By Jill Kasiewicz Caseria, M.A.'04

As Mom used to tell us, if can never hurt to ask. Sure, it's easier said than done, but every once in a while you're reminded about how right Mom was. This happened to Hannah Readnour when she was an undergraduate communications major at Syracuse University. A music history and music industry double minor, she snagged a cool summer internship working on Ken Burns' Jazz series just by picking up the phone and calling. She admits luck was (thankfully) on her side that day, and credits that three-month experience with giving her additional credentials to pursue a career in documentary film.

After graduating in 2001, Readnour did a two-year stint working with Ric Burns on The Center of the World - New York: A Documentary Film and Ansel Adams: A Documentary Film, both of which won Emmy Awards. She then worked for 18 months with Bombo Sports and Entertainment on Still We Believe: The Red Sox Movie. A resident of New York City, she is now with the American Museum of Natural History as a media researcher. She is part of the film team in its exhibition department.

As the sun sets in the western skies, Hannah Readnour prepares to follow her train ride from New York City with a walk to Fairfield’s campus for a course in the master's in American Studies program, offered in the College of Arts and Sciences.

Along with working a 40-hour week, she is completing her master's degree in American Studies at Fairfield University, doing the "reverse commute" via Metro-North a few days a week. "When I considered pursuing graduate work, I wanted a full-time program in American Studies. But in New York City, that's nearly impossible to afford once you factor in the living expenses," she says. "I was looking for something that was pay-as-you-go, or something I could put on hold for a semester if I was extra busy at work."

She's pleased that, at Fairfield, she can customize the program according to her interest in visual and performing arts. Across disciplines, she's found professors who share her deep knowledge of film. "Dr. Leo O'Connor (American Studies program chair) is a huge film buff! He remembers every character from every film he's ever seen," she enthuses. Other professors in politics, Italian studies, and women's studies, she says, have all incorporated film into courses one may not expect, such as The Italian American Experience. What has impressed Readnour is her professors' recognition of how important film is in society.

"Television and popular culture are often snubbed in higher education," she says. "And that makes me laugh, because people watch television more than anything, so it doesn't make sense that it's ignored as a viable subject of study. Mainstream film contributes to popular history and is a product of our social history." Readnour's goals with the program were to gain a better understanding of U.S. history and improve her writing skills. She says she's already met both and plans to finish her capstone, a study on antifeminist humor in primetime animated series, this semester. She will graduate in May.

Her northbound rush-hour commute on the train - rather than behind the wheel - gives her more than an hour each way to get a jump on her reading assignments. Plus, she gets in some additional workout time, with a 15-minute walk to campus from the train station, which she does in nearly any weather, sometimes with another American Studies master's student from New Jersey. If she doesn't bring dinner with her, she grabs something at the Campus Center when she arrives.

After she started the program at Fairfield, luck made yet another appearance. Her employer - supportive of her educational goals - decided to let her leave early one day a week so that she could get to class by the 6:30 p.m. start time.

"It's a trial to work full-time while pursuing a degree," she admits, "but to do it in two years and not add to a student loan is priceless. The time has gone by so fast. I've thought many times that instead of pursuing this degree, I could have put it off another year and had nothing to show for the past 24 months."