Bridget Bernadette Phillips was an outstanding University of Florida student who graduated in 1988 with a bachelor’s degree in history. Originally from Kansas, her family relocated to Gainesville where she quickly became a bright star in the community. Bridget decided to pursue her history degree after studying abroad in Europe. She entered UF as a National Merit Scholar and became an officer in Phi Alpha Theta, the History Honor Society, and a member of Gold Key and Phi Beta Kappa. Her interest in European history led her to participate in an international conference in Luxembourg, study for a summer in the UF Cambridge University Program, and to spend two summers on an archaeological dig in Austria and a term perfecting her German at the University of Vienna.
After UF, Bridget received a doctoral fellowship to study Medieval and Byzantine history at Johns Hopkins University. While studying at Johns Hopkins, Bridget’s life was tragically cut short. Her family and friends have honored her legacy and her love of higher education research, teaching, and writing by establishing two funds to support Department of History students and faculty.
Bridget B. Phillips Endowed Student Scholarship Fund
This scholarship is awarded to outstanding history majors to assist them in traveling abroad to further their education. Over the years, this fund has supported many exceptional students and we welcome your support to further the legacy of Bridget.
“I am so incredibly honored to be chosen for this scholarship! I am already in Valencia, Spain studying abroad for three months. Later in June I plan to use the scholarship to help fund a trip to Madrid to visit national archives and research Sebastian Romero Radigales. He was a Spanish diplomat who helped coordinate the repatriation of Jewish Sephardim communities in Salónica, Greece during the early 1940s. My project will focus on Spanish neutrality during World War II as it pertained to the Holocaust and the decisions that allowed for and created obstacles to the rescue efforts. I am a History and Spanish major working towards my certificate in Holocaust Studies, so I am very excited about this project as it combines all of my educational interests. I would like to thank the Phillips family so much for their support and the UF History Department for selecting me as a recipient of the scholarship.
Thank you so much.”
—Harper Self
“I am using the Bridget Phillips Scholarship to participate in the UF in Seville study abroad program and hone my Spanish-speaking abilities. I have now been in Spain for two weeks, and I have already made immense progress through this immersive educational experience. I am passionate about travel, languages, and learning, so I am incredibly thankful to the Bridget Phillips Scholarship for helping me to realize this dream of studying abroad!
I am also planning to write a senior thesis with the History Honors Program this upcoming academic year. My research will focus on women’s roles in creating ethnic identity in Italian American immigrant communities of early twentieth century New York—inspired by my own family’s history.”
—Emily Canamella
Bridget Bernadette Phillips Endowed Term Professorship in History
The Bridget Bernadette Phillips Endowed Term Professorship in History shall be used to support the research and teaching efforts of the faculty in the Department of History.
This fund was established in 2022 with a gift from Dr. Tim Dean, James M. Benson Professor in English at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Dr. Dean met Bridget while both were studying in Baltimore-a meeting he described during the annual History Awards Luncheon where her scholarship was presented in April 2022:
“I met Bridget Phillips in August of 1988. We had just arrived in Baltimore to begin studying for our PhDs, she in History and I in English. There was an orientation event for new graduate students taking place on the main quad at Johns Hopkins University. I remember the afternoon was very sunny and humid. Socially awkward young people were milling about trying to make conversation—we had no cell phones to shield us in those days—when I was approached by a petite woman with curly chestnut hair and astonishing porcelain skin. For someone so beautiful, she was surprisingly friendly. “Hi, my name is Bridget. I’m having a party on Saturday before classes get started and I’d like you to come.” Even then she was bringing people together, just as the memory of Bridget brings us together today.”
—Dr. Tim Dean
“If friends of Bridget, friends from UF and JHU continue to join together in support – it may accomplish more than we have dared to imagine! Whatever the outcome, it has possibility and merit in many ways. I can imagine how astonished Bridget would be to learn that all this is happening, that she has not been forgotten after all these years. How dear it is that those she cared for have initiated this latest endeavor. It seems a true circle of friends has been assembled. Bridget’s ambition, her unfinished life’s ambition, was the hope of achieving something of value, something of excellence – the professorship would be another step toward giving that hope ‘wings.’”
—Kelley Phillips (Bridget’s father)
Contributions by check can be given at any time. Simply send your check made payable to “UF Foundation” with the fund name referenced in the memo to:
UF CLAS Development, PO Box 117300, Gainesville, FL 32611.
To learn more about the various ways you can make a gift including pledges, matching gifts, and a variety of planned giving opportunities, please visit https://advancement.clas.ufl.edu or contact Bev Sanders, Director of Development and Alumni Affairs at (352) 294-2398 or Bsanders1@ufl.edu.