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Kaitlynn Harless always knew she wanted to earn a master’s degree in history; she just didn’t know where to attend or what topic to focus her research on. Originally from Giles County, Harless attended the University of Colorado Boulder for college where she majored in history. She “loved every minute” of her time in Colorado and says it was an exciting experience being in a larger city after spending her whole life in Giles. Her classes and being surrounded by others who loved history just as much as she did helped seal the deal that this was what she wanted to pursue. “History has always been a part of my life in some way, I’ve just always loved it,” explains Harless. After graduating in 3 years in 2018, Harless made the decision to take a few years off and live in Denver while figuring out what came next.

While projects surrounding local Kentland Farm, a former plantation, have been in motion for quite some time, Jessica Taylor’s fall 2023 First Year Experience class is hoping their efforts can create a lasting impact on preservation and build awareness of Southwest Virginia's nineteenth-century history. When it came time to assign a project for her students last fall, Taylor collaborated with professor Sam Cook, Solitude-Fraction Site director Victoria Ferguson, and many other community partners, including representatives from the Wake Forest Museum and Christiansburg Institute, Inc., to update public interpretation about Kentland and argue for its preservation.

Last spring, history major David Watkeys was selected at the department’s annual Spring Tea event as the recipient of the Environmental History Scholarship for his paper “Cold War Collateral Damage: The Navajo Nation and Ecocide of the 20th Century.”