Photo courtesy of Sophia Angele-Kuehn.
On a rainy Friday afternoon in November in Coffee Grounds, I sat down with Hanna Bobrowicz ‘20. Sporting Madewell jeans and a thrifted wool ski jacket, she chatted about how her academic work intersects with her passion in female-centered narratives. She’s writing a History Honors Thesis, helping direct the Women’s Power Initiative (WEI), and serving as the Co-Campus Correspondent for the online publication Her Campus at Conn Coll. She is a history major, theater minor, and in the Peace and Conflict Pathway. On campus you can see her working as a receptionist at the Writing Center or leading a tour group.
That’s a lot of different interests — is there a way in which you connect all of them? Do they play into your thesis too?
Kind of. I came into Conn really interested in the intersections between social justice, history, and performance. That’s where WEI comes in — that’s an actual performance connected to social justice. Her Campus I joined on a whim. I was attracted to the pink banner, the seniors seemed very nice, and I signed up. I honestly thought that I was gonna quit after the first semester, and I just didn’t. And then I became Campus Correspondent with my Co-Correspondent Vivi [Ascensio] my sophomore year. I was like, “Well I can’t quit now!” We officially took over the spring of sophomore year, and I’ve been the Campus Correspondent ever since!
So what do your roles involve?
[Vivi and I] are basically in charge of communicating with our larger advisor — Her Campus is a national network, and there are chapters on different campuses. So we are responsible for meeting all the article deadlines that we have — we have five article deadlines a week, and then different social media postings, so we’re kind of in charge of getting people to meet those deadlines and then communicating with higher-ups. One of the ways in which we try to lighten our load is to create leadership positions in the club. We now have an editor, who is amazing, and an events person, and someone who does social media … And we also run all the weekly meetings, and we try to inspire the writers and do different writing [and] creative exercises or talk and get people excited to come, and invested.
How often do you meet?
We meet once a week. We meet every Sunday in the Smith common room, at 7:30, if anyone wants to come! We just meet and go over the articles that we’ve published that week, and we shout out to the people who wrote them. We start out by talking about issues that are happening on campus and then try to see if that generates an article idea. We had course registration this past week, so we did a group article where we wrote our favorite class we’ve taken at Conn. That way if students don’t know what to take, they have this resource. We were also talking about layering in New England, and so we wrote an article about that.
So it sounds like Her Campus is a mix of personal life at university but also fashion?
It’s basically a lifestyle blog — think Refinery29-ish. And it’s really just about college life from a female perspective. So it’s really kind of a blank canvas, because that could mean anything. A lot of our writers like to write about beauty and lifestyle, I’m definitely more political, so I’m writing about social issues. It can also be more investigative journalism, but then we’ve also published poems before — so we always say we publish anything.
Why do you think it’s important that Conn has Her Campus?
It’s important because we have a lot of different ways to get information. We have The Voice, we have TheLOOK magazine, but we don’t have an outlet that talks about being a college female on campus, and just writing lifestyle articles from that point of view. And it’s something that people can use as a resource when they’re transferring or incoming freshmen. A lot of people at our club fair was like, “Yeah, I Googled Connecticut College and Her Campus is what came up.” So they really get a sense of what life is like, but then also in terms of current students, if they need any sort of advice online, like what to eat at Harris, or what kind of classes to take, or if they’re staying on campus for Thanksgiving — things like that, those big college changes and transitions. It’s nice to read things about people who are also going through them, and so you feel like you’re less alone in life.
Is there then anything that you still want to improve with Her Campus, or do you have any future ideas or plans?
Oh yeah, for sure. So Her Campus is a really small club, and a lot of people don’t know us know us. We’re really trying to be like The College Voice, TheLOOK, Cadenza, Her Campus. Because it’s a digital space, it’s less tangible, so it’s not like when people see The Voice or TheLOOK in a coffee shop. So something that we’re trying to do next semester is [print] posters of different articles we’ve published and just put them in places. We really want people to know about us more, and we would also love to grow our writership.
What is your current obsession?
The Crown!
Because you studied abroad in the UK?
Yeah, because I studied abroad in the UK, and I’m also a history major and I love historical dramas, so I love watching The Crown, especially because this season is all about the post-war decline, which is what I studied when I was abroad … So yeah, that’s my current obsession.
Do you think you’ll write a piece on it for Her Campus?
I might actually, I was talking about it in the meeting before, yeah, the ageism is a big theme in this season.
And fashion?
And fashion a little bit, but less so. This season they replaced the cast with new actors, which I honestly thought was cool, because it’s a biopic of her whole life, so it starts when she’s twenty-five, and now she’s like forty and fifty, so they replaced her with Olivia Coleman who’s a lot older than Claire Foy, who played her in the first two seasons. And so it’s about her getting older, and the monarchy. And the monarchy was also in crisis in the 1960s as well. So yeah, I think that I might write an article about that!
I think that might be cool too, and connecting it to your Thesis. So what is your favorite spot on campus and why?
Well it used to be Blaustein third floor, but then they kind of changed it and it was far less cozy. So I also really like the Walk-In. But then lately it’s definitely been my Winch apartment. We have a fireplace, and I really just like cooking in my apartment, or reading, or just staring out the window. So that’s definitely been my peaceful place this semester.
That sounds so nice, especially today, on a rainy, cold day. On a Friday.
Yes, it’ll be hard to leave!
Could you also tell me what you’ve been doing today, what has your Friday looked like so far?
So on Friday I am blessed and I don’t have classes on Friday. So I woke up at like 8, I got ready and I came to campus, I did some citations for my honors thesis, which was fun [laughs]. And then I went to work at the Roth Writing Center for a few hours, which is always nice. If you need an appointment, I’ll be working there! And then I had a meeting with my thesis advisor, and now I’m meeting you.
So what’s it like writing an honors thesis while also juggling Her Campus, and also WEI and the Writing Center? Do you have any tips?
I think the trick to writing the thesis is to be consistent. I think that’s kind of key for all academic work. It’s way easier to spread your work out than to do it all at once, so I think sitting down and just writing three pages a day will just really help your life. Especially for a History honors thesis, where there’s a lot of pages. And just make a plan, have a planner, and always have time to unwind so you can be productive.
And with Her Campus, does that ever clash?
So yeah, sometimes it’s challenging to meet article deadlines and academic deadlines. I always want my writing to be good across the board, so let’s say if I’m writing an article, sometimes I worry that it’s a bit rushed, because I have this really important paper due. But, you know, it’s something you make priority for your hobbies, because you want your work to be good. And you should enjoy it! So sometimes it is different kinds of writing, I’m like, “Oh, I’m going to write about what to do when it’s a snow day on campus, which is so different writing about Irish funerary traditions, which is what my thesis is on.
*Be sure to check out the latest articles on hercampus.com, and to see an interview by Hanna Bobrowicz with your co-editor-in-chief Sophia Angele-Kuehn. •
