2021-22 President's Scholars

Robert Douglas Reed

Arthur M. Berman President’s Scholar

Major: History

College of Letters, Arts, and Social Sciences

University Programs: Phi Alpha Theta (academic honor society for history) vice president and treasurer

Documenting history can be important public service because people need to know the stories around them. Robert Reed fulfilled a class assignment to develop a digital tool by researching the California citrus belt and creating a website that documents the relationship between Anglo-American growers and Mexican-American labor. The project “helped me realize that history reveals the stories, hardships, victories and livelihoods of real people,” Robert says. “Studying the past can have profound effects on our current political, economic and societal circumstances.” With a team of Cal Poly Pomona students and the Pomona Valley Historical Society, he is working on a digital archive documenting the 2020 Covid-19 pandemic. Robert’s desire to become a history professor with a focus on the U.S. Southwest is inspired by his grandparents, immigrants from Mexico who dreamed of higher education for their descendants. “Not only do I want to teach the next generation the importance of developing their historically minded interpretations of the world, but also uncover the history of Mexican-Americans in the historical narrative,” he says.