Today’s Project 100 memory comes from Valerie Buickerood.  She was born and raised in Brooklyn, New York.  Her father was a bartender (who had previously been a police officer).  Her mother was a bookkeeper.  She has two older brothers and an older sister.  She went to Catholic schools in Brooklyn.  After she finished eighth grade, her family moved to Old Bridge in Middlesex County, New Jersey.  In 1977, she graduated from Cedar Ridge High School.  Although she hoped to attend college, her family’s financial situation required that she get into the work force as soon as possible.  So, upon graduation, she enrolled in a ten-month program at Plainfield’s Nancy Taylor Business Institute, a technical school where she learned secretarial skills.  She soon got a job as a secretary for a waste management company that had ties to the mafia.  She left that job for another secretarial position and was later was deposed by government lawyers after a raid on the company took place shortly after she left.  Her subsequent positions were not as interesting thankfully, and she soon moved into a sales career.  During this time, she and her husband moved to southern New Jersey.  After six years in sales, she had her first child and left the workforce.  As part of this change, she was also able to return to her dream of going to college.  In 1990, she began taking courses at night at Burlington County College (BCC).  She began just taking general education courses, one at a time at night.  She thought she wanted to be a teacher.  The courses that interested her the most were in history.  One particularly important professor at BCC presented history in a way that was very new to her.  He emphasized history as a field that required interpretation and analysis instead of history as a mere recitation of dates and events.  Moreover, he engaged students in conversation outside of the classroom.  He convinced Valerie to study history in greater depth, and she applied to Rowan University as a history and secondary education major.  Although it was slow going while raising her children and managing her home as her husband traveled for business, she finally earned her Associate’s degree from BCC and began at Rowan in the Fall of 1999.  After graduating in 2002 with a history degree, she spent a year doing part-time work and thinking about what she wanted to do long-term.  She had given up on teaching public school as a career while at Rowan.  She decided to pursue a doctorate in history and began that program with a scholarship at Temple University in the Fall of 2005.  However, after two years at Temple, she decided that she would leave the program.  It was a tough decision as she loved learning history, but she did not love the hyper-critical nature of the doctoral program.  The other factor was the social atmosphere.  It was a tense, competitive environment that was emotionally draining for all those enrolled.  Unlike her fellow students who were younger and usually single, she had a family that added extra responsibilities and strains.  Although she appreciates her time at Temple, she believes it was the right decision to leave.  She took a position at the Alice Paul Institute (API), a nonprofit located at a national historic site and dedicated to promoting girls’ leadership through the lens of history.  As an Administrative Director and, later, the Executive Director at API, she did a little bit of everything, including teaching, grant writing, and fundraising.  She learned that a career in the nonprofit sector was right for her and after five years at API, she went on to be the chief fundraiser for two different community and youth development organizations.  In 2021, she retired from full-time work and became a part-time consultant for small nonprofits seeking to improve their fundraising programs.  In 2018, she joined Impact100 South Jersey, a philanthropic group of women who make transformative grant funds to nonprofits in southern New Jersey through collective giving. Impact100’s model is that each member donates $1000 annually and each year the chapter offers at least one $100,000 grant and additional grants depending on the number of members they have acquired.  After retiring, she increased her role with this group, joining the Board in 2022 and serving on 2 committees to help expand the organization's outreach.

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I considered transferring to three state colleges when I finished my Associate’s degree at Burlington County College.  I chose Rowan University over Rutgers-Camden and The College of New Jersey (TCNJ) because Rowan seemed to be on a growth path.  I had some concerns about Camden at that time, and I thought TCNJ seemed smaller and perhaps less dynamic.  I also recall that I had a professor who recommended Rowan over TCNJ. 

The faculty in the History Department were amazing.  They made me feel valued as a student.  Every class that I took at Rowan was fascinating.  The classes were challenging but rewarding.  My very first semester at Rowan I had Cory Blake for Arab-Israeli Conflict and Islamic Civilization.  I knew nothing about the Middle East beyond some small snippets from the news.  These classes were a revelation.  I loved learning about how this past had shaped so much of our contemporary world.  I came away with such an improved understanding of the modern world.  My second semester I had you, Bill, for Historical Methods, which was the hardest class that I ever took.  At the end of that course, I felt really good about myself.  The comments you made on my papers and the in-person feedback really gave me confidence.  The course certainly helped me to do well in my subsequent history classes as my ability to interpret and write improved significantly.  Jim Heinzen’s classes were fantastic.  I knew nothing about Russian history, so I gained again great knowledge of an incredibly important part of the world about which I knew far too little.  On top of that, I loved his dry humor and his overall lecturing style.  I also took two classes with Janet Lindman.  The first was a course on early American history, whose content was not as novel to me as some of the other classes but was presented in a much more interesting and compelling way than what I had learned in high school.  I enjoyed taking Senior Seminar with her even more, as she both gave me great flexibility on my paper topic while also providing me with excellent mentorship and advice.  My paper focused on women in rock and roll music in the 1960s and 1970s and how they reflected the women’s movement in that era.  I really enjoyed my other history classes as well, though I did not have any other professors for more than a single class.  Dr. Edward Wang’s Modern China course stands out, however, as it opened my eyes to a part of the world that I knew only dimly.

I didn’t have time for many extracurricular activities at Rowan, but I was involved in Phi Alpha Theta.  My service as an officer in that organization gave me the opportunity to connect with my peers outside of the classroom, something that was not easy to do as I still had my family obligations.  Even more important for me was that Phi Alpha Theta gave me the chance to present my research at the organization’s Spring regional conferences.  My first presentation took place at Kutztown College in Pennsylvania.  My paper was about the influence of Christianity on capitalism, which I wrote for Joy Wiltenburg’s Renaissance and Reformation class.  My second presentation was at Caldwell College in New Jersey and was written for your Civil War and Reconstruction class. That paper was titled Free Labor - Cheap Labor and was an examination of the motives behind the anti-slavery movement in the industrializing north.  I won prizes for both papers, which made me feel quite good about my work, as did my being bestowed the Marius Livingston Scholarship and the Department’s Medallion Award in my senior year.

I also enjoyed my internship where I was a research assistant for Dr. Dianne Ashton. I helped her by researching 19th century periodicals for her book on the history of Chanukah in America. Dr. Ashton was wonderful to work with and I felt very appreciated for my contributions. It was an experience that greatly helped me in graduate courses and the very first time I was acknowledged in a scholarly book!

Rowan really encouraged me to pursue knowledge in a way that I had not earlier.  It helped me view the world and its people in a different way.  It broadened my perspective and made me less judgmental and has influenced me personally and professionally since graduating.

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This is part of the Department of History’s “Project 100,” the collection and sharing of one hundred memories by Glassboro State College and Rowan University alumni and staff in celebration of the 100^th anniversary of the founding of Glassboro Normal School, later Glassboro State College, and now Rowan University.  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 entries on the Web:  https://chss.rowan.edu/departments/history/alumni_highlights/project_100/