#Fisher2020: Honors Student Ready to Carve Out Her Place in the World

Honors student Julia Detmer ’20 says her time at St. John Fisher College opened her eyes to myriad disciplines and experiences.

“It allowed me a space to critically think about the world and my place in it,” she explains.

An inclusive adolescence education and American studies major, Detmer was accepted into the Reimagining Education for a Racially Just Society Advanced Certificate Program at Teachers College at Columbia University.

The program will build on work Detmer has been immersed in while at Fisher. In the Honors program, she took courses focused on indigenous philosophy and civil rights literature.

During summer 2019, she served as a research fellow with four other students, working with Dr. Carolyn Vacca on a project about Frederick Douglass and his impact in Rochester.

“We analyzed primary source documents—city directories, census data, and his own writings—which culminated into a presentation at the National Association of African American studies conference,” Detmer says. “My capstone class in American studies this past semester also had a large impact on me as a person; as my professor allowed me the space to write about my own identity and place in America.”

Detmer is eager to bring the knowledge she has gained at Fisher into the classroom; first at the secondary level, but eventually, in higher education.

“My Fisher education has influenced and changed the way I will teach my students. The American studies major is interdisciplinary and will make me a better teacher because I can expose students to curriculum from a number of different disciplines,” she says. “I will also in the future be pursuing graduate school and want to be a professor as my ultimate goal and my experience at Fisher with research will prepare me well for that.”