This week’s Project 100+ memory comes from James Lamond.  He was born in Pompton Plains and was raised there, Wayne, and East Brunswick.  His father worked in a lumber yard and later residential remodeling.  His mother was primarily a stay-at-home mom and worked odd jobs while raising James, his older sister (now an attorney) and a younger brother (who joined the remodeling business with his father).  Later in life, James’s mother became involved in local politics and won an election to serve on the East Brunswick School Board.  James attended and graduated from East Brunswick High School in 2001.  He enrolled at Rowan University in the Fall of 2001, graduating four years later in 2005 with a history major and an international studies concentration.  He had pondered both law school and graduate school, but he ended up choosing to enroll in the Masters of Science in Global Affairs at Rutgers University in Newark.  While enrolled in that program, he spent a year in Germany.  While he was there, he met his wife, a French citizen also studying in Germany.  After completing his degree, he moved to Washington to complete an internship at the Center for American Progress.  He remembers that time fondly due to the excitement of the 2008 election.  After a period of time travelling and doing temporary positions, he landed a position at the National Security Network.  Originally, it was to be just a three-month appointment, but it turned into a full-time job.  He eventually became the Policy and Research Director.  He left that position to work at a consulting firm for three years before returning to work for the Center for American Progress.  There, he set up the Moscow Project, which examined Russian interference in the 2016 election.  He then moved on to the Center for European Policy Analysis where he became Director of the Democratic Resilience program.  He remains a non-Resident Senior Fellow at this Center, but he now is Executive Director of Trusted Future, a technology policy focused think tank and a Senior Vice President at New Paradigm, a Washington-based consulting firm.  Over the last decade, he has also served as a foreign policy consultant for three presidential campaigns.

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I applied to four colleges and got into all of them.  I was not planning on attending Rowan.  I attended the orientation at another University, but it did not feel right.  So, I called up Rowan to see if they would still honor my admission, even though it was now not long before the semester was due to begin.  They accepted me without problem.  I was not certain what I wanted to do, but I knew I wanted to be a history major.  I had always loved history and that was the simple reason I chose that major. 

I had not been a great student in high school, not horrible but not great.  During my first year, that pattern continued. The course that changed everything was Dr. Heinzen’s class on Russian history since 1917.  It woke up the academic part of me.  The subject matter was fascinating to me, and that fascination has remained with me all these years later and is foundational to my professional life.  His teaching so engaged me that I began to apply myself fully for the first time.  Once I did, I found that I was actually pretty good at this work, and that only fueled my interest.  I soon found myself caring more about my other classes as well, now that I saw what one could gain from reading, research, and studying.

One other class from the History Department that I really enjoyed was Historical Methods, also with Dr. Heinzen.  I found the process of doing historical research to be so enthralling that I considered applying for doctoral programs in history.  I remember discussing the potential of going to graduate school with David Applebaum after a provocative lecture he gave on the French Revolution.

I also really enjoyed a course on African history with Chima Korieh.  When I began at Rowan, I had very little exposure to the world beyond New Jersey.  Dr. Korieh’s class really contributed to my growing fascination with global politics and history.  It was a different angle than I got in most of my other classes.  I remember my final paper was on the impact of World War II on sparking decolonization movements.

One funny story is that I got stuck taking “History of the American Suburbs.”  I didn’t want to take it, as it sounded boring, but it turned out to be an absolutely amazing class with Walter Greason who had been hired as a visiting professor to replace Gary Hunter.  He was an amazing professor. The subject matter was fascinating.  In his hands, I saw how vital urban and suburban planning were to our political and social history.  He had great class projects, including having us play a game called “Rat Race.”  He was very innovative.  For example, after the class was over, he created a website using the top papers from that class.  When mine was selected, I had a type of “publication,” which was very cool for an undergraduate.

I took several classes with Dr. Kress, not only his survey course on United States history but also his class on World War II.  He was a great lecturer.  He was incredibly knowledgeable and always had great stories that added depth to the subject.  I remember one day when he was describing the “ideas” of World War II.  He explained capitalism, communism, and fascism in the most positive light, as they would have been described by their supporters. I remember that students were nodding and taking notes and not really reacting.  He then exploded after he finished describing fascism, asking us why we were simply nodding along to this defense of fascism.  That moment sticks with me all these years later.

Dr. Morschauser’s Seminar class was focused on the religious history of the United States.  He was a great teacher, both wonderful as a lecturer and as a guide on doing research.  My paper was on the Scopes Trial.

I never had any intention of being a teacher, which allowed me to take many electives outside of the History Department.  I took a great course on the history of Native Americans and several other Anthropology courses.  I took multiple courses in Political Science, including International Relations and Larry Butler’s History of the American Presidency.

My four years at Rowan were very important to me.  When I began, I had no idea what I wanted to do.  My goal was simply to graduate and to get a job that did not require manual labor.  At Rowan, I found that I had qualities and potential that I did not even know that I had when I began.  I truly discovered who I was.  I not only learned about the larger world but also about the many types of careers that I might be able to go down.  All of it was eye-opening to me. 

As I look back at Rowan now, I realize that I was lucky.  I never had a teaching assistant.  I had small classes where the professors always knew my name.  Moreover, I got to spend much personal time outside of class with professors who were not only great teachers but also active scholars who were publishing books, conducting archival research, and were respected in the field.  In a way this demystified how research was done and put a seed in my mind that I might be able to do similar research in the future.  As I learned later from interactions with colleagues who went to different colleges, this was not always their experience.

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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/