As the United States commemorates its 250th anniversary, Gettysburg College will host a public panel exploring nearly two centuries of shared history with Gettysburg and Adams County, highlighting the people, places, and partnerships that have connected campus and community across generations.
Gettysburg College will host “Gettysburg College and Community: A Shared History” on Tuesday, Sept. 8, from 7 to 8:15 p.m. in the newly renovated College Union Building Ballroom. This event is free and open to the public as part of the America250PA celebration.
The evening’s panel discussion will bring together historians, scholars, students and staff to examine the ways Gettysburg College, the Borough of Gettysburg and Adams County have shaped one another across generations.
College President Bob Iuliano will welcome guests before History Prof. Emeritus Michael Birkner ’72, P’10 introduces the panel and serves as moderator. Birkner will provide historical context for the conversation, including the College’s early ties to abolitionist Thaddeus Stevens, who provided the land on which the institution was built.
Birkner taught at Gettysburg College beginning in 1989 and served as the Benjamin Franklin Professor of Liberal Arts from 2001 to 2016. A longtime scholar of 19th- and 20th-century American history, he has written and edited numerous books on several U.S. historical figures, including James Buchanan, Thaddeus Stevens and Dwight D. Eisenhower.
Four panelists will then explore the shared history of campus and community through research, archaeology, oral history, public history and the student experience.
Ashley Whitehead Luskey, assistant director of the Civil War Institute (CWI), will discuss student research into abolitionism and the evolution of student activism and engagement within the broader Gettysburg community.
Anthropology Prof. Ben Luley will highlight archaeological research connected to the former home of John “Jack” Hopkins near Pennsylvania Hall and the College’s collaboration with the Hopkins House Museum. Luley, an archaeologist who has worked closely with the American Battlefield Trust and Gettysburg History, has led Gettysburg students in field-based research that connects campus discoveries with broader regional history.
Devin McKinney, archives assistant and oral historian in Musselman Library’s Special Collections and College Archives, will explore the College’s oral history collection and how firsthand accounts have deepened engagement among students, faculty, staff, alumni and members of the wider community. His work helps preserve personal perspectives on significant events and experiences connected to Gettysburg College and the region.
Student Senate president Jocelyn Duquette ’27, a history major with minors in public history and business, will discuss her internship project, “Under the Bleachers,” which examines the history of athletic spaces that have long served as points of interaction between campus and community. Duquette brings a unique, firsthand student perspective to the panel as a former CWI intern and non-voting member of the Gettysburg Borough Council.
Following the individual presentations, Birkner will moderate a roundtable discussion before opening the floor for audience questions at approximately 8 p.m.
The panel discussion will take place in the Ballroom located in the College Union Building on campus. Free parking is available in the lot next to Musselman Stadium, while paid parking is available along Lincoln Avenue.
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By Corey Jewart
Photos courtesy Alyssa Riegel, Miranda Harple, Shawna Sherrell
Posted: 08/31/26