Celebrating its 10th anniversary this year is as much a mark of success for La Salle’s Graduate History program and its faculty as it is for the exceptional quality of alumni it has produced.

Graduates from the M.A. in History and M.A. in History for Educators programs have applied the knowledge and skills they acquired at La Salle in myriad ways. Many have gained acceptance into prestigious Ph.D. programs, published research in reputable journals, been appointed to academic positions in regional institutions, and taken on professional roles at well-accredited museums and historical sites.

“When we started the program, we had no idea how successful it would be, and it has stood the test of time,” said George B. Stow, Ph.D., professor and Director of La Salle’s M.A. in History program. “A principal reason for the success of our program is its unique combination of solid historical content knowledge and superbly qualified faculty members, who are both well-published scholars and outstanding teachers.”

Each of the Graduate History faculty has published numerous articles, most have published books, and many have earned international reputations as leading scholars in their fields. And they pride themselves on designing courses that provide a strong base of content knowledge along with insights for varying interpretations of that knowledge.

“What I’m most proud of is that we have been able to further and enhance the careers of our graduates in a manner of ways,” Stow said. “The program has made a difference in people’s lives.”

As the program celebrates this significant milestone, a few recent alumni shared where their careers have taken them since graduation and the difference the program has made for them both personally and professionally.

Sarah Bischoff Paulus, ’07, M.A. ’08

Sarah Bischoff Paulus, ’07, M.A. ’08, became a history major by accident. “For the most part, La Salle’s graduate history program chose me,” she said. “I realized my freshman year of college that I loved the history classes I had taken and wanted to continue studying the field.”

Stow encouraged her to enroll in graduate classes during her junior year at La Salle, and Paulus graduated with her M.A. in History one year after completing her bachelor’s degree in history. “Since graduating from the program—and I believe largely because of the program—I went on to gain admission to Rice University with a scholarship and a stipend,” she said.

After completing her Ph.D. in history at Rice in 2013, Paulus began working at her current employer, the Institute of Reading Development in Washington, D.C. She credits Stow’s Western Civilization class for igniting her passion and career. “I learned so much from La Salle’s Graduate History program, and the impact has been immense and multifaceted,” she said. “I learned to look at the past through a critical lens, always with the intention of better understanding the people and events of another time and place.”

Paulus gained a better understanding of her peers and their viewpoints through the lively and meaningful discussion her professors generated and fostered in the classroom. “The discussions that I had with all of the graduate students were fantastic—there was always a plurality of views present in the room,” she said “I learned not only how to debate ideas with others, but also how to respect and celebrate opinions different from my own.”

“My time at La Salle led to more rewarding experiences in my life and career than I can count, and I’ll always be grateful for the great fortune that placed me in Dr. Stow’s course on Western Civilization my freshman year.”

Gregg Pearson, M.A. ’08

In 2004, Gregg Pearson, M.A. ’08, was the regional vice president for a national packaging company, until he heard a radio advertisement on WXPN for La Salle’s Graduate History program that led him to completely reroute his career path.

“I was contemplating enrolling in a history program in the Philadelphia area, primarily to enhance my knowledge on the subject, but also as an outlet for intellectual curiosity untapped by my business responsibilities,” Pearson said. He was ready to make a significant change.

La Salle’s Graduate History program was the perfect fit for both Pearson’s background and his schedule, but it’s the content that inspired him most. “The content of the program equipped graduates with critical skills needed to excel in the discipline and provided a foundation for future research,” he said. “There were classes specifically geared to oral history, material culture, and visual history—the use of various media forms—to study history. The La Salle program was not just a collection of lecture classes.”

Pearson graduated in 2008 with his M.A. and stayed in the business world for another year before beginning a Ph.D. program at Lehigh University in Bethlehem, Pa. He is currently an adjunct professor at Lehigh University and expects to graduate with his Ph.D. in August 2015.

“Unquestionably, my La Salle experience has provided me the confidence, intellectual foundation, and resolution to pursue doctoral studies in history,” Pearson said. “The M.A. program at La Salle was an experience which facilitated a career transition, fostered a lifetime commitment to learning, and has been personally rewarding.”

Today, Pearson has discovered a new level of happiness and purpose in teaching. “I relish time spent lecturing in the classroom and enjoy opening the minds of undergraduates to critical analysis of themes in American history,” he said. “Without my foundational academic work at La Salle, my life may have taken a much different and less fulfilling trajectory.”

