Christine Stokes graduated with a B.A. in History from UCSB in spring 2007. A recipient of the Dick Cook Memorial Award for her contribution to an oral history project at the Santa Barbara Museum of Art, she went on to earn an M.A. in History Museum Studies from the Cooperstown Graduate Program and to complete a museum community fellowship at the International Coalition of Sites of Conscience.
She is now the Executive Director of the Shasta Historical Society and serves on the board of the California Association of Museums. She writes: “I really began to love history after I took a Public History course from Professor Ann Plane at UCSB…The most important thing that I learned from my history courses at UCSB is not a date or historic event; it is the set of skills I developed to think about the world around me as an historian. …My history training from UCSB is important to me because I have the tools to record the voices, experiences, and perspectives of groups of people who might not be represented in textbooks, and then to present these stories to the community through the exhibitions and programs I develop.”