This week’s Project 100+ memory comes from Brien Datzman.  He was born in Philadelphia and raised in Maple Shade, New Jersey.  His father worked for Aetna Insurance and later at Harleyesville Insurance, inspecting buildings as part of their loss control division.  His mother worked part-time as a caterer and, later, in the cafeteria at Maple Shade High School.  Brien attended Catholic elementary school but graduated from Maple Shade High School in 1998.  He has two older sisters, one of whom attended Rutgers New Brunswick and the other Rutgers Camden.  Brien enrolled at Rowan in the Fall of 1998, graduating five years later in the Spring of 2003 with a degree in history and a minor in International Studies.  A few months after graduating, he moved to Japan as part of the Japan Exchange and Teaching Program (JET) where he was an assistant language teacher of English at a high school in town of Sasebo in Nagasaki Prefecture.  The program allowed individuals to stay for up to three years, and Brien chose to stay for all three years because he enjoyed learning Japanese and really wanted to improve his language skills before leaving.  In the middle of his third year, he took a proficiency test in Japanese and scored well.  At this point, he was invited to apply for another position within the JET program.  He took the interview, which was to be conducted entirely in Japanese, as a way to get experience with a job interview in Japanese.  However, he won the position and moved to Omura (also in Nagasaki). He now worked for a Board of Education and taught at four separate elementary schools.  During this time, he began working on a master’s degree through the University of Birmingham.  Although the University is headquartered in the United Kingdom, this was their online program in Teaching English as a Second Language (TESOL).  Halfway through his year at Omura, Nagasaki University of Foreign Studies reached out to Brien and asked him to apply for a position at the University.  He won the position and started the position in the Fall of 2008, teaching several different types of courses, including ones on American history and American culture.  While working there, he finished his master’s degree and began working an additional part-time job at the Nagasaki Atomic Bomb Museum.  In this position, he taught two courses, one for individuals who wanted to become tour guides and one for more advanced students who were seeking to become simultaneous interpreters.  He worked with many survivors during this time.  In 2013, he left his position and took a new professorship at a state-level university for one year.  The following year, in 2014, he changed jobs again, taking a position at the national-level Nagasaki University. They were opening a new School of Global Humanities and Social Sciences, and they recruited him to join the faculty.  He later entered an online doctoral program (Ed. D in TESOL) hosted by Anaheim University.  Brien thinks that it is a really great program because all the professors are fantastic educators at the top of the field.  He hopes to finish his doctorate within the next year. He continues to work at Nagasaki University, but he now teaches in an additional department, the Center for Language Studies.  He teaches English communication courses for non-English majors as well as courses for English majors, focusing on essay writing and research skills. 

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I always knew that I wanted to go to college.  I wanted to play basketball. I visited a number of schools and applied to at least two, Rowan University and Moravian University.  I didn’t apply to Rutgers, as I knew my chances of playing basketball there would be low.  Rowan was far and away the best financial option of the places that accepted me. 

I did not enter Rowan with a designated major and was undecided that first year.  I always liked reading, and I remember that I had an education course where the instructor assigned Howard Zinn’s A People’s History of the United States.  That book captivated me, and I declared as a history major.  I didn’t think too much about what I would do with the degree at the time, just knew that I liked the subject. 

At the same time, in my sophomore year, I successfully walked on to the basketball team.  I had a great time on the team, but I didn’t play that much.  I ended up leaving the team after one year because I wanted to study abroad. 

I remember the passion that the history faculty possessed for their subjects.  One of the history courses that I remember was your course on the Civil War and Reconstruction.  I really loved that course because of the great passion you had for the subject. It was easy to see how much you enjoyed teaching the course.  I remember going out and buying the Ken Burns’s The Civil War DVD collection after the course and talking about what I was learning with my father.   In fact, those conversations hooked my father, and he became a big Civil War buff, visiting some battlefields and he ended up collecting a library of books on the subject.

I also remember having Jim Heinzen for Russian history and really enjoying his course on Stalinism.  Through the texts and his lectures, he really helped us understand the people who were living through this period in Soviet history.  He could make you feel like you understood what it was like.   For example, I remember one moment where he told us how Stalin made his advisors stay up all night watching movies and drinking.  Stalin slept in, but these folks worked during the day, so it was much harder on them.  This is just one little example of his teaching, but it has stayed with me all these years.