Patricia Roessner, M.A. ’07

Patricia Roessner, M.A. ’07, certainly keeps herself busy—she’s an Advanced Placement U.S. History exam reader, has served on many curriculum committees to develop new history courses at Harriton Senior High School in Lower Merion, Pa., where she works, and is also an adjunct instructor in the History Department here at La Salle.

Roessner chose La Salle for her graduate history studies because the program fit all of the criteria she was looking for in a master’s program. “La Salle is a local university with top-rated faculty, and the program was balanced with a variety of classes that represented all the major historical topics,” she said.

A social studies teacher at Harriton, Roessner found the program both challenging and rewarding and found the lessons directly applicable to what she was teaching in her classroom. “The program has added strength to my resume,” she said. “It has given me a number of professional relationships that are grounded in mutual respect and trust.”

Jason Todd, M.A. ’14

Jason Todd, M.A. ’14, works at the Science Leadership Academy, “an inquiry-driven, project-based public high school in Center City Philadelphia,” where he teaches African American history and world history to students. “My primary goal has been to design rigorous and creative projects that require students to practice the skills of the historian,” said Todd, who learned this teaching style from his history studies at La Salle.

“Academically, I was thoroughly challenged to grow as a student of history; as a teacher, the program has both energized and enriched my classroom instruction,” Todd said. “The core readings courses directly connected to the high school curriculum I teach and, thus, were extremely helpful in deepening my content knowledge. The structured thesis writing process significantly enhanced my ability to work with primary source documents—a critical historical skill.”

But it’s the personalized mentorship that attracted Todd to La Salle in the first place. The recipient of the extremely competitive James Madison Memorial Fellowship, Todd could have pursued his M.A. in history at any U.S. institution of his choosing. “A major factor in my decision was conversations I had with graduates who had recently completed the program,” he said. “Primarily, they impressed upon me the historical expertise of the professors and the personal attention they commit to their students within a small class setting. My own experience in the program loudly echoes this testimony.”

As a full-time teacher, the availability of classes on evenings and Saturdays, as well as a summer term, enabled Todd to reach graduation more quickly. In addition, the flexibility of the program allowed him to pursue his passion of studying the Constitution and civil liberties within the structure of the curriculum.

“Most importantly, the faculty and my peers at La Salle taught me how to think like a historian and inspired me to teach others to do likewise,” he said. “The hard work required by the M.A. in History program has made me a better student and teacher of history.”

Andrew Zellers-Frederick, M.A. ’10

Andrew Zellers-Frederick has had a long and storied career in the cultural museum and historical administration field, with more than 30 years of experience in fundraising, administration, and historical interpretation and research.

Zellers-Frederick served as executive director for a number of national historic landmarks in Philadelphia, including The Woodlands Trust for Historic Preservation and the Historic Woodlands Cemetery, the Masonic Library and Museum of Pennsylvania, and Historic RittenhouseTown. He also worked for the National Park Service as a historian and park ranger and as a historical guide for the Friends of Independence National Historical Park.

“I selected La Salle’s Graduate History program because of the personal attention I quickly realized I would receive after Dr. George Stow provided me with a personal tour of the campus and introductions to members of the faculty and staff,” Zellers-Frederick said. “I also knew that La Salle has very respected faculty in its History Department and that, overall, I would not be treated as a number as in other schools and programs.”

A 2010 graduate of La Salle’s M.A. in History program, Zellers-Frederick also holds a bachelor’s degree in history from Temple University and a certificate in historic preservation from Bucks County Community College.

“La Salle’s Graduate History program has introduced me to new colleagues and peers and further enhanced my career in this field by enabling me to reinterpret historical events with new knowledge and perspectives,” Zellers-Frederick said.

For the past several years, he has worked in various positions, including acting librarian for the David Library of the American Revolution in Washington Crossing, Pa., and, most recently, Director of the Historic Jamestowne Fund for The Colonial Williamsburg Foundation in Virginia. In this specially created position, he instituted and coordinated numerous programs and projects to obtain new sources of revenue for the internationally acclaimed archaeological, educational, and historical interpretive endeavors at Historic Jamestowne.

Read about some of the highlights of Zellers-Frederick’s career in “A Preservationist’s Five Most Fascinating Finds.”