Next to the personal attention of world-class scholars, such as Timothy Larsen ’89, M.A. ’90 and Jennifer McNutt, the most enriching part of my experience at Wheaton has been exploring its archival holdings.

When I was a student worker with Special Collections, Buswell Library, I was tasked with writing detailed descriptions for the Records of the National Association of Evangelicals. I spent dozens of hours going through the massive 190-box collection.

It was during that time that I first experienced what historian Herbert Butterfield described as “tumbling headlong into [the past] ... and being immersed in it for its own sake.”

Before I came to Wheaton I had earned an M.Div., but felt God’s leading to pursue academic history. I knew that I would need more focused training before pursuing a Ph.D. in history, and Wheaton provides that training along with extensive archival holdings to plumb in the Manuscripts Reading Room.

The opportunity to come to Wheaton College Graduate School came through the support of Karen Swanson, Director of the Institute for Prison Ministries, and with a generous Charles W. Colson scholarship.

Those hours spent with the Records of the National Association of Evangelicals only served to whet my appetite for archival research—I have since spent many more combing through primary sources. This immersion is essential to the work of the historian. I have also discovered that the life of the scholar is not solitary, as is often suspected, but flourishes only within a scholarly community and with the invaluable collaboration of expert archival teams.