Home » History Major » What Do I Do with a History Degree?

Who Are We?

Department Staff:
Jeffrey Bayliss, Dept. Chair
Gigi St. Peter, Admin. Assistant
Blog Editors:
Brendan W. Clark ’21
Prof. Sean Cocco
Prof. Seth Markle
Prof. Luis Figueroa-Martínez
Campus Address:
Seabury Hall T–127
Postal Address:
History Department
Trinity College
300 Summit Street
Hartford, CT 06106
Telephone & Fax:
Phone: (860) 297.2397
Fax: (860) 297.5111

What Do I Do with a History Degree?

After graduating with a degree in History from Trinity College, our alumni have distinguished themselves in many extraordinary careers and life experiences in the U.S. and abroad. Below is only a brief list of Trinity History Department majors and their work during the last 50 years, including careers at the highest levels of academic administration, journalism, historical research and teaching, law, finance, banking, public relations, social work, real estate development, and U.S. government service, nationally and internationally. The life experiences of the Trinity History alumni illustrates that with this major you can do just about anything!

Charles H. McGill III ´63: He earned an MBA from the Tuck School at Dartmouth College, and is a nationally recognized expert in mergers and acquisitions, corporate strategic planning, restructuring, and negotiating.  He has significant industry experience in consumer products, restaurants and food service, and information services. He also served as a Lieutenant in the US Navy Supply Corps.

Paul E. Raether ’68: Former President of the Board of Trustees of Trinity College, with a distinguished career in U.S. finance and business. He oversees Kohlberg. Kravis, Roberts, & Co. three regional Portfolio Management Committees. He also serves as a member of the North American Private Equity Investment Committee. He served as an officer in the U.S. Navy.

Phillip Khoury, ’71: Dean of the MIT School of Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences. During his deanship, he helped to maintain the national leadership of his school’s doctoral programs, introduced new master’s programs in Comparative Media Studies and Science Writing. He left the dean’s office in 2006 to become Associate Provost responsible for overseeing MIT’s non-curricular arts programs and initiatives, including the MIT Museum and the List Visual Arts Center. He has served as a Trinity College Trustee.

Maud Hecker Purcell, ’72: Maud earned a Master’s degree in Social Work, is the founder and Executive Director of The Life Solution of Darien is and is Psychotherapist & Consultant. The mission of The Life Solution is providing collaborative community education, prevention, and multi-disciplinary answers to life’s problems. Its mission is to help people through life’s transitions by providing a network of professionals under one roof who are specially trained to address the whole person in multiple facets of his or her life.

Livia DeFilippis Barndollar, ’78: Graduated from New York University School of Law and Villanova University School of Law. Ms. DeFilippis is a Partner at DeFilippis Barndollar Law, LLC in Westport, Connecticut. She practices exclusively family law, representing parties and sometimes children in dissolution of marriage cases and some post judgment and appellate work. She has been Past President of the Connecticut Bar Association, a delegate to the American Bar Association, former director of the New England Bar Association, a Life Fellow of the Connecticut Bar Foundation and an editor of the Family Advocate, a quarterly publication of the ABA Family Law Section.

Faraj Saghri, ’81: Faraj Saghri has been with J.P. Morgan for 25 years and is a Region Head and a member of the U.S. Private Bank’s Operating Committee. He founded and currently manages the Private Bank’s Financial Sponsor Group. The Group provides wealth management advice to partners in the private equity industry. Faraj joined J.P. Morgan’s heritage institution, Manufacturers Hanover Trust

Shawn Wooden, ’91: Currently an Attorney with Day, Berry & Howard in Harford. Shawn did stints as the Connecticut State Director of Project Vote, a Washington, D.C.-based, nonpartisan voter-registration initiative, and as executive assistant to the Connecticut Commissioner of the Department of Social Services before heading to New York University to earn his law degree.

Deborah G.  Brown ’93: A Public Relations expert, Ms. Brown has been passionate about giving back to the community and has worked for many organizations including the Dallas Symphony Orchestra League, Dallas Museum of Art League, and the Dallas Theater Center Guild. In 2008 she won the North Stars award for her community contributions and in 2009 received the Service Award from the Women’s Council of the Dallas Arboretum for her communications work.

Anne-Marie Barlick, ’98: Chief Executive Officer, Codina Partners, the Coral Gables, a Florida real estate investment and development firm. A civic leader, Codina Barlick served as president of the Miami City Ballet from 2009 to 2011 and continues to serve as the ballet company’s chairperson. She also holds a master’s degree in business administration from MIT’s Sloan School of Management.

Virginia W. Lacefield ’00: Currently an Academic Technology Specialist and Student Talent Manager with the Academic Technology Group at the University of Kentucky. Her primary areas of interest are human-technology interaction and computer-mediated communication, particularly in relation to instructional technology and online community development. A current project examines user experience and learning outcomes associated with the use of collaborative digital textbooks and adaptive learning systems.

Albert Evans III ’05:  A military attorney with the United States Marine Corps after earning earned law degree from Mercer and the University of  Virginia School of Law.  Says Evans: “Everyone thinks that the military is for people without other career options and full of conservatives. Some of the best people and thinkers I have met in my life are in or have served in the Marine Corps with me. Many of those who serve go on to graduate level schools or high level jobs using their military service as a spring board.”

Meghan Bourke ’06:  Investment Director at Legal and General Investment Management America, Senior Distribution Associate at Legal and General Investment. LGIMA was founded in 2006 and specializes in fixed income, liability driven investment (LDI) solutions and index capabilities for the US institutional market. We offer a range of strategies to help our clients manage their investment objectives including investment grade fixed income, which can range from market-based alpha-oriented strategies to those that are designed to be more liability-centric, derivative overlays, or indexed solutions. She earned her MBA from Loyola University of Chicago, Graduate School of Business.

Allison Horrocks, ’09: While a PhD student in History at the University  of Connecticut, Allison is currently working as a public historian in the Blackstone River Valley in Warwick, Rhode Island, this after working for the Newport Historical Society, Mystic Seaport, and the Preservation Society of Newport County since graduating. She enjoys house museums, desserts, and procedural dramas. For Allison, “I know that the rigorous academic training at Trinity has helped me in my graduate work. The germ of my thesis came from a junior seminar.

Nicholas Hamilton, ’10: Is currently Marketing Director with Reality Tours & Travel, which mostly organizes tours in Mumbai, India. The concept behind Reality Tours was originally inspired by the favela tours in Brazil, grounded in walking tours to  raise awareness about life in slums and simultaneously raise funds for local community projects. In 2012, Reality Tours & Travel’s efforts were recognized and it was chosen as the overall winners of the Responsible Tourism Awards. The operation was “encouraged us to expand our model of sustainable development.”

Mollie Scheerer, ’14: Is Senior Projects Manager and Gallery, and previously Project Administrator with Boston Art Inc., which is a full service art consulting firm that specializes in planning, designing and delivering custom art programs for corporate, healthcare, hospitality and residential clients. For her senior history thesis Mollie worked on the Classic Maya Civilization in Honduras, in Central America and traveled there for research funded by the department’s Leroy ’10 Research Fund.