I had David Applebaum for a world history course that I think he entitled “Combined and Uneven Development.”  I remember being completely lost in this class.  His approach was very different.  It was more of a philosophical approach.  I remember thinking about dropping the course until he told us that we could pick our own grades.  I decided to stay. I read all the books, which included Nelson Mandela’s memoir.  He was an interesting character, and the experience was memorable and enlightening. 

I also had an adjunct professor whose name I can’t remember.  He taught the history of the American West, a course which I really enjoyed.  I remembered that he used to sing songs in class.  In fact, I can actually remember him singing a Kid Rock song.  I also took Joy Wiltenburg for a European history course, perhaps a course on the Renaissance and Reformation. I had Scott Morschauser for ancient history.  I took a memorable and eye-opening course on the Middle East and the Israeli/Palestinian conflict with Cory Blake.  My Senior Seminar was on the history of prohibition in Haddonfield.

During my sophomore year, I began to consider studying abroad. I remember having a conversation with an upper-class student who had travelled to Australia.  I decided that I really wanted to do this.  However, it was going to cost some money, so I quit basketball to be able to work and save up.  I ended up going to the University of Melbourne in the Fall of 2001. I remember because I was there during 9/11.  I had never been out of the country before this, and I lived in a dorm with all international students in the middle of the city.  After 9/11, the Americans who were studying at the University became close. I even ended up visiting some of them when I returned to the States.  One of the most memorable things that happened to me while I was there was taking a class called “Exploring the Australian Landscape.”  This course became my favorite one that I took in college, even outdistancing your Civil War course Dr. Carrigan!  It required you to listen to two lectures and then to go on two trips.  The first one was a seven-day canoe trip on the Murray River in Victoria.  I remember that we had no tents, just tarps to cover our campsites.  Another thing that I remember was that each night, one person had to camp on the opposite side of the river by themselves, as a way to overcome their fears.  I found the experience terrifying and didn’t sleep very much, but I emerged exhilarated by having done it.  The second trip was a 10-day hike in Tasmania.  We had tents this time.  I had never been camping before, so these trips opened up a new world to me. I felt like a different person after the course was over and have continued to enjoy camping and hiking ever since.  I also made some really great friends during these trips.

I remember working as a research assistant for you as part of The Color Line Project. I believe that I did this through the Field Service in History course.  I can remember doing these oral history interviews and then the laborious process of transcribing the interviews.  I interviewed Robert Tucker.  He was very animated, and I enjoyed talking to him.  I can remember asking you if I should transcribe every word that he said because he often cursed.  You said to transcribe it all.  I can remember using the foot pedal to stop and start the tape playing.  I also remember going to the New Jersey State Library and Archives, my first experience doing that kind of research.  It was a great learning experience for interviewing.

After studying in Australia, I really developed the itch to travel.  During my senior year, I visited Germany with my family to celebrate the 1150^th anniversary of the founding of the village from which my mother’s ancestors came.  I loved this experience and hoped to return to Germany in the future.  So, I began exploring different ways that I could travel after graduating.  I met with Cory Blake I believe, and she told me that fellowships to study in Germany required fluency in the German language, which I did not have.  I think she recommended that I consider the JET program.  I remember that I met with Dr. Wang to talk about the program, and he recommended that I include Nagasaki as one of my preferred cities.  I ended up getting the position and travelling to Japan.  

My only goal at the time was to travel, and the JET program was a way to do that. I had no particular affinity for Japan at the time.  I love Nagasaki.  It is a really beautiful area, and I love waking up every morning and seeing the picturesque landscape around me.  I also really like the people, and I love my job teaching.  Having taught here for so many years, I am not sure I would enjoy teaching back in the United States nearly as much.

My time at Rowan University really influenced me as a classroom teacher. I have tried to emulate the passion and enthusiasm in my history classes.  I was not a great student in high school.  I just did the minimum to get by.  At Rowan, I really began to enjoy learning for its own sake. I have become a lifelong learner.

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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/