News from The Mahurin Honors College

An exploration of the campus informational fair during her first week as a first-year student on campus led Brittany Moster Bergonzi, PhD (WKU/MHC ’15) to a Hilltopper experience like no other. Speaking with me from her Birmingham, United Kingdom home via Zoom, Brittany recounted how a brochure of Harlaxton College caught her attention, describing “when you open it up, there’s this unbelievable view of Harlaxton Manor and I really thought that cannot be real. I kept it – money was a big thing for me – so I was told, if you can’t pay for college, you can’t go. And so I thought surely a program like this would cost a lot of money” but she also learned that as a Cherry Presidential scholarship recipient, her scholarship could be applied to study abroad. Thus began an experience that she described as “180 degrees life changing” and one that would motivate her to relocate to the United Kingdom permanently upon graduation in 2015.

Arriving at Western Kentucky University in Fall 2011 was a big leap particularly as she was the first of her siblings to continue her education directly after high school. Family discussion of post-secondary education and plans for an academic major were limited to more traditional professions like medicine, law, and engineering.

Her parents, both of whom worked in law enforcement, provided their support for her studies, but it was her high school English teacher that encouraged Brittany to consider English as an academic major. Brittany explained that “I did not know you could study English, and I was coming to the end of my high school career, and my English classes were so good. A particular teacher I idolized, she said to me ‘have you considered studying English.”

As she began her English major at WKU, the courses and the faculty teaching them ignited her curiosity even further. Brittany shared that while the assignments were demanding, the courses had “really valuable discussion” and the English faculty – specifically Drs. Walker Rutledge (Emeritus) and Allison Langdon – “were so passionate and they put on great programs… the content was great, and the professors were so enthusiastic. They really cared.”

Two classes hold a special meaning for Brittany – Wednesday tea sessions with Sigma Tau Delta [English honor society] and Dr. Walker’s American Drama course. In the former, students gathered to discuss literature not on the syllabus and to drink tea, and in the latter, they gathered to watch film adaptations of the plays they read in class on Wednesday nights. While Brittany admitted that going out at night was not her preference, these sessions and the social and intellectual camaraderie they promoted, were “never missed.”  

The support of English faculty and the honors community aided her in finding her sense of campus belonging, sharing that during her WKU years, honors was not associated with a “physical location” [the current Mahurin Honors College building had just broken ground on the construction] but rather a feeling of community manifested by shared events “like cookouts, playing cornhole, and going to honors events.”

Britttany was involved on campus in “lots of different clubs, lots of different societies, took all the classes I could take” which helped her “[make] tons of friends.” She also credited the English program with helping her start “her first real job” as a tutor in the Writing Center. In addition to campus employment as a tutor, she was also the president of the English Club, and president of Sigma Tau Delta – the English honor society.

As Brittany described, she always “loved countryside village stories and coming of age stories” and once she realized that these pastoral stories all shared the same geographic home – England – attending Harlaxton was fated. The flyer she had held onto from the information fair called her, and with the money barrier alleviated by her scholarship, she spent the next four months at Harlaxton College in Spring 2013.

The experience was one of independence and of finding herself as a young adult and learning how to operate and live in a setting that was familiar and unfamiliar. Brittany described how she “learned how to be an adult here – I learned how to travel on my own, to book plane tickets, to use my passport, to save money, to interact with people when I didn’t know anybody…. you have a chance to understand another place and because you’re learning the history and social structure and why things are the why they are.”

Upon her return to WKU, Brittany felt that something was missing, describing that “all I wanted was to go back to England. I was heartsick. I was homesick.” Even the English department faculty noticed that her spark was subdued, and as conversations about post-graduate plans came up, she made up her mind to pursue her master’s degree in the United Kingdom.

She relied on the network of friends she made during her studies at Harlaxton College to explore options for graduate programs and the necessary steps to obtain proper visas and documentation to study and live in England. She applied to eight graduate programs, but accepted admission extended by the University of Birmingham in Birmingham, United Kingdom, ultimately completing both master and doctoral degrees in English Literature.

Reflecting on the differences in educational experience and student expectations, Brittany noted that her graduate programs in the United Kingdom “[had] fewer weekly requirements and attendance in classes or seminars was typically once a week… the assignments are due at the end of term and there’s more trust” which led her to pick-up a variety of part-time jobs, including as an editorial assistant for a journal, as a teacher of English, and as a writing tutor.

“I could do literally anything [with English] and Walker Rutledge always said ‘writers were the first psychologists, sociologists, criminologists’ and there’s all these studies about the literature of emotion and how you can learn so many things from reading, it’s like interacting with other people. I think I knew this all along it just took me a long time to apply critical terminology to it.”

She finished her doctoral studies in 2020 just as the COVID-19 pandemic was beginning, and she struggled to find a full-time role during this confusing time. While her initial career goal centered on being a literature professor, the hyper-competitive landscape of British academia led her to evaluate her academic values and to explore alt-academic – “academic adjacent” – roles that sparked joy in her.

Brittany credited her career coach at the University of Birmingham as a valuable resource that helped her “explore student success and student support roles.” Brittany felt drawn to this work because of her WKU experience as a Writing Center tutor and because of her subsequent roles where she could see the confidence and enthusiasm grow in her clients because of her coaching.

Brittany is currently an academic librarian at University College Birmingham, a role whose daily duties vary and one that is “a real learning experience” because she facilitates “book orders, resource lists, and individual appointments for research and referencing, [she is] booked by lecturers and research [to help with] database searches, validity of sources, etc. for students [and faculty]” across a variety of academic disciplines. This role helps her remain active in research and teaching, and while ultimately, she sees herself stepping up her formal research interests and output, the role she currently inhabits is “my favorite job, to help students with their academic success.”

Outside of work, Brittany is a new parent to a one-year-old son, and in reflecting on her WKU experience and her life presently, she noted that “staying curious” and taking chances led her to a life and career path that she didn’t originally envision.