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Spring 2020

Faculty Featurette
Rebecca Hunt
This month we had the privilege of interviewing Rebecca Hunt who is an Associate Professor in the Department of History.
You have a background in Education—what drew you into graduate work and an academic career in History? 
When I got my undergraduate degree I knew I wanted to teach. I had been teaching since I was four and trying to teach my little brother to read. Instead of ending up in a K-12 school I began a career as a museum educator. This allowed me to work with audiences of all ages and teach the way I learned best, hands-on, using artifacts. I also had the opportunity to work in creating museum exhibits and managing museum collections. After we moved to Colorado I spent a year as a museum director, getting the Adams County Museum open and running. I also consulted and worked on many projects including in Japan. My husband, Geoff and I also developed an exhibit that went to Antarctica. I consider all of this to be different forms of teaching.
Another thing about working in museums is that I got to learn how to do things like they did in the past. I can blacksmith, cook on a wood stove, knit and sew period clothing by hand. It makes a difference when you tell students not how they did things in the past, but how we do these things. I also have quite a collection of old artifacts so I can bring tangible parts of the past to my classes. Holding a thousand year old piece of pottery gives students a different experience than simply showing them a picture. 
Recently you’ve become Chair of the Public History Committee of the Western History Association—what challenges and opportunities do these responsibilities entail? 
The hardest part of this is raising funds each year for our annual reception at the conference. The best part is when we put together a really good session. In 2019 we gathered people who had collected materials from disasters like floods or shooter incidents. These artifacts document difficult parts of our history. The audience was interested in how this intersects with traditional understandings of history. Actually, using our committee to get people together to talk about diverse ways to teach western American history is the best part of this job.
In addition to your work in academia, you’re also active as a public historian.  It seems that it is more important than ever to understand who we are & how we got to this point—how do some of your current projects in public history address these issues? 
Much of my work as a public historian overlaps with my teaching. I always try to get my students out into the broader community. We do projects with museums, including our recent one helping the Brighton City Museum take new a look at their history through exhibits and programs the students developed. Outside of my teaching, I advise researchers looking into Denver neighborhood history. There has been recent interest in the role, over time, of gentrification and how that affects poor or immigrant neighborhoods. This has extended to writing and speaking on the displacement of residents of Auraria from when the state built our campus. 
I am doing a lot of talks this spring on the centennial of the 19th amendment which granted women the right to vote. My focus is the early role Colorado women had since we got the vote in 1893. This is a good time to talk about voting as we sail into what may be one of the most contested presidential elections since 1860.
You’ve been associated with CU Denver downtown since 1999—tell us some about the most important changes that you’ve observed both here at the university & also in Denver over the years. 

I think there are a few changes that stand out. One is the shift in our student population from non-traditional older students to a student body that has many more freshmen just out of high school. Another change, which I love, is the increased diversity of our students. Because I teach gender and also immigration and ethnicity, I find my classes and my life enriched by the contributions from my diverse students.
Something that has continued to get better is the role that UCDALI plays in building bridges between our administration and our IRC faculty. We have the ability to work on solutions to problems caused by a system that is inherently status unequal. Our rostered IRC faculty have more opportunities here. And more importantly we are working on greatly improving the working conditions and status of our Lecturers. When I first came to CU Denver I was “honorarium” which conveyed impermanence. For the most part, Lecturers are now more a regular part of our academic world. 
You’ll be retiring at the end of this semester—congratulations! What kinds of activities are you hoping to be able to spend more time on?
I want to spend the first day of the Fall semester lingering over my morning coffee and then read a novel. Then I need to get my neglected house in shape. After that I have three neglected manuscripts that need TLC. Geoff and I will travel and spend more time at our house on the mountain in Wyoming. Then I will see what comes next. A friend told me about third thirds. We use the first third of our lives for learning, the second third for earning and now I am going into the third, third which is for whatever I want it to be.






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