By Kathy Hermes
(c) Connecticut Explored Inc., Spring 2023
New Offices and New Partnerships
In this issue we bring you the Power of Place. And so it is with great pleasure that I announce Connecticut Explored’s new place, a home inside Central Connecticut State University’s Department of History. We have signed a memorandum of understanding with the university, which also houses two other important history nonprofits: Witness Stones (see the Winter 2022-2023 issue) and the Connecticut League of History Organizations. CCSU is also the home of the state’s only Public History master’s degree program, and it also offers a minor in Public History for undergraduates. We’re proud to be affiliated with a dynamic department committed to the history of our state and its institutions.
Place can be physical. It can also be where we stand within a community. Connecticut Explored, Inc. is also thrilled to announce that we stand in partnership with another great institution in our state, CTHumanities. We were awarded a two-year partnership grant to bring our skills to bear on education programs and CTHumanities’ TeachIt, the online encyclopediaConnecticutHistory.org, and planning with our partners for the 250th anniversary of the American Revolution. We have always worked closely with ourcommunity, but this grant will help widen and deepen the ways in which we can join with other historical, humanities, and arts entities. It’s an exciting time!
Where we are, our place, matters so much. In this last of the Game Changer issues celebrating our 20th anniversary, we explore historic homesites, the creation of recreational space, and the way in which places can be carved up for special purposes—for better or worse. In every corner of our state, tracts of land have been repurposed over the millennia of human occupation. Newgroups of people have formed new relationships with these places, and often there is a move to preserve, if not that relationship itself, at least the memory of it. We look at how people keep those memories alive, through digging in the dirt, to digging in the archives, to digging into individuals’ memories. As you read the issue, think about some of your own favorite places and why they mean so much to you. Send us your memories, your favorite new discoveries, or ideas for what places you’d like to see covered in our magazine, and we’ll publish your thoughts in our Letters, etc. column.
Kathy Hermes, Publisher publisher@ctexplored.org
Connecticut Explored uncovers the state’s cultural heritage with the aim of revealing connections between our past, present, and future. For stories from our back issues visit ctexplored.org.
________