CCSU, Connecticut Explored Magazine Get Together to Focus on History

Central Connecticut State University (CCSU) and Connecticut Explored, the state’s only history magazine, have signed a memorandum of understanding that benefits both the university and the magazine, as well as public history efforts in communities across the state.

The in-kind agreement, finalized last fall, expands upon existing connections between CCSU’s History Department and the award-winning quarterly publication. It is expected to enhance opportunities for CCSU undergraduate and graduate students to fulfill internships with the non-profit magazine and participate in public history initiatives and additional community engagement projects.

The magazine, which has never had a centralized headquarters in its 20-year history, will gain an on-campus home in the CCSU History Department, facilitating opportunities to host on-campus events and forging connections with other history-related entities in Connecticut.

“The Department of History’s partnership with Connecticut Explored exemplifies Central’s commitment to advance scholarship, service-learning opportunities, and community development for the public good,” said Robert Wolff, dean of CCSU’s Ammon College of Liberal Arts and Social Sciences. “Connecticut Explored tells inclusive, nuanced stories of the state’s diverse communities that enlighten and inspire.” 

THE CCSU website points out that “studying history helps us make sense of the modern world by understanding its complex origins and uncovering the lives and choices of people both well-known and forgotten.”  On its website, Connecticut Explored notes that “Through compelling stories and intriguing images, Connecticut Explored explores the whole of the Connecticut story with the aim of revealing connections between our past, present, and future.”

Dr. Katherine A. Hermes, who was appointed executive director and publisher of Connecticut Explored last July, says that talks for the agreement began in recent years under her predecessor, founding publisher Elizabeth Normen.

As a former History professor and CCSU faculty member for 25 years, Hermes is well qualified to leverage the respective strengths, resources, and outreach of the university and the history magazine, which Hermes says share a belief in the importance of community engagement.

“I hope that this relationship allows us to dig even deeper into the history of the state in ways that matter in the community,” Hermes said.

Last October, while serving as director of “Uncovering Their History: African, African American and Native American Burials In Hartford’s Ancient Burying Ground, 1640-1815,” Dr. Hermes efforts included a website of all burials of this kind known in the city’s oldest historic site.

A tenet of CCSU’s Public History program is that public history is centered on empowering citizen historians and providing the expertise to facilitate their projects and interests.  CCSU’s History Department already serves as the home of the Witness Stones Project, an educational initiative that seeks to restore the history and honor the humanity of the enslaved individuals who helped build Connecticut’s communities.

The department also houses the Connecticut League of History Organizations, which supports historical activities and promotes best practices among museums, historical societies, and other organizations that preserve and share Connecticut’s cultural heritage.

In addition to its magazine, Connecticut Explored is the publisher of two educational books for grade-school students, “Where I Live” and “Venture Smith’s Colonial Connecticut.” The non-profit also operates CTExplored.com, which offers a free e-newsletter on history topics and events and produces a history podcast called “Grating the Nutmeg.”