SHARE Summer 2026: Dr. Brenda Brueggemann

Project Mentor

Dr. Brenda Brueggemann
Department: American Studies; English; Social & Critical Inquiry; Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies

Project Overview:

There are two intersected and intertwining projects in need of SHARE apprenticeship work:

  1. The Mansfield Training School Project @ UConn: https://mansfieldtrainingschool.research.uconn.edu/

    Four (4) previous SHARE interns have worked very successfully with this project. Please browse the project website to gain more information about the overall project. Here are the 3 main elements the summer intern would/could be involved with:
    a) Currently, a photo-essay book is underway (contracted) about the project. The summer intern could research and even collaborate (write) with me for portions of this book. Co-author credit would be given.
    b) A community advisory board (of roughly 12 members) is being formed; this board would be meeting 1-2 times during the Summer 2026 (on Zoom). Communicating with the board members and recording (and then creating short videos possibly from) those board meetings could happen.
    c) The project website also needs to be updated (and there are artifacts ready and waiting for that). New blogposts need to be written around these artifacts and materials.

    This is a deeply social justice and equity and human rights project. And it all sits on UConn’s land and is still under the stewardship of UConn.
  2. The second project is to recover/restore/repopulate a connected disability social justice history connected to the Holocaust: the Nazi’s “T-4” euthanasia program enacted against its own German citizens from 1939-1945. A WordPress website for this project previously existed but was “lost” due to the many challenges of the pandemic. I still have an immense folder of assets (film, video, audio recordings, photos of artifacts from my 3 visits to Germany and Austria to collect material for this human rights/social justice/disability/ educational website). A website simply needs to be rebuilt to share this material.
       
    The Nazi T-4 website and the MTS Project @ UConn website would contain mutual cross-links and references to each other since they are both projects about the incarceration and harms (still not repaired or even addressed) towards disabled people in one’s “own country” and in one’s own backyard.

    Here are two recent short ‘on-site” clips