Campbell Tacey

Honors history major Campbell Tacey chose UMass Lowell because it was affordable and she could commute from her home in Medford, Massachusetts.

“And I liked that it was a big school with a lot of different options for majors and classes and clubs,” she says.

As a commuter, Tacey was determined to join a club right away. At the Engagement Fair after Convocation, she joined the International Relations Club and its Model United Nations team because she liked the people she met and she welcomed the opportunity to travel and learn about other cultures. She has served on the executive board and come away with multiple Model U.N. awards – and friends.

As a sophomore, Tacey joined the History Club, becoming president in her junior year. In that role, she has contributed greatly to making the History Department’s student lounge a welcoming space for students to study, do puzzles and chat with faculty, says Associate Professor Patrick Young, who calls her “a community builder.”

Tacey also excels academically. She minored in political science – her original major, before she switched to history – and American studies. She’s taken Italian for her language requirement. 

And during her senior year, she was selected for the Emerging Scholars program, which paid her $3,000 to do research with History Assistant Professor Jane Sancinito on coins used in the third century A.D. in Antioch, the third-largest city in the Roman Empire. 

It was her first experience of analyzing objects, rather than documents, for historical information, Tacey says.

“Getting to learn hands-on with an individual project was so appealing to me,” she says.

Tacey is fortunate to have several other faculty mentors, including Department Chair and Professor Christoph Strobel, who advised her on her honors thesis. A fan of modern American and European history, Tacey also did a directed study with Professor Michael Pierson on how newspapers covered the battle of Gettysburg at the scene.

Another important mentor is Associate Professor Patrick Young, who specializes in modern European history. Tacey wrote about the Women’s March on Versailles for Young’s class on the French Revolution, and Young advised her as she developed that research for her honors thesis, which compared the March on Versailles to the “bread riots” organized by Southern women during the American Civil War. 

Tacey also took courses from Young on fascism, the history of consumer culture, and European immigration and assimilation.

“There’s no other professor I’ve taken four classes in a row from, and I’m sure I’d be taking more with him except that I’m graduating,” she says.

After graduating with honors, Tacey will still be commuting – this time to Tufts University, where she will pursue a master’s degree in history and then take the MTELs, the teaching exams for Massachusetts. 

Then it will be her turn to be a teacher. Tacey says she’s had great role models – and a great experience all around in the History Department and at UMass Lowell.

“Relationships with faculty and friends have been great, as has the opportunity to learn in small classes where you can get to know your classmates and professors really well, and the opportunity to pursue research and to get involved with other students,” she says.