Huntington Alum Earns Ph.D.
in Art History
She has fond memories of the Huntington School District's SEARCH program and soon Kerry Roeder will have something else: A Ph.D. in art history.
Ms. Roeder, a 1993 Huntington High School graduate, will receive her doctorate this Friday (May 27) at the University of Delaware where she has been studying and working as a teaching assistant.
SEARCH (Scholastic Enrichment and Resource for the Children in Huntington) is a three-decade old district program for academically talented elementary students. It is headed by Maryann Daly, a veteran teacher who has guided hundreds of students through the program.
"SEARCH gave her confidence in her abilities as a student and helped her to keep studying all these years," wrote Kerry's mother, Catherine Roeder in an e-mail to the district. "We are proud of her and thankful to the Huntington School District for preparing her for college and beyond - and special thanks to Ms. Daly."
Mrs. Daly remembers how surprised Mrs. Roeder was when she was told that Kerry was never quiet in SEARCH classes. "I will always remember the articulate, spunky Kerry, straight hair to the chin with bangs," Mrs. Daly said. Ms. Roeder's teaching assistant position covered her post-graduate tuition.
In the years following her high school graduation, Ms. Roeder earned an undergraduate degree at Trinity College and a master's at the University of Maryland, where she also worked as a teaching assistant.
Ms. Roeder received a pre-doctoral fellowship from the Smithsonian Institution in 2006, which included a stipend, office space at the Smithsonian in Washington, DC and access to the museum's archives.
Ms. Roeder's dissertation involved an analysis of the work of cartoonist virtuoso Winsor McCay, who is famous for the New York Herald (1905-11) Sunday comic strip, "Little Nemo in Slumberland." Her dissertation was titled, "'Cultivating Dreamfulness:' Fantasy, Longing, and Commodity Culture in the Work of Winsor McCay."
"McCay's work was imaginative, inventive with wonderful layouts," Ms. Roeder told the UD Daily in a 2009 interview, "and was part of the popular culture of that period. I am exploring McCay's use of fantastic imagery and the cultural preoccupation with the imagination and childhood at the turn of the century."
Ms. Roeder also had a pre-doctoral fellowship at the Swann Foundation for Cartoon and Caricature Art at the Library of Congress and was a research fellow at the Corcoran Gallery of Art. She was a contributor to the book, "A New Literary History of America," which was named one of National Public Radio's 10 best gift books of 2009.
The Huntington alum's future plans are still up in the air. The mother of two young children, she may try her hand at teaching in Fairfax, Virginia or perhaps work at a gallery in Washington, DC.