This week’s Project 100+ memory comes Matthew Douthitt (’16).  He was raised in Shamong (Indian Mills) in the Pine Barrens in Burlington County.  His father was a Rowan alumnus who studied both fine arts and geography.  His father started his career with the Pinelands Commission and established their Geographic Information Systems (GIS). He retired in 2020 as the GIS Coordinator with the New Jersey Department of Agriculture. His mother held a wide variety of jobs after Matthew and his younger sister reached school age. She mostly held various administrative assistant roles in banking and related industries, retiring last year in 2025.  Matthew attended public schools and graduated from Seneca High School in nearby Tabernacle in 2011.  After graduating from high school, he thought about joining the military but eventually decided to enroll at Burlington County College at their Pemberton campus. After completing his associate’s degree in 2013, he transferred to Rowan in the fall of that year.  Three years later, he graduated from Rowan with both a bachelor’s degree and a master’s degree in history thanks to the University’s 4+1 combined degree program.  Beginning in high school and during all five years of his college experience, he worked at Murphy’s Marketplace.  After graduation, he continued working there as the night shift manager while trying to see if he wanted to pursue teaching and academics.  He began teaching World History since 1500 at Rowan as an adjunct professor in the Spring of 2017.  He later picked up additional adjunct positions at Camden County College, Cumberland County College, and at South Woods State Prison for the New Jersey Step Program through Raritan Valley Community College.  All during this time, he continued working at Murphy’s, putting in roughly 60 hours each week across his various positions.  He wasn’t bothered by the workload at the time, as he had worked similar hours while attending Rowan as a student.  He was also eager to pay off his student loans.  After much consideration, he decided that he wanted to pursue a doctorate in order to have a chance at securing a full-time position teaching at the college level.  He enrolled at Penn State in the Fall of 2019, where he received a full graduate assistantship. His research focused on early 20^th century Chinese history, an area he had become interested in at Rowan while working with Dr. Edward Wang.  The COVID-19 pandemic presented significant challenges to conducting research and traveling to China.  As a result, he shifted his project, adopting a more transnational scope to give him greater flexibility.  In the Spring of 2026, he successfully defended his dissertation entitled “Anti-Manchu Revolution:  Transnational Networks, Ethnonationalism, and the Making of the Chinese State (1903-1913).” He recently accepted a position as an Instructional Designer at the Filippelli Institute at Penn State University.

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I don’t think it would be right to say that I always loved history.  I was definitely always interested in the social sciences. Because my father was a cartographer, I was always exposed to maps, atlases, and related materials at a young age.  After 9/11 and all that happened thereafter, I became even more interested in history, political science, and related fields.  However, my path to history was certainly a slow one.  I had some good history teachers in high school who likely influenced me in subtle ways, though I did not realize it at the time. In fact, I was just an average (or maybe slightly above average) student. I often struggled with standardized tests and did not take my studies as seriously as I should have.  As I look back on my younger self, I was a bit lost. I began to find myself more in college.  I had more freedom to study what interested me. Eventually, history emerged as the subject that both interested me the most and the one for which I seemed to have some talent.

I don’t remember my parents expecting my sister or me to go to college.  They expected us to do something meaningful after graduating and to find a successful career.  Except for one great aunt, my father was the only person in my extended family who had gone to college.  My grandparents, aunts, and uncles had all been successful without getting degrees.  When I graduated high school, I was unsure of what I wanted to do and briefly considered joining the military. I applied to both Rowan and Stockton, but I was initially rejected from Rowan, possibly due to my low test scores. Though I did receive an acceptance offer from Stockton, I decided to go to Burlington County College because it was a more affordable option for me and my family.  After BCC, I decided to transfer to Rowan for two reasons.  First, because of my father’s alumni status, I was already somewhat familiar with Rowan in general. Second, my grandparents lived in Gloucester County; so, throughout my time at Rowan, I stayed at their house a couple of nights per week, which made my commute more manageable. 

