This week is a special entry in the Project 100+ series.  It is one of several that I hope to do with students who transferred from Rowan and graduated from another college.  I find these interviews fascinating and a window an important group of students whose stories are rarely captured, at least from the perspective of their initial college.  Yet, I have always maintained that helping students is about finding their best path forward in life, whether it is in a different major from history or even a different university altogether.  I find it remarkable that so many of these students are still in contact with faculty in our department despite transferring out.   

Today’s entry is from Sara Hubner.  She was born and raised in New Hampshire, the seventh of eight children.  Her mother was an elementary schoolteacher who graduated from Glassboro State Teacher’s College in 1941. (Sara’s niece attended Rowan and was on the swim team, so three generations studied in Glassboro.) Her father was a draftsman who earned a certificate in drafting from Rutgers University’s evening program and worked for a number of companies, including General Electric and Mack Truck.  Both of her parents were from New Jersey but relocated to New Hampshire as young adults.  Sara attended public schools and had her mother as her second and third grade teacher, which led to her sometimes calling “Mom” in class and “Mrs. Hubner” at home.  She graduated from Dover High School in 1974 and enrolled at Glassboro State College that fall.  After five semesters at GSC, she transferred to the University of New Hampshire, beginning classes there in the spring semester of 1977.  She earned her bachelor’s in history from UNH in 1978.  After graduating, she worked at a public television station at UNH.  The university offered a tuition benefit program which allowed her to get a second degree, a B.S. in environmental conservation.  For much of her working life, she worked at Ransom Environmental Consultants.  A Quaker since the 1990s, she left Ransom in 2014 to become the office manager for New England Yearly Meeting of Friends, a Quaker organization that supports sixty-one monthly meetings and several worship groups and preparative meetings in the region.  She plans to retire on September 30^th and plans to do “nothing” for a period of time, but she is sure she will garden and eventually become an active volunteer again, helping out with various Quaker projects.

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As a kid, I often played “teacher” and “school” with my siblings.  I always thought that I would become a teacher like my mother.  She died when I was 15 years old.  Although she had been sick for a long time, I had no idea that she might die from her condition.  It was a great shock to me.  I think I chose Glassboro State in part as a tribute to her, though it also certainly mattered that I had a lot of family in New Jersey.  My maternal grandparents lived in Pitman at the Methodist home, and I visited them just about every week while I was living in Glassboro.

In high school, I had a fantastic history teacher, Mr. Falcione.  I was quite interested in biology as well, and I wanted to become certified in both subjects, which Glassboro would allow me to do.  This probably was the key reason that I chose GSC over the other schools that accepted me, such as Antioch College in Yellow Springs, Ohio. 

I made a trip down to Glassboro during the summer after my senior year.  I learned then that I had not gotten a dorm assignment. They prioritized in-state students, but I ended up having a wonderful living situation as I stayed at the home of an Italian woman named Mrs. Coradetti with three other female roommates.  It felt like a family home, and she made amazing meals for us during the holidays.

I have strong memories of several of my fellow history majors, with whom I became close largely as a result of our work together in the Student History Association.  They included Dan Lynch.  He was very funny, and we had a great time, teasing each other.  Many years later, we reconnected on Facebook.  We both found out that we had crushes on each other, but neither of us ever told the other until many years later.  Another one of my really good friends was Beth Ann McCauley.  I spent so much time at her parents’ home in Palmyra that I ended up calling her parents “mom” and “dad.”  I am still friends with her parents all these years later.  Beth Ann and I took many trips into Philadelphia together to see the historic site and visit Wannamaker’s at Christmas time.  Sadly, she died of breast cancer in her 30s, a terrible tragedy.  Kerry O’ Rourke and I were good friends as well. She and Beth Ann came up to visit me in New Hampshire after I transferred. Kerry and I lost contact with each other after a while, and we only recently reconnected, thanks to my finding her Project 100 interview online.

I got to know several of the history professors not only from courses, but because I had a work-study job in the department. Dr. Robert Harper was special to me.  He was very friendly, and I loved the way he taught.  He was an iconoclast, and he loved correcting common historical misunderstandings.  He was just fun to have as a professor.  We stayed in touch after I transferred, exchanging a couple of letters.  I think I still have a paper that I wrote on Benedict Arnold for Dr. Harper.  I can still remember his comments, written in red pen, which said: “A host of errors and too few sources, A-.”

I also have fond memories of David Applebaum, a new faculty member.  He gave me advice on a paper I was writing for a contest about a pre-Revolution event that happened in New Hampshire. (It was woefully amateurish; the winner was a real academic.) I took his course on European revolutions, and I can remember that my fellow students and I would emerge from class both simultaneously excited and bewildered.  We had learned many interesting things, but some of it also went completely over our heads.  I also remember that he was having difficulties with his recontracting, probably because of his Marxist perspective on history, and he asked me to serve as a witness regarding his teaching. 

I never had Dr. Gary Hunter as my professor, but I got to know him and many other history faculty through the activities of the Student History Association and my work in the department.  We had regular meetings and a faculty advisor—Dr. Harper, I think.  I don’t remember much of what the SHA did, but we took a day trip to Washington, D.C.  In any event, I felt comfortable enough with Dr. Hunter that I wrote him a letter after I transferred asking for his help with a course on South African history.  I can’t remember what he wrote at this late date, but I do know that he took the time to reply and to offer his advice.

In the summer of 1976, GSC hosted an amazing international conference on terrorism.  Kerry was one of the main student organizers of the conference, and I am sure she had me doing various errands. I can’t remember exactly what these tasks might have been now. I didn’t have a car, but I think our friends who did were running around and transporting all these speakers.  I do remember finding the whole thing fascinating. I enjoyed sitting in on the panels and then attending a celebration banquet.  The conversations that these scholars were having over dinner just captivated me.  I don’t remember Marius Livingston, who organized the terrorism conference, very well, but I think I was there when he became sick and Sidney Kessler took over as chair of the Department.

At Glassboro State College, I spent a lot have time with faculty outside of the classroom.  They showed great interest in me and what I was doing.  This was important to me. 

I didn’t want to leave GSC. I decided to transfer simply because of costs. Tuition was going up, and this mattered quite a bit because I had to pay for the tuition myself.  Some time ago, I came across a GSC tuition bill, and if I remember rightly, it was only $300. It is hard to believe that such a bill was what made it impossible for me to afford to go to GSC anymore, but that was the case.  When I returned to New Hampshire, I lived at home, and in-state tuition at UNH was more affordable.  These savings were essential and allowed me to graduate on time, but I missed Glassboro State’s small classes.  At the University of New Hampshire, I often had large lecture classes with 100 or more students.  I didn’t make the same kinds of friends at UNH as I had at GSC.  My history advisor at UNH also never really got to know me.  Maybe it was because I hadn’t entered as a freshman, but it just didn’t feel as welcoming or friendly.   It was just not the same experience.

My time at Glassboro State College was very important to me. It gave me a sense of my own academic strengths, and it was very meaningful to me that the faculty there got to know me as a person and so obviously cared about me and what I was learning.  The experience of living on my own was also valuable to me, and I have fond memories of the friends I made at Glassboro. I am glad to have reconnected with them.

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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/