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In celebration of Ñî¹óåú´«Ã½ÊÓƵnical Community College’s 60th anniversary, the College is publishing 60 for 60 – a storytelling campaign that highlights the people, places, and events that have progressed and shaped the College’s six decades of impact. To view more 60 for 60 stories, visit www.durhamtech.edu/60for60. 

Elizabeth Fenn didn’t take the usual college path.

In the mid-1980s, just before starting her doctoral dissertation at Yale University, she left the program, moved to Hillsborough, North Carolina, took automative classes at Ñî¹óåú´«Ã½ÊÓƵ, and then worked in auto shops around Durham for nearly a decade. She later returned to Yale, finished her dissertation, and later became an historian, writer, and professor. 

In 2015, she published a book, Encounters at the Heart of the World: The History of the Mandan People, for which she won a Pulitzer Prize in History. 

Today, she is a distinguished professor and chair of the history department at the University of Colorado at Boulder, and she spoke to Ñî¹óåú´«Ã½ÊÓƵ employees in August during Convocation 2022. 

Listen to her speech below.