks. The piled, rusted, mangled eyeglasses that mirrored the entanglement of their owners’ deteriorating bodies. The mosaic of human bone that decorated the ground next to Crematorium IV. Each of these haunting images has been forever imprinted in my mind since that Tuesday afternoon.” –Jacqueline Emge
“I will never forget the sheer number of shoes and the biting wind at Majdanek or the hair and baby clothes at Auschwitz. Additionally, the visible presence of human remains at Majdanek and Auschwitz-Birkenau was very startling and provided more of an impression that the many statistics we have been seeing could ever create.” –Maureen Rhodes
For Rodriguez, Family Tree is a Teaching Tool
His mother was an Irish Catholic from Boston, his father a Mexican-American migrant worker. Fresh off his first job as a paperboy, Marc Rodriguez joined a Milwaukee grocer’s union at age 16. If asked to predict the future profession of this blue-collar young man, few observers would have forecast the academy. Yet Rodriguez always knew he wanted to be an agent of social change, and he found that opportunity as an assistant professor of history at Notre Dame.
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Professor Mark Noll Joins History Faculty
The History department warmly welcomes Professor Mark Noll as the new Francis McAnaney Professor of History. Noll comes to Notre Dame from Wheaton College, where he has taught since the late 1970s and compiled an extraordinary record. He will serve as the replacement to George Marsden, who retires in 2008, solidifying the Department’s standing as the best place to study American religious history in the country.
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Congratulations to Sabine MacCormack!
Her recent "On the Wings of Time" from Princeton University Press has just been awarded not one but two American Historical Association book prizes. The first is the James A. Rawley prize in Atlantic history and the second is the John E. Fagg prize for the best book in Spanish, Portuguese or Latin American history. Sabine joins Julia Adeney Thomas and Jon Coleman as recent departmental winners of AHA book prizes.
The History department’s connections to the diverse institutes and centers on the Notre Dame campus enhances the scholarship of students and faculty alike. Read additional story >
History Majors Share Internship Stories
The History Department and Notre Dame Career Center recently hosted "History Career Night" Several history majors took this opportunity to share their recent internship experiences with their fellow students.
Kevin Brooks, Class of 2009
During the summer of 2007, I interned at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library and Museum. During the spring I began to search for internships near my house and I found the Reagan Library. I worked primarily in the Education and Visitor Services Departments of the Library. I was given access to parts of the Library and Museum and various documents that are unavailable to the general public. I was given a great deal of freedom and allowed to conduct my own personal 
research. In addition, I was given the opportunity to attend special events, lectures, and ceremonies, including one with the President of Poland and Mrs. Reagan. The internship was unpaid, however the History Department reviewed my internship and I got credit. The Library worked with me in order to help me do things at the internship that would help me get credit and make it related to history.
Colleen Fitzpatrick, Class of 2008
The summer of 2007, I did research at the Smithsonian Institution, National Museum of 
American History. I first heard about the internship from the 2006 Winter Internship fair. I applied the following fall/winter. It is an unpaid internship, but you can make it part time and get another part-time job. I was assigned to a specfic project within the museum. I worked on the Hip Hop Won't Stop: The Beat, The Rhymes, The Life. I worked a lot on our artist portfolio and cataloging items. We had to set up photo shoots for all of the new objects coming in and place them within the Smithsonian's system. There were a lot of interns working at NMAH doing different projects. It is was very interesting and a lot of intensive research.
Chris Perkins, Class of 2008
During this past summer, I obtained an unpaid internship with the National Archives and Records Administration. With the internet’s help, I located this opportunity on the Archive’s website as I researched other possibilities in the Washington, D.C. area. I worked specifically in the Modern Military Records 
Division of the NARA which is based a half an hour outside of D.C. in College Park, Maryland. I would definitely recommend this internship as it allowed me to work directly with military records relating to World War I through the Vietnam conflict, locate requested information within unit histories for members of Congress and other citizens, and conduct research for my history honors thesis.
Kate Ramos, Class of 2008
My internship was for credit with the Chicago Historical Society. I worked on the Catholic Chicago exhibit that will open this March. I was involved in some of the research for the project, but I mostly worked in the education department on the Chicago Teen Initiative, which was made up of a group of nine high school 
students. Over the course of the summer we taught them the basics of Catholicism and how to construct and conduct oral histories. By the end of the summer they were interviewing prominent catholics, such as Cardinal George, as well as members of the lay community. The histories that they recorded are now part of the museum’s permanent collection and some will be in the exhibit as well. I really enjoyed the experience. It was great being able to see some of the things we do from the teen’s eyes. I can’t wait to see the exhibit open, and I would strongly recommend the internship.