Middle School Teacher Earns History Award From The College of New Jersey

A coalition of New Jersey organizations has awarded the 2012 Paul A. Stellhorn Undergraduate New Jersey History Award to a pair of recent graduates of The College of New Jersey: 

• Trevor J. McLaughlin of West Caldwell, for his seminar paper titled, “A View from the Chalkboard:  Trenton School Desegregation and the Struggle of Black Teachers in the Pre-Brown era, 1944-1954.”  
• Lauren A. Wells of Kendall Park, for her senior thesis titled, “The Early Roots of School Desegregation: Hedgepath-Williams, Trenton, and the History BehindBrown v. Board of Education, 1943-1954.” 

The Stellhorn Award recognizes outstanding undergraduate writing about New Jersey’s history. It commemorates the late historian of 20th century and urban New Jersey who did much during his career to promote the study of the state’s history, especially by younger scholars.

The Stellhorn Award’s sponsors: the New Jersey Studies Academic Alliance ● New Jersey Historical Commission, New Jersey Department of State ● Special Collections and University Archives, Rutgers University Libraries ● New Jersey Caucus, Mid-Atlantic Regional Archives Conference ● New Jersey Council for History Education.

The 2012 Paul A. Stellhorn New Jersey History Award

Trevor J. McLaughlin, of West Caldwell, New Jersey, is an eighth-grade social studies teacher at the Grover Cleveland Middle School in Caldwell. He is the recipient of the 2012 Paul A. Stellhorn Undergraduate New Jersey History Award in the term/seminar paper category. Professor Robert McGreevey of The College of New Jersey nominated him for the award for his seminar paper titled, “A View from the Chalkboard:  Trenton School Desegregation and the Struggle of Black Teachers in the Pre-Brown era, 1944-1954.”  Professor McGreevey nominated Mr. McLaughlin’s paper for “its sophisticated analysis, strong narrative, and extensive use of primary and secondary sources.  He quoted Mr. McLaughlin’s assessment of the paradox his work addressed:  “Black teachers faced unexpected hardships when segregated schools began closing on a state level.  Desegregation was the buzzword for the day among education advocates following WWII, but integration was contested when white students, parents, and faculty resisted occupying the same public space as their black counterparts.”

Mr. McLaughlin graduated summa cum laude from TCNJ in May 2012, with a BA degree in history and secondary education.  In the spring of 2012, he was inducted into the Delta Chapter(New Jersey)  of Phi Beta Kappa in 2012, and received the Bernice Samalonis Scholarship of the Middle States Council for the Social Studies, which is awarded to two pre-service teachers in an open competition among undergraduates from New Jersey, Pennsylvania, New York, Delaware, Maryland, and Washington, D.C.  Also in 2012 he received two awards from the TCNJ Department of History:  the J.P. Karras Leadership in History Award and the History Department Academic Achievement Award.  His paper that won the Stellhorn Award also won the TCNJ History Department’s yearly award for the best research paper written by a junior history major and has been accepted for publication in the TCNJ Journal of Student Scholarship.