New Jersey History Day Brings Nearly 500 Young History Enthusiasts to Campus

Rutgers University–Camden recently served as the setting for a best-in-class scholarly showcase, complete with reenactments and documentaries, for nearly 500 middle and high school participants. Hosting the regional New Jersey History Day competition, the university welcomed creative work from students that brought the past to life under this year’s national theme of “Turning Points in History.”

The purposefully broad topic inspired neighboring historical exhibits on ping pong, Apollo 11, and the atomic bomb, along with a Ruth Bader Ginsburg performance and a Hamilton-esque musical on the origin of the American Revolutionary pamphlet Common Sense by founding father Thomas Paine.

New Jersey History Day is a statewide competition open to students in grades 6-12 that allows young history enthusiasts to research a topic and present their work in one of five categories: websites, papers, exhibits, documentaries, and performances. Students also submit a process paper detailing why they were compelled to pursue their projects.

Rutgers–Camden has hosted the competition since 2017, coordinating virtual events during the pandemic. This year, 483 students from 12 New Jersey counties converged on campus to present their entries. Their works were judged by 61 Rutgers University–Camden scholars, historians, and community members, many of whom had returned from previous years and were trained to select which projects would move forward to the state competition this spring.

Andrew Shankman, Department of History chair at Rutgers–Camden, told the students their work in producing in the day’s entries mirrored what professional historians endeavor to achieve in their own scholarly pursuits. “What you're doing is what historians do: think critically about how the past shaped the present,” he said.

Many areas on campus turned into display spaces for student projects, including the Campus Center, where the Multi-Purpose Room transformed into an immersive exhibit area. Meeting rooms showcased documentaries such as “Underground Press Syndicate” and “Woodstock Nation: Peace, Love, and Politics in the Counterculture Era.” The Fine Arts Complex housed performances in the Walter K. Gordon Theater and Black Box Studio theater—among them, a production on the racially motivated killing of a Chinese American man in the 1980s and another on the musical influence of the band Queen.

Sandra Richtermeyer, executive vice chancellor and provost of Rutgers–Camden, explored the exhibit section, meeting several student participants before addressing a capacity crowd at the closing ceremony.

“It was phenomenal to see your end results—everything from technology, biographies, science, culture, warfare, tragedies, triumphs, and innovations,” Richtermeyer said. “Your engagement, creativity, and passion for history are contagious.”

Winning entries from the Rutgers–Camden regional host competition will move on to the state event in May at William Paterson University and, should they further advance, to the national competition at the University of Maryland in June. Last year, three student projects from the Rutgers–Camden competition earned prizes at nationals.

Design: Douglas Shelton
Photography: Christina Lynn