For Associate Professor of History Elizabeth Zanoni, spreading the gospel of experiential learning comes easy. She knows it by heart.
“As an undergraduate student majoring in American Studies, I interned at an advertising agency, a daily newspaper, and a trade association in the food industry,” said Zanoni, who today serves as director of the Monarch Humanities Internship Studio at .
Her internships ignited an interest in how newspapers and other mass media shape communities and culture, especially among immigrants —themes she would later explore thoroughly in her academic research.
She left the internships with more than inspiration.
“They taught me a lot about research and writing argumentatively and persuasively for different audiences, and I gained great professional development skills, all of which prepared me for success in graduate school and beyond.”
Today, Zanoni helps humanities students find those same formative experiences.
The new Monarch Humanities Internship Studio functions as the funding arm of the larger . Thanks to a generous Mellon Foundation grant, the studio pays undergraduate humanities students to complete internships at nonprofits and government agencies. The studio also assists students in completing the stipend requirements and works with the academy to expand internship opportunities with organizations in Hampton Roads and beyond.
Before the Monarch Humanities Internship Academy came along, Zanoni already served as internship coordinator for ’s History Department.
We asked Zanoni a handful of questions about her research, her new role and her life outside academia.
Q: What’s been your proudest moment as an internship advisor?
A: There are too many great moments to mention! But I think the knowledge that most students have indispensable “aha” moments when they do internships makes me most excited to be a part of the new Monarch Humanities Internship Academy. By that I mean students who do internships often have epiphanies about what they want to do with their degree (or what they DON’T want to do), how their humanities skills apply to specific fields and how important networking and professional development are to building a career after graduation … As an example, one former history major who did an internship at the Virginia Beach Public Library is now the Library and Archives Specialist at the Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Facility Archives and Library; another student who recently interned at the Special Collections and University Archives is now pursuing her master’s degree in Library and Information Sciences at Rutgers University.
Q: What would success look like for the Monarch Humanities Internship Academy?
A: I was thrilled to learn that was one of just five schools nationwide to receive this prestigious grant. When I first heard the news, my reaction was, wow, this could be a real gamechanger for students in the humanities by providing them new and much-needed resources to find, secure and complete internships. My hope is that, say, five years from now, all humanities students at will enter their junior or senior year excited and prepared to do an internship (or two!) in their field while working on their degree.
Q: What do you do for fun when you’re not teaching, researching or helping students get internships?
A: I have a three-year-old daughter, so most of my out-of-office time these days involves having fun with her. We pass our weekends reading books, running around playgrounds, playing with toys and making colossal messes. It’s great. I also love cooking, reading fiction, and playing soccer, and getting in as much time as possible with friends and family.
Q: As a historian, you’ve done research on sports among Jewish women in Detroit in the early 20th century, gender among international migrants and food among Italian migrants in North and South America. What’s the thread that connects these topics?
A: That’s a great question! I would say that what links these seemingly diverse topics is an interest in the immigrant experience — how immigrants and other racial and ethnic minorities form and sustain their identities and communities, often in the face of immense pressures to assimilate, as well as discriminatory policies and attitudes. I’m also interested in gender as a category of analysis, that is why and how men and women experience migration and acculturation differently. Finally, there is an international thread that runs through my research, particularly on immigrants in the U.S.; studying mobile people from a global perspective shows how immigrants inextricably connect U.S. history to other nation’s histories and how immigrants themselves live transnational lives that keep them connected to their homelands.
Q: What kind of research are you doing now?
A: I’m currently writing a book about how the commercial aviation industry shaped immigration to the United States during the Cold War. It examines how commercial airlines changed the nation demographically, as a major transporter of immigrants and refugees to the country; legally, in collaboration and contestation with the federal government; and culturally, as a leading postwar powerhouse in the realms of taste, travel and tourism.
Q: What do you enjoy most about teaching and working with students at ?
A: The best part of working at is the diversity of backgrounds, perspectives and talents students bring to the classroom. My classes are enriched through this diversity and the connections students make between their lived experiences, the course content and the larger world beyond .
Top image: Associate Professor of History Elizabeth Zanoni serves as director of the Monarch Humanities Internship Studio at . Image credit: Sam McDonald/