Bridget Phillips (‘89) was one of the department’s outstanding students. Her UF program enabled her to spend a summer semester at Cambridge and to go on archeological expeditions to Austria. After finishing her honors thesis in history at UF, she began a Ph.D. at Johns Hopkins University in medieval European history. Tragically, she was murdered in her apartment early in her graduate studies in an unsolved case. To honor her passion for history, her family created the Bridget B. Phillips Endowed Student Scholarship Fund. Each year the award provides two students with funds to travel abroad for study or research. In the past several years, Bridget’s graduate student friend, Tim Dean (now professor of English at University of Illinois), has worked to expand the fund to sponsor the research Bridget valued through a term professorship. This year the Bridget Phillips student awardees are Kathryn Orozco and Samantha Strong.
Kathryn Orozco traveled to Seoul, South Korea, to conduct research for her history honors thesis. The thesis will explore the history of debates about Korean “comfort women,” sex workers who lived in settlements (camptowns) attached to United States military bases in the region. Kathryn is following the case of the 1992 murder of Yun Geum-i, a sex worker killed by an American soldier, as a window into the tensions over sex work in Korea and the U.S.-South Korean relationship. When you travel halfway around the world for research, you make the most of your time. Kathryn studied sources at the National Archives of Korea, looked for resources at two national libraries, and conducted interviews with South Korean women, particularly those from the Durebang (My Sister’s Keeper) women’s advocacy group. “Seeing how passionate the members were,” Kathryn says, “allowed me to connect with the archival research in a way I could have never imagined.” The trip was full of adventures as well. When a friend drove Kathryn to an interview in a camptown, the pair accidentally drove into the military base itself. Kathryn recalled that it was, “funny and scary.” It also made the proximity of her historical actors real, “I quickly realized that all of these characters – activists, camptown women, military base soldiers, club managers – are interconnected.”
Samantha Strong used her award to conduct research in the United Kingdom and undertake language study in Italy. During summer study abroad in 2023, Samantha discovered a forgotten story of World War II, the history of the women workers in the Allies’ Monuments, Fine Arts, and Archives (MFAA) program. “I set out to write my honors thesis to give the twenty-seven female operatives the same credit as their male counterparts,” says Samantha. She spent three weeks conducting research in London at the National Archives of the UK, the Imperial War Museum, and the National Gallery. Her research brought her in touch with the daughter of Anne Olivier Popham, the highest ranking female officer in the MFAA, who gave Samantha her mother’s letters from the war. Samantha then went to Perugia, Italy, for a language program. During her travel, her history research literally rang in her ears. “Hearing the church bells toll throughout my stay,” she noted, “was a testament to the MFAA’s efforts.” After all, Samantha had just learned from her archival research that MFAA officers had restored church bells in Italy.
Kathryn and Samantha are now busy turning their summer research harvest into history honors theses. The impact of their summer research will go beyond this year. Samantha plans to model herself on the historical preservationist heroes of her study and become a museum curator. For Kathryn, the hands-on experiences of engaging with women’s groups in an international context showed her how legal advocacy can work around the world and inspired her to pursue a legal career to help victims of abuse.
A summer abroad doing research can be life changing. If you would like to help the Phillips family and Tim Dean in supporting student research in the department and young scholars like Kathryn and Samantha, please visit the department’s giving page.