2024 Alumnae/i Prize Recipient, Rebecca Sewall Peabody, reflects on why she chose Goucher

Why do students choose Goucher? Here M.A.H.P. student and Alumnae/i Prize recipient Rebecca Peabody Sewall reflects on her reasons: format of mostly online with summer residency and the program’s affordability.

Rebecca’s documentation report for which she received the prize was on Saint Cecelia’s Church in Leominster, Massachusetts. Her work was notable for being well researched, compellingly presented, and well-written in a professional and accessible style. It was also excellent for its creativity and fresh perspective on a type of resource - a pretty church - that many may have dismissed as “done.” Rebecca’s documentation went well beyond an architectural argument to consider the historic contexts of the French-Canadian experience in Massachusetts mill towns and addressed the complexity of the immigration experience in a way that went beyond Catholic/French-Canadian to consider internal disputes within the Catholic church at the time, racism, and cultural preservation to make a thorough argument for historic significance that can serve as a model for others.

The Alumnae/i Prize was established in 2002 by the first two graduates of the M.A.H.P. program in order to encourage and reward an outstanding first-year historic preservation graduate student.