This week’s Project 100+ memory comes from Greg Hopely.  He was born and raised in southern New Jersey.  He grew up in Mantua, attended public schools, and graduated from Clearview Regional High School in 2008.  His father installs fences, and his mother works in accounts payable for a steel company.  He has a younger brother who works in Student Affairs at the University of the Arts in Philadelphia.  After graduating high school, Greg went to Gloucester County College (now Rowan College of Gloucester County) because he qualified for the New Jersey STARS program, which provided free tuition to attend a state college so long as you went to a county college for your first two years.  Since he also commuted, this meant that he had few costs to get his college degree.  After earning his associate’s degree in 2010, he transferred to Rowan where he studied history and secondary education. In 2012, the Department of History named him one of the winners of a Gary Hunter scholarship.  A year later, the Department named him their “Senior of Distinction.”  He graduated in the Spring of 2013 with a perfect 4.0 GPA.  In the Fall of 2013, he began working as a long-term substitute at Voorhees Middle School.  In the Fall of 2015, he secured a permanent position teaching 6^th grade social studies.  He taught that grade until the Fall of 2023, when he began teaching 8^th grade.  In 2017, he returned to Rowan’s history department to pursue a master’s degree.  After taking all of his classes in person, he completed his thesis during the middle of the pandemic under the direction of Melissa Klapper. The thesis was entitled “Against the Classes and the Masses: the American Legion, the American Federation of Labor, and Square Deal Americanism in the 1920s.” 

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I didn’t even apply to any other college than Rowan University.  It made financial sense for me to stay at home and to take advantage of the STARS program.  Moreover, I had begun dating my future wife during my senior year of high school, and she also wanted to stay local. In fact, she and I both attended GCC together and both became teachers.  The main difference is that she became a high school math teacher and cares very little about history.  In any event, I knew that Rowan had a good reputation for training teachers. I didn’t think about it any more deeply than that. 

I have loved history since 5^th grade.  In fact, I can remember the exact moment it clicked for me.  I had a great teacher named Ms. Szymanski who had us all stand up in the front of class imitating the formation of Revolutionary war soldiers and doing some basic role playing.  In that instant, I came to realize that people in the past had feelings and thoughts and full lives. It came to life for me and I became fascinated with history right then and there. It was a simple thing, but it had a profound impact.  From that point forward, I wanted to become a history teacher.  Of course, later I would realize that my early romantic ideas about what teaching would be like were incomplete at best, but I never wavered in my career choice.

All of the professors in Rowan’s history department were great. They all approached teaching history in different ways, but they were all engaging. I loved coming to each and every history class, which is something I can’t say for every one of my other classes in college.  A big turning point for me was Scott Morschauser’s Historical Methods class.  This was a big step for me.  He was a great person to lead us through the process of becoming historical researchers.  He did so with humor and grace and was always encouraging. I undertook a fairly ambitious project for my skill level at the time, and he really helped me make it a reality. I am still proud of the paper I wrote for that class.

I had more classes with James Heinzen than any other instructor at the University.  One of the things that he did very well was to challenge one’s ideas.  You always had to be ready for him to push you intellectually, to force you to question your assumptions and to defend your conclusions. As a young, idealistic undergrad (and, if I’m being honest, even a bit as an older graduate student), I had a tendency to be a bit ideological in my thinking. Heinzen had a way of showing us that history, and life in general, is rarely so simple. I think back very fondly on my time in his courses. I also had the opportunity to do some research for one of his books. Sifting through those old Soviet newspapers was an excellent experience for me. 

I had a lot of great professors, and I can’t name them all here. I apologize for leaving anyone out. I want to say a few words about my time in Rowan’s master’s program, though. Dr. Wang’s Reading and Research I class was like academic boot camp (in a good way). It was a shock to the system at first, but I am so glad I took that course at the start of the program. I had to learn to read quickly and widely. I left that class well prepared to succeed through the rest of the program. I couldn’t be more grateful for it. I truly miss my time in my graduate classes. There is nothing quite like sitting with a small group of thoughtful, intelligent people, and doing a deep dive into historical texts and topics. I am also truly grateful for all of the guidance Dr. Melissa Klapper provided me throughout the researching and writing of my thesis. She also finally taught me how to stop writing in passive voice (better I learned it late than not at all!)

In all, the thing that I loved the most about the Department of History was that it provided a laboratory for the testing of ideas.  Each and every class was a place where one could go to examine, prod, explore, adjust, and even abandon one’s intellectual formulations.  There really aren’t that many spaces in our lives for this to happen. It’s something everyone can benefit from and it is the thing I miss the most.

The faculty of the Rowan Department of History truly are a special group. They have a way of being both the most engaging and intelligent professionals while also being among the most unpretentious, caring, and helpful people I’ve worked with. It is evident that they love what they do and want to help their students succeed in school and beyond. I try to take the same posture with my own students. What I learned in the Department influences me every single time I step in the classroom.

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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/