This week’s Project 100+ memory comes from Matthew Schwarz.  He was born in Toms River and lived in Barnegat until he was five years old when his family moved to Marlton, New Jersey.  His father was a salesperson who worked for different companies over the years.  His mother worked in banking, beginning as a teller, moving up to branch manager, and then retiring as internal auditor.  Matt attended public schools and graduated from Burlington County Institute of Technology (BCIT) in 2001. He had originally attended BCIT because he thought he wanted to be a chef. However, he switched in his freshmen year to the Geosciences and Remote Sensing program. He enrolled at Rowan University in the Fall of 2001, graduating in the Spring of 2005 with a history degree.  He finished his teaching certificate in December of 2005.  In January of 2006, the Glassboro Public School District hired him to teach 7^th and 8^th grade history.  He worked at the Intermediate School until Rowan purchased the building.  He now works at the Thomas E. Bowe Middle School and is completing his 19^th year in the district.  Over the years, he ran several afterschool clubs, including one called “Zeroes Are Not Permitted” and another called “Homework Helpers.”  He also coached basketball before he moved into officiating. Today, he referees high school basketball, high school lacrosse, and professional lacrosse in the National Lacrosse League (NLL).  He is happily married to Samantha, another Rowan alum whom he met long after graduating and whose degree is in psychology.  They have one dog, Lanie, and two children, Liliana, and Joshua.

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In high school, the faculty in the Geosciences program let the seniors teach the freshmen.  This experience convinced me that I wanted to be a teacher. This led me to consider Rowan University as it had a good reputation for training teachers. I applied to the College of New Jersey, Rutgers University, and Rowan University. Rutgers offered me a full scholarship, but I chose to go to Rowan. I did this even though Rowan only offered me a $1500 scholarship, meaning that I had to take out loans to attend. For many years, my mother would tease me about this decision, especially if I ever complained about my loans. The fact is that I didn’t want to attend a large university, and my experience visiting New Brunswick was off-putting, and I had no interest in attending college in Camden. Rowan’s smaller student body and suburban campus was much more to my liking.

From a young age, I always loved history, but I also had a great high school teacher at BCIT named Mr. Corn. He was the first to show me that history was more than dates and names. He explained history as a story that arose out of a series of events, decisions, and earlier actions. I found this captivating. When I was considering what I wanted to teach, history was the natural choice, and I entered Rowan as a history and secondary education major.

I was on campus for just two weeks when the 9/11 attacks occurred. That was one of the most surreal days of my life. I remember all the students running into Bozorth Hall because, at that time at least, the building had a bank of televisions that were always showing the news.  I was actually already heading into Bozorth Hall for a class, College Composition I. I was listening to music and unaware of what was happening in New York, but I knew something unusual was occurring due to all the extra students. I took out my headphones and asked what was going on. One of the students told me that a plane had flown into the World Trade Center. I remember joking that the pilot must have been drunk. Not too long later, the second plane hit, and we all knew it was no accident. I remember that I didn’t initially think it was terrorism. Instead, I suspected that Russian or Chinese paratroopers were going to start dropping out of the sky. Strangely, I went ahead and joined my 9:30am class late. When I entered, there was a television on in the class and everyone was watching. However, after a short period of time, the instructor turned off the television and said, “If anything important happens, someone will come and tell us. So, we are going to start class.”  I was then, and still am today, infuriated by this decision, even though this may have been the professor’s own way of dealing with the traumatic news. After class, we learned that the World Trade Center had collapsed, and that the Pentagon had been hit. We also heard false rumors that other planes had hit targets in Pennsylvania and in Washington. 

The University ended up cancelling evening classes, but I had a class that met at 4:30pm. It was World Regional Geography with Dr. Chet Zimolzak. He threw out his plan for the day, and we just spent the time talking about the attacks. It was an ad hoc support group, and I am glad that he did this. He gave us all the time to grieve and to help us process what was going on. While he let everyone share their feelings and reactions, he also shot down rumors when various students speculated about who might be behind the attacks. He would simply say, “we don’t know that.”  Dr. Zimolzak ended up being one of my favorite professors at Rowan. He got your attention right away by saying outrageous things. His goal was to shake us up and to encourage us to see the world as messy and complex. He referred to this as “removing our Disney-colored glasses.”  I still remember that he underlined his first lesson by discussing the mating habits of deer beginning with the line, “Bambi’s mother was a slut.”

Like Mr. Corn, the faculty in the Department of History also emphasized change over time and the reasons why various events happened one way and not another. I had courses with you, Dr. Heinzen, Dr. Klapper, Dr. Kress, Dr. Blake, Dr. Wilson, and Dr. Wang. I liked the engagement that I was able to have with the faculty. I remember arguing with you, Dr. Carrigan, in your class, United States, 1820-1861. I am not sure how we got into it, but it ended with your telling me to “go look it up and report back.”  I did, and you were right.

Outside of my classes, I worked at the Student Recreation Center as a referee for intramural games. This gave me my first experience with officiating, which I ended up really enjoying and still do today. In addition to high school basketball and youth and high school lacrosse, I work in the National Lacrosse league and have officiated three international lacrosse events, including the field lacrosse Heritage Cup twice and the box lacrosse North American Invitational (LAXNAI).  These events have involved teams from the United States, Canada, Jamaica, Israel, Chinese Taipei, and many others.

Rowan prepared me well, and I try to use what I learned in my own teaching today. The emphasis on cause-and-effect and the importance of asking questions about historical events, such as “why did this event happen at this moment and not earlier or later?”  I try to show my students that history is a tapestry that came together at times and for particular reasons. History, as I like to say, does not occur in a vacuum. I try to get my students to the “why” beyond the dates and places that history is often boiled down to. This reflects my experiences with Mr. Corn and the professors in the History Department at Rowan. The why of history is often more valuable than the rote memorization of dates, places, and people.

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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/