This week’s Project 100+ memory comes from Bill Parviainen.  He was born in Homestead, Florida.  His family was there because his father was in the United States Air Force, and he was stationed there during the Cuban Missile Crisis.  The family soon moved to Michigan, and Bill grew up in Lansing.  He attended public schools and graduated from Hill High School in 1981.  Bill’s father left the Air Force in 1964, and he eventually became a Michigan State Police Trooper.  His mother was a homemaker for most of Bill’s life, occasionally working a part-time job here or there.  Bill has one older sister who now is a legal secretary and works in Dallas.  He has two younger sisters who live in Michigan and are in law enforcement like their father.  After graduating from high school, Bill enrolled at a community college in Lansing.  He did this for one year, but his plans changed when his parents got separated in 1982 and then divorced in 1983.  His mother moved to Woodbury because her brother had an ambulance business and offered her a job working for him. This same uncle offered Bill a position driving an ambulance and told him of Glassboro State College.  Bill took him up on this offer and moved to New Jersey in the Summer of 1982 and began at GSC that Fall.  He graduated three years later in the Spring of 1985 with a history degree.  He enrolled in the graduate program in history at Rutgers University New Brunswick and worked on the Thomas Edison Papers project. During this time, Bill decided that he wanted to become a secondary history teacher and returned to Michigan to enter Michigan State’s social studies certification program, finishing that program in the Summer of 1987.  He then taught for four years in various high schools in Michigan before he decided to attend a career fair at Michigan State. There, he interviewed for a position at a high school in California, and he got the position.  He taught for fifteen years at West High School in Bakersfield and then for sixteen years at Independence High School, also in Bakersfield.  He retired in June of 2024, having taught for 37 total years.  During all this time, he was always a cross country coach, and he coached track for twenty of the 37 years as well. 

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I had a lot of vocational and technical classes in junior high and high school because Lansing was a General Motors town and so many people went on to work on the assembly line.  However, I was always pretty certain that I was going to college.  My father had graduated from Michigan State when I was in fifth grade.  My plan originally had been to go to community college for two years and then go on to Michigan State, but my mother’s move to New Jersey led me to change the plan.  Glassboro State was the only college to which I applied once I moved to New Jersey.

I entered as a history major.  I did this largely because I had chosen the major at the community college in Michigan.  How it happened is a story that I would frequently tell my own students.  I was standing in line to register for classes, and I came to a station where a woman asked me my major.  I said, “how am I supposed to decide that?”  She asked, “what was your favorite class in high school?”  I said, “history.”  She said, “congratulations, you are a history major!” She then filled out the paperwork appropriately.  I loved my history classes from the very beginning.  I always loved the stories and easily became absorbed in the past.  In addition, I had some really great history teachers along the way.

I remember so many of the history faculty.  I had David Applebaum for a couple of classes, including Senior Seminar.  He was super engaging.  I was President of the Student History Association during my senior year.  I remember that we took a history faculty member out for lunch once a month.  When we took Dr. Applebaum out, he was so great at helping us think about our future and what we might do with our lives.  Later on that year, the Department and the honors society put on a symposium on the Soviet Union, and I remember Dr. Applebaum giving a great lecture.

I had Bob Hewsen for both Byzantine history and Russian history.  I remember that I took one of his exams and thought that I had crushed it.  I got it back, and it was a B+.  He told me that it would have been an A if I wasn’t a history major, but he needed more from me.  He then gave me the exam of a good friend of mine who had gotten an A.  He said, “take this to see what an A exam from a history major looks like.”  I did, and I saw the differences.  I then knew what was expected, and I got an A on the next exam. 

Dr. Dick Porterfield was the head of the Department of History when I was an undergraduate.  I had him for British history, and I also knew him from my role as President of the honors society.  At the time, there weren’t that many history majors, only about ten in my class.  I remember one day that I was hanging out in the history suite of Robinson Hall when he came out of his office and said, “do you know, Dr. Creamer?”  I said, “of course.”  He then asked if I wanted to go pick him up in Baltimore, explaining that he had promised to do so but his car had broken down. Two days later, we drove down to Baltimore and picked him up. This was two years or so after he had completed his epic circumnavigation of the globe without instruments.  On the ride back, I got to hear the whole story of the trip from the man himself. 

Bob Harper was my professor for History of New Jersey and Historiography.  I remember that he asked if there was anyone in class who was not from New Jersey. I was the only who raised their hand, and he then gave me a road map of the state and told me to learn where the major cities were in New Jersey, which I did. 

I took a Latin American history with Lee Kress.  I remember that many students believed that he had been in the Central Intelligence Agency, possibly because of the way that he dressed and comported himself.  I really enjoyed his teaching.  I took an African American history course with Gary Hunter.  I remember that when we took him out to lunch, he told us that during the summers he went back to Pittsburgh and worked in a steel mill. We asked him why, and he said that he liked to work with his hands.  We thought that was pretty cool.  He was very down to earth, relatable, and so interesting as a person. 

I took Mary Taney for several classes, including Western Civilization, Ancient Greece, Ancient Rome, and Renaissance and Reformation.  I took more classes with her than anyone else. I loved her lectures, which were deep and thorough.

I never had a class with Marie Wanek, but she was the advisor for Phi Alpha Theta.  I became the Vice President when I won a pretty relaxed election in my junior year.  In addition to the lunches and the symposium on the Soviet Union, PAT organized a field trip with the Student History Association to visit several Smithsonian museums in the Spring of 1985.  At the time, SHA and PAT met separately, so this joint operation was more unusual than you might think. 

I walked on to the track team in the Fall of my sophomore year.  I ran for all three years, and I loved it.  Coach Oscar Moore was a fantastic human being.  He worked out with us.  I had such a blast with him and my teammates.  The competitions were fun, and the whole experience was life changing.  One of the main reasons that I eventually became a history teacher was because I really wanted to coach and keep involved with track.

It was an absolute blast to go to Glassboro State College. I could not imagine a better place to attend college.  I made three really good friends, and all of us went on to have successful careers in our chosen fields.  We had small classes, and we built really strong relationships with our faculty.  We developed great skills in writing, research, and in giving presentations, which helped us all later in life. I will always remember my best friends at Glassboro, Jeff Van Buren, Pete Ciancia, and Ernie Zollo. 

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This is part of the Department of History’s “Project 100+,” an ongoing collection of memories by Glassboro State College and Rowan University alumni and staff that began as part of the celebration of the 100^th anniversary of the founding of Glassboro Normal School, later Glassboro State College, and now Rowan University.  Due to interest in the project, the number of interviewees continues to grow.  Thanks to Laurie Lahey for helping proofread and edit the final versions.  Email carrigan@rowan.edu with questions or corrections.  You can find the Link to all of the Project 100 and Project 100+ entries on the Web:  https://chss.rowan.edu/departments/history/alumni_all/