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Marquis Scholar Kimberly Posocco ’03, a double major in English and history, is getting a double dose of 1960s history this semester as she completes an honors thesis on the Hippie counter-culture movement and faculty-led research on Hubert H. Humphrey’s political career.
Posocco is working as an EXCEL Scholar with Arnold Offner, Cornelia F. Hugel Professor of History, to research Humphrey’s role in reshaping politics during the 1960s, in particular his influence during the great debacle of the 1968 presidential election. In EXCEL, students work closely with professors on research while earning a stipend.
“Kimberly is making her way through primary sources, notably the Congressional Record, and focusing on Humphrey’s speeches and statements during his tenure in the Senate from 1949 to 1964,” says Offner.
Offner is the author of a major new book that provides a stunning reassessment of President Harry Truman’s profound influence on U.S. foreign policy and the Cold War. Entitled Another Such Victory: President Truman and the Cold War, 1945-1953, the 632-page volume was published in March by Stanford University Press. Offner has won the Phi Alpha Theta National Book Award and the Metcalf Award for Excellence in Teaching. He is past president of Society for Historians of American Foreign Relations.
“I take note of all of the contributions Humphrey made to the debates in the Senate and highlight some important issues Congress was faced with during this period,” says Posocco.
She adds, “I found that I really enjoy reading Humphrey’s speeches in the Congressional Record. He was an amazing orator, able to get his points across clearly and eloquently and not afraid to speak up for the liberal causes that he believed in, even if it meant going against some of the more senior Senators.”
Posocco finds that the EXCEL work enhances her courses by providing a deeper context of the time period and issues of the day.
Her honors thesis on the Hippie movement in the Haight-Ashbury District of San Francisco during the 1960s further complements this research.
“I am focusing on and describing what it was like to be in the Haight as the Hippie movement grew,” she explains. “I am using Hippie memoirs, articles from 1960s periodicals, and many different types of secondary sources to try to understand who the Hippies really were.”
Posocco’s thesis topic grew out of course work on the Vietnam War, where she examined the role of student protesters.
“I had planned to write a paper about the student protesters, who, in my mind, were not very different from the Hippies,” she says. “Once I began the research, I learned that the students and the Hippies in the 1960s were two completely different movements with different agendas. I wrote a paper on the student protests, but I decided that the Hippie movement was another part of United States history that I really wanted to explore.”
Posocco is honing her research techniques and building skills for a future career in law.
“Professor Offner reads over parts of my thesis as I submit them and offers tons of feedback,” she says. “He points out ways that I can improve what I have written and suggests other areas of my topic that I might want to explore. In our meetings, Professor Offner finds time to discuss how my law school applications are going, and he has given me helpful suggestions as to what different law schools offer their students.”
Offner believes that both projects will help prepare Posocco for the rigors of law school.
“She is learning to do professional research. In particular, doing two things at once will help her to juggle projects as a lawyer,” says Offner. “As a scholar, she can see how history is written through her EXCEL work and then write it herself in the form of an honors thesis.”
Posocco agrees: “Being able to communicate your thoughts clearly through writing and speaking is an important part of being a successful attorney, and I feel that writing and presenting my thesis research will help me to sharpen these skills. A lot of important civil rights legislation was passed during the 1960s, and my research will help me become familiar with many important cases.”
She adds, “Lafayette is a good place to do this type of research project, because the professors are willing to give a lot of their time to work with students. The research assistants at the library are very helpful in helping students find primary source material.”
Posocco is a founding member of the Mock Trial team. She received an Outstanding Witness Award in the Altoona Regional Competition in February 2002, where Lafayette’s two teams placed fifth and sixth, earning bids to two national tournaments. Posocco’s team went on to the National Intercollegiate Mock Trial Tournament in St. Paul, Minn., and the other team traveled to St. Petersburg, Fla., for the American Intercollegiate Mock Trial Tournament.
Posocco tutors inmates at Northampton County Prison and works on Lehigh River clean-up projects. She has studied abroad in Athens, Greece, taking courses in classical and Mediterranean studies and visiting archeological sites and museums in the Peloponnese, Delphi, and Crete.
Kim Posocco ’03 researched the counter-culture movement and the political career of Hubert H. Humphrey in separate projects under the direction of Arnold Offner, Hugel Professor of History.