This week’s Project 100+ memory comes from Danielle Wolfrum.  She was born in Morristown and raised in Hackettstown, New Jersey.  Her father will be retired soon but, during Danielle’s early life, worked as a supervisor of technicians for a cable company that eventually became Cablevision. Her mother was a homemaker for most of Danielle’s life. Danielle has two younger sisters. After Danielle graduated from college, her mother went back to school and became an ultrasound technician. Today, she is a clinical instructor at a community college in Massachusetts where she trains others to work in the same field. Danielle attended public schools and graduated from Hackettstown High School in 2004. She entered Rowan University in the Fall of 2004, graduating four years later in the Spring of 2008 with a degree in history and a minor in international studies. She graduated during the Great Recession when jobs were hard to find. She took a job as a manager at Lilly Pulitzer, a luxury woman’s fashion retail store. She was then laid off in 2009 when her store closed as the recession deepened. She then landed a position as a travel agent at Liberty Travel in Voorhees. After a year or so, she decided to move back to northern New Jersey. There, she went back into retail, working as a manager at Eddie Bauer in Bridgewater, New Jersey. After two or so years, she enrolled in the master’s program in Museum Management at Montclair State University. While completing this degree, she had an internship at the Morris Museum. When the Museum Membership Director resigned, the Development Director offered Danielle the position. That began her ongoing career in the non-profit world. She left the Morris Museum to take a part-time position at The Center for Contemporary Art (CCA) in Bedminster, New Jersey. While at CCA, she finished her master’s degree in 2014 and the position became full-time. The position evolved over the next two years, and she became a Development Associate. In 2016, she left the art world for a Development Manager position in environmental advocacy at Raritan Headwaters. Her next job took her out of New Jersey and she moved to Easton, Pennsylvania. There, she became the Director of Development for Delaware and Lehigh National Heritage Corridor. After braving life outside of the Garden State, she returned to New Jersey in 2018, where she became Development Director at the Land Conservancy of New Jersey in Boonton. After four years, she took her current position, Director of Development at Justice Outside, a nonprofit dedicated to advancing racial justice in the outdoor and environmental movement. Her many job changes over the years have not been as much about seeking greater compensation or responsibility but as part of her quest to find a nonprofit that aligned with her passion for social justice.

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I was the first person in my family to go to college, and they impressed on me that I had no choice about getting a degree. So, from an early age, I knew that I would apply to colleges and universities in my senior year. I actually only applied to Rowan in the state of New Jersey.  I applied to several schools in New England, including the University of Vermont, the University of New Hampshire, the University of Massachusetts, and the University of Connecticut. I chose Rowan for financial reasons. I wanted to go to Vermont, but the costs were just too much for my family. I visited Rowan with my family, and we liked it. More importantly, they gave us a really good financial package. Combined with in-state tuition, the choice was clear.

The only subjects that I liked in high school were history and English. I chose history over English because of my father. He is a huge history buff, and he used to always take us to historic sites on our vacations. I think we visited Gettysburg four separate times. Another factor was that I had a great 7^th grade social studies teacher named Mr. Lynch. He was so passionate about teaching. I remember him dressing up as a Union soldier when we discussed the Civil War.  Within my friend group, no one was as interested as history as me. In any event, starting as a history major at Rowan was an easy choice.

I was not a great student when I began at Rowan. I was not prepared for college. I did not have enough self-discipline to be a good history student. It was not lack of interest, but interest was not enough for one to excel.

Adjunct faculty member John Constantino’s world history surveys really stood out to me early on in my time at Rowan. He was incredibly passionate, and I remember him literally standing on his desk to make points.  He made the subject fascinating.

I had a wonderful visiting professor named Matteo Salvadore for sub-Saharan African history.  I knew so little of that region of the world, and I just found it all so fascinating. I remember him showing us a map and teaching us the geography. It was the first time that I really “saw” Africa, even though I had seen plenty of maps of the continent in the past. I also remember studying the Rwandan genocide, of which I knew little despite it having happened in my lifetime. He was very different from Constantine, as he was quite calm in comparison. Yet, I loved his class, and he inspired a lifelong love of Africa, and I have visited Rwanda, Uganda, and Tanzania as a result.

Your Civil War and Reconstruction class was great. I loved the subject before the class, and you did not disappoint. This might be surprising to you, as you very demanding of students, and I don’t think I did very well on your exams. As I said earlier, I just didn’t have the self-discipline needed to do all that you wanted us to do. Still, I appreciated your teaching and loved being in the class. Later, I joined you for one of your field trips to Gettysburg.

One of the most important courses that I took at Rowan was actually a summer course, your Field Service in History. For this class, I wanted to do an internship in Philadelphia. You suggested National Independence Historic Park, and I split my time between the Archives division and the Living History program that included archaeological work near the site. I loved my time there, and I ended up volunteering for a year after I finished my internship. More than anything else at Rowan, this course helped chart my future career. I really did not know what one could do with a history degree until this class. It took me a while to get into the nonprofit world because of the Great Recession, but the possibility of working in this field never left me after this summer internship.

I was an Admissions Ambassador for Rowan, and I had great fun leading tours of prospective students. I enjoyed being the welcoming face of the University. I was also in a sorority, which was fun and led me to make some lifelong friends (though I am sure it did not help raise my grade point average).

I loved my time at Rowan, and I would do it all over again. I would remain a history major, and the only change I would make is that I would try to be a bit better with my time management. I am so happy I chose to go there even though it was not my first choice. The size of the campus and the student body were perfect for me. Best of all the classes were small. I would have gotten lost, I think, at some of the other places that I applied. I got to know my fellow history majors. I got to really know the faculty, and they knew me as well. This is, I think, the core of what makes me feel so fondly about my time at Rowan.

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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/