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Coming from the land of cheese, I broke the mold and stayed in my hometown to get a B.A. in German and International Studies from the University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point. The plan was to study, play softball, travel, ride my bike in Europe and eventually study abroad. In the Summer of 1988, I studied German in Greifswald, East Germany, and the following year I participated in the UWSP Semester in Poland in the Fall of 1989. (Yes, I was there when the Berlin Wall came down!)
Before starting graduate school at the University of Kansas, I completed a three-week bike tour of Ireland. Then I traveled to Bratislava, Slovakia, to live with a family and teach English to students and professionals. The goals were to learn the language and attend to my wanderlust which I did! In graduate school, I focused on East Central Europe and, in 1994, received an IREX (International Research and Exchanges Board) grant to study Polish in Wroclaw, Poland.
My dissertation on the Polish minority in Czechoslovakia in the early 1920s was supported with research/travel grants from the Fulbright Foundation and IREX. After finishing my Ph.D. in Modern Russian and East Central European History in 1999, I taught at several state universities in Wisconsin and Minnesota.
I began teaching at Fort Lewis College in August 2004.
Again, we thank Dr. Paul for her four years of service to the department as Chair; for now, she is the Faculty Senate President. Congratulations!
Thanks to a generous donation to the History Department, Ellen Paul traveled with nine students to Europe last May. They studied the Holocaust and its memorialization, from Berlin to Warsaw to Prague. The group also learned about the Cold War and Central European cuisine. The donation allowed the Department to give a sizable stipend to offset expenses. Several students said the stipend was just the incentive they needed to take the plunge.
Ellen is actively recruiting students for another study tour in May 2023.
Dr. Paul and her Summer 2022 students in Prague.