This week’s Project 100+ memory comes from Cristine Sanchez Mason.  She was born in Mt. Holly and raised in Cherry Hill and Winslow.  Until his retirement, her father installed and repaired gas pipelines in Camden County for Public Service Electric and Gas (PSE&G).  Her mother was a legal secretary who just recently retired.  Her sister attended Farleigh Dickinson and now works at Temple Medicine.  Cristine attended public schools and graduated from Edgewood High School in 2001.  After finishing her degree in history and secondary education at Rowan University in 2005, she got a position teaching social studies at Oakcrest High School.  The next year she took a position at her former high school, by then called Winslow High School, and taught social studies while sharing a room with fellow Rowan alum, Chris Cuneo.  She then took a job for Source for Teachers, a for-profit company that helped schools locate teachers, especially for short and long-term substitute teaching positions.  After two years, she took a job as a Program Assistant for Construction Management at Drexel University.  During her four years at Drexel, she moved up to an Academic Advising position.  In 2010, she completed her master’s degree at Rowan in Counseling and Education Settings.  In 2012, fellow Rowan history alum Chris Fields hired Christine as an Enrollment Counselor for the College of Graduate and Continuing Education.  In 2014, she became the advisor for Secondary Education.  Since 2017, she has been the advisor for Mathematics, Data Science, and Physics. 

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I always liked school, and I always expected to go to college.  I applied to a variety of places and almost went to the College of New Jersey, which offered me a full scholarship. However, I preferred the education program at Rowan, and so I decided to go there.  History was my favorite subject in high school, and I had long been told that I should be a teacher.  So, my choice of major was relatively easy.  My friends didn’t like history nearly as much as I did.  I can remember watching the Ken Burns Civil War documentary when I was in high school and really enjoying it.  I can’t remember any of my friends watching it at all.

I had a memorable first two weeks on campus.  I went to my first history course, which was with you, Dr. Carrigan. However, I instantly believed that I had Advanced Placement credit for the course. So, I went to see the chairperson, Dr. Edward Wang. At first, he wanted me to take his course, an upper-level class on Asian history.  That terrified me, so he soon shifted gears.  He saw Scott Morschauser in the hallway and asked if Scott had room in his class.  He said yes, and Dr. Wang said, “Good, please add this student.”  I went with Dr. Morschauser and asked him what course he taught.  He said, “Western Civilization.”  I was relieved and signed up for his class.  Later, I think this episode helped convince me of the value of academic advising. 

The second week of classes was 9/11.  On that Tuesday, I had Dr. Morschauser at 8am in Savitz Hall.  On the way out of class, I remember passing by the front desk in Savitz and seeing no one there.  I peered in and saw them all gathered around a radio in the back of the room.  I had no idea what was going on, but I knew something unusual was happening.  I went back to my dormitory, and my roommate was still sleeping.  The phone rang, and it was my roommate’s mother.  She told me to turn on the television and to wake up my roommate as her father worked in a building across the river from the World Trade Center.  We were both watching when the second plane crashed into the building.  It was a crazy day, but we both went to class as normal.  At that time, there was no email or text to alert you that classes were cancelled.  You had to physically go to the classroom, where there might be a posted note.  As far as I can remember, all of my faculty continued to have class, even though some of them just turned on the television, and we talked about what was happening.

I had taken Latin for four years in high school, so I was predisposed to like ancient history.  So, it was no surprise that I loved Dr. Morschauser’s class that first semester.  I ended up taking several classes with him before I graduated, including Ancient Mediterranean World, The Search for the Historical Jesus, and Ancient Rome.  He was a traditional lecturer, but I enjoyed that format.  His knowledge was astounding.  I was so impressed with his language skills, as he routinely wrote words in different ancient languages on the board. I can remember him bringing in a birthday cake with hieroglyphics.  I think it was for Cleopatra’s birthday.  As a senior, I can remember asking to meet with him.  I intended to ask him for a letter of recommendation, but I was with my fiancée, Thomas Mason, a fellow history major.  When I told him that I hoped he could give me a letter of recommendation, he said, “Oh, I thought you were going to ask for something else, for me to officiate your wedding!”  He was an ordained minister, and it would have been very cool for him to have done that, but we went with Thomas’s uncle who also presided over weddings.

I had Melissa Klapper for Historical Methods, and I wrote a paper on the Chicago White Sox scandal.  I took Senior Seminar with Corinne Blake and wrote a paper on the Aswan Dam in Egypt, using sources I found at the University of Pennsylvania.  It was my only course with Dr. Blake, but I really enjoyed having her.  She remembered me and my paper even after I returned to Rowan and began working on campus.  I also had Dr. Heinzen for two classes in my senior year.  I never took any United States history courses. 

I was in Phi Alpha Theta and remembering attending meetings and helping to organize the year-end banquet.  I worked in the Bursar’s Office on campus, which I loved because the job was easy and the people were so nice.  After I qualified with 60 total credits, I did a lot of substitute teaching.  I took a job at Home Depot in my sophomore year and worked there even after I graduated.  I didn’t leave that job until I started at Drexel. 

I did my student teaching at Eastern High School in Voorhees.  I taught sociology and United States history.  It was an eye-opening experience.  There was so much to do, and it took so long to teach certain topics.  This was the beginning of my slowly realizing that I didn’t really want to be a teacher, a field that I would leave full-time a few years later.  I enjoyed some of it, but it was exhausting to be performing all day long.  I enjoyed working one-on-one with students, which helped push me to advising later in my career.  Today, I teach as an adjunct faculty member in the Department of Psychology, and I quite enjoy this experience.

I loved my time at Rowan.  I made a lot of great friends.  There are many history majors from my time who ended up working at Rowan like Bob Bullard, Sean Fischer, Mike Schillo, and Chris Fields.  I enjoyed the different teaching styles in my history courses, from Dr. Morschauser’s lecture style to more discussion-oriented approaches.  I always brag to my colleagues about how great an experience I had in the Department of History. 

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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_highlights/project_100/