A newsletter for the students, faculty and staff of the Collin County Community College District. Published monthly. For information or submissions, call 972.599.3142. Cougar News welcomes student and faculty submissions. Next deadline: Oct. 10 All submissions are due by 5 p.m. on the due date. Photos cannot be returned. Text should be emailed to mrobinson@ccccd.edu or sent on disk. Please submit copy that is proofed, edited and saved in Word format. Cougar News staff: Lisa Vasquez, director; Mark Robinson, editor; Marcy Cadena-Smith, contributor; Sydney Portilla-Diggs, campus correspondent; Stephanie Hall, student correspondent; Tatiana Shehadeh, special contributor; Nick Young, photography and layout
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History professor travels 50 days for 50th birthday
By Stephanie Hall
Student Correspondent
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| History Professor Matt Coulter pictured during his 50-day historical road trip. | Looking over the area where the first Battle of Bull Run was fought, Matthew Ware Coulter, a professor of history, put together the whole story in his mind of what really happened. The battle, he realized, was not as decisive as most textbooks make it out to be. From what he learned, the battle was extremely close and could have easily gone to the Union army.
“If they had made one small, different move, they would have had the battle,” said Ware, amazingly.
Bull Run National Battlefield was only one stop on Coulter’s list during a road trip celebrating his 50th birthday. Coulter and his significant other of 14 years, Lin Moore, decided to celebrate Coulter’s 50th birthday by taking a 50-day road trip around the eastern part of the United States. The actual trip actually turned out to be 53 days from May 15-July 5.
On this trip, he enjoyed the people he met along the way, the historical sites, the natural beauty the land has to offer, and the chance to learn how current issues today are affecting everyday people around the country. Of the entire trip, “the biggest impact on me was the people we met along the way,” said Coulter. “When we were sitting in a little off-the-road bar in West Virginia, and I was talking to this Vietnam veteran, and he was telling me some of his experiences. I also met another man who was working on this wind-powered generator that was going to be able to centralize electric generation around the world, and he had some pretty big ideas for that.”
The historical stops further increased Coulter’s knowledge of history. Beyond the first Battle of Bull Run, Coulter increased his own knowledge of other historical subjects and places like Edgar Allen Poe.
“I didn’t really know a whole lot about (him),” he said. “I read a little bit of his poetry.”
So when Coulter and Moore traveled through Richmond, Virginia, they decided to make a stop at the Edgar Allen Poe Museum, which was housed in the oldest standing house in Richmond, he said.
“I learned a lot about Poe, and he wasn’t a really likable guy, which I didn’t know before,” said Coulter. “They presented him at the museum as kind of arrogant who turned off a bunch of people.”
Coulter travels a lot, and when he can, he brings his new knowledge of history back to the classroom.
“I show the students pictures of these battlefields so they can get an idea,” he said. He also encourages students to get out and travel to places like the Bull Run National Battlefield to get a better feeling of what happened. “You can’t of course put yourself in the shoes of a Civil War soldier, but you can kind of imagine how they might have felt about it.”
The trip also included visiting some of the most beautiful and scenic areas the country has to offer.
“Living in the Metroplex, there’s a lot of stuff going on, and I kind of imagine the Metroplex as a big bubble of energy and activity and all this kind of stuff, and I’m inside that bubble most of the year,” said Coulter. “I like the natural beauty when you get away from the television, the Internet and the cell phone,” he said. “I don’t want to lose connection with nature.”
Learning about current and significant issues concerning people around the country was also an important aspect of Coulter’s trip. Coulter said he got a better sense of what was going on in America relative to what is perceived in the media.
“When you actually get out in the countryside a little bit and travel around, you find that stuff you may think is important is not really on the minds of people at all,” he said. “They’re wrestling with the same issues they’re always wrestling with like trying to pay the bills.”
Coulter realized that there is an issue that affected most of the people he met on the trip.
“I noticed that healthcare is going to become a crisis if it’s not already,” he said. “We stayed with a friend, and her elderly father just moved in with her, and she’s wrestling with all these issues with Medicare and Alzheimer’s and all types of things that might develop later, and it’s a struggle,” he continued. “My own mother who we saw on this trip, she’s 87, and she’s struggling with those issues, too."
A trip like the one Coulter took really impacted his view on the past as well as the present.
“Once you get out there in that world, things can look different, and it’s good to get out there and see what’s really going on, get on the ground, and check it out for yourself,” he said. “A lot of people don’t have that luxury, but if you do, it could be a great thing, a really great thing, and kind of a reality check.”
What does a 50-day history trip looks like:
Vicksburg National Battlefield
Bull Run National Battlefield
Cowpens National Battlefield
Appalachian Mountains
Great Smokey Mountain National Park
Shenandoah National Park
Ozark National Riverway
New River National Riverway
Monongahela National Forest
Smithsonian Museum of the American Indian
Graceland
Edgar Allen Poe Museum
The Museum of the Confederacy in Richmond
The National Ceramic Center National Road Museum
Monticello, Thomas Jefferson’s home
Mount Vernon, George Washington’s home
[PRINTER FRIENDLY VERSION]
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