Jenna Pittman has enjoyed the best of both worlds as a history and education double major.
Pittman, who is scheduled to graduate in May, continues to fuel her passion for history while also developing the invaluable methods and classroom experience as a scholar in the Judith Herb College of Education.
Jenna Pittman poses for a photo in Berlin. In April, she was awarded a highly competitive USR-CAP grant that allowed her to conduct primary source research for her senior history honors thesis in the German Federal Archives.
A graduate of Dundee High School in Dundee, Mich., Pittman recently studied in Lueneburg, Germany from May to August 2023 through the United Studies Abroad Consortium (USAC) partnership at UToledo. She is the first student to participate in this program since 2017.
In April, Pittman also was awarded a highly competitive USR-CAP grant (UToledo summer undergraduate research grant) that allowed her to conduct primary source research for her senior history honors thesis in the German Federal Archives (Bundesarchiv) in Berlin.
Dr. Barry Jackisch, an associate professor of history in the College of Arts and Letters, is directing Pittman’s honors thesis, which she will complete this this semester. The working title of her thesis is “Echoes of Freedom: Bruce Springsteen’s 1988 Concert in East Berlin and its Impact on the Social and Political Climate of the GDR.”
“I am very grateful to be working with the UToledo Office of Undergraduate Research this past summer and being given the opportunity to continue my research while studying in Germany,” she said. “For about a year, I have been working with Dr. Barry Jackisch on the political and social implications of a concert that Bruce Springsteen played in East Berlin in 1988; just a year and a half before the Berlin Wall fell. As I continued to learn about the concert, it became apparent that most of the crucial primary documents related to the event are only available for use at the German Federal Archives in Berlin.
“Receiving the summer research grant has allowed me the opportunity to access information that provides a new insight into my topic,” Pittman added. “I am very thankful for all of the support that UToledo has provided, as well as Dr. Jackisch’s mentorship over the past year.”
Jackisch said she will someday make an outstanding university teaching professor.
“As Jenna Pittman’s faculty mentor for her multi-semester undergraduate history honors thesis, I have been very impressed with her work ethic and intellectual curiosity in the topic of music and popular culture in Communist East Germany,” Jackisch said. “Jenna grasped the initiative earlier this year, and applied for and received a competitive UToledo undergraduate research grant, which she used this summer to examine and copy sources relevant to her topic in the German Federal Archives in Berlin.
“She is a promising historian, a well-trained teacher and it has been a real pleasure to work with her.”