Being a transfer student made my workload at Rowan very strenuous.  I had taken all the general education courses at BCC, so I mostly only had upper-level history courses to take for my major. On top of this, I eventually decided that I wanted to do the 4+1 program and complete a master’s degree in history. This added an additional four graduate classes into my senior year.  This course load, combined with my working an average of 30 hours per week at Murphy’s at night, was exhausting.  Working so many hours was much easier when I only had to balance the BCC classes. 

The first history class that I took at Rowan was Historical Methods with Kelly Duke Bryant. She was also my academic advisor, which I think was assigned by last name at the time. The course was different than any other history course that I had taken because it did not have a set subject but was focused on research skills and learning how to develop and support a thesis.  The course involved a lot of collaboration with the instructor and with my fellow students, while also giving me the opportunity to write on a topic of my own choice. It was a lot of work, but I think I really liked this independence and conducting my own research.  I can remember that my paper was on the encomienda system in colonial Spanish America, a far cry from my current research focus on modern China. Looking back, I think these experiences helped make me a more well-rounded scholar by giving me the opportunity to explore topics across different historical periods and geographic regions.

As my advisor, Dr. Duke Bryant made several important suggestions that shaped my academic studies. If I remember correctly, she suggested that I attend an information session on the 4+1 program hosted by you (Dr. William Carrigan) and Dr. Scott Morschauser in Fall 2013.  I decided soon thereafter that I wanted to complete my master’s degree at Rowan as well. She also encouraged me to share my research beyond the classroom. At her recommendation, I created a poster based on my research on the encomienda system for the Department’s President’s Day celebration, joined the Phi Alpha Theta, the history honor society, and presented a paper at the organization’s regional conference, all during Spring 2014.

The President’s Day poster session in particular stands out. I can remember being shocked that almost all the faculty came out to the event, taking an active interest in my research. It was an experience I never really had before that point. I soon found that all the faculty in the History Department were genuinely interested in my intellectual development. I believe I first met Dr. Jim Heinzen at this event, and we maintained a connection despite having no classes. Although we never had a class together, you (Dr. William Carrigan) and I had numerous interactions through the 4+1 program and at other departmental events. The fact that we developed such a relationship without ever having had a class together is powerful testimony to the quality of the mentorship in the Department.  Now that I have taught at other institutions and been at Penn State for a few years, I see even more clearly the exceptional nature of the faculty’s attention to undergraduate students. The level of interaction outside the classroom with faculty at Rowan was more akin to what one gets at a small, private liberal arts college rather than a state university.

Another fun memory I have is the end-of-the-year banquet where the Department of History honored new Phi Alpha Theta initiates, graduating seniors, and gave out their annual awards. This was a great community building moment every year, especially for folks like me who were commuters.  The end-of-the-night auction fundraiser for the Student History Association was memorable, and I still have some of your (Dr. William Carrigan) comics from the 1970s and early 1980s that I “won.”

I also presented at my first Phi Alpha Theta conference that same semester, which was hosted by George Washington University in Washington, D.C.  I remember that my fellow student presenters and I even stayed overnight thanks to some generous funding from the Student Government Association or the Dean’s Office. I presented twice more at Phi Alpha Theta during my time at Rowan, at Ursinus College and West Chester University in 2015 and 2016, respectively.  During my final year, the paper that I presented “Sacraments and Scandal: Tractarianism in the Mid-Atlantic States” won a prize at the conference’s closing ceremony. Being able to speak about my research and engage with my scholarly peers at this early stage of my undergraduate studies was an important start for my academic career.  I still have these presentations on my curriculum vitae, and I really value these experiences.

In my second semester at Rowan, I had to take three upper-level history classes. Two of those classes, Modern Japan and Modern China, were taught by Dr. Edward Wang, and they completely changed my professional trajectory. I didn’t realize it immediately, but he had set me on the path to studying Asian history, which would eventually become the focus of both my master’s degree and my doctoral studies.  I ended up taking six total classes with Dr. Wang over the next two years: four regular classes and Thesis I and Thesis II.  I didn’t take those classes with Dr. Wang because I had any preexisting interest in Asian history. I knew nothing about those histories, and I enrolled in the classes out of curiosity.  Twelve years later, however, I still vividly remember his lecture on the Taiping Rebellion, which sparked a deeper interest in China and millenarianism. Through numerous conversations with Professor Wang outside of the classroom, I eventually decided to focus my master’s thesis on Christian missionaries in China. 

Even after I graduated, Dr. Wang and I kept in regular contact, and his mentorship continued to shape my career. As I began looking for opportunities to gain teaching experience, he advocated for me and recommended my first adjunct teaching position at Rowan. With Dr. Wang’s advocacy, I was successful at landing other adjunct positions at other colleges. As a new instructor, I would also frequently ask him for advice on teaching and how to respond to certain issues that emerged.

Dr. Wang also took the time to sit down with me to discuss doctoral programs. All the universities that I applied to were ones that he suggested. My initial connection with Penn State, where I pursued my doctoral studies, was through Dr. Wang, who had co-written a book with a faculty member there. With his support and connections, I was successful in my applications. In fact, now that I know more about the discipline and understand better his connections and influence in the academy, I have come to appreciate his advice even more. He urged me to apply to several very prestigious institutions, but I declined to do so, thinking I had no chance at all. In hindsight, I think my accomplishments at Rowan both as a student and an adjunct would have made me competitive nearly anywhere. Dr. Wang was, of course, the greatest single faculty influence on me at Rowan and in my time after graduation. 

The other faculty member whose courses I took over and over was Dr. Scott Morschauser.  I took several classes with him, including Ancient Egypt and The Search for Historical Jesus.  He had tremendous influence on me as well.  I ended up doing a lot of religious history, and Dr. Morschauser’s teaching really meant a lot to me.  For most students, his most popular class was Ancient Egypt, which filled up incredibly quickly. I remember getting up at 4am to spam the refresh button on my computer in order to make sure I got into it.  However, the class of his that had the most influence on me was The Search for Historical Jesus. The course focused on questions of how we know what we know and how do we evaluate sources.  This course pushed me to do the deepest possible dive into these ancient texts. I wrote a ten-page paper on one line from the Bible.  I loved this type of thinking and research, though I know it could be frustrating for other students.  

During my senior year, my workload significantly increased as I started taking graduate-level courses while also dealing with unexpected demands at my night job. After the Ancient Egypt graduate seminar end each evening, Dr. Morschauser offered an additional free period of lessons on reading hieroglyphics to any student who was interested. At the time, I wanted to say yes to each and every opportunity that was presented to me. I quickly became overwhelmed by the workload, and Dr. Morschauser advised me not to continue with the study of the language.  Soon after, another incident happened in his The Search for Historical Jesus class. After a long night shift, I stumbled into class very late, proceeded to put my head on the desk, and slept through the remainder of class. At the end of class, he stopped me to ask if something was wrong. I was fortunate enough to have instructors that were genuinely concerned about my well-being (and that of other students).

I also had many other great faculty at Rowan.  I need to mention several classes that exposed me to historiography and really saved me during my doctoral work.  Those classes were the History of Crime with Joy Wiltenburg, Readings and Research in US History with Jayne Crowther, and Readings and Research in Global History with Edward Wang.  I hated historiography initially, but it was so important for me in the end.  At Penn State, they assumed you were familiar with postmodernism and other theoretical approaches.  Without those Rowan classes, which required that I read Michel Foucoult, Hayden White, and many others, I would have been lost. Many of my peers struggled because they had not been exposed.

My time at Rowan set me on the path to becoming a historian.  The faculty gave me the building blocks to do historical research, but they also showed me how one could combine a love of research with a love of teaching and student mentorship.  At Rowan, professors like Dr. Edward Wang, Dr. Scott Morschauser, Dr. Kelly Duke Bryant, and all my other professors (too many experiences to mention in a one interview) demonstrated that one could not only be an accomplished scholar, but also an individual who took great care and time with students. Not because it was their job, but because they enjoyed everything that comes with it. I aspire to become the kind of professor who can shape a student’s life in the way my professors at Rowan shaped mine.

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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.  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://www.rowan.edu/ric-edelman-college/departments/history/alumni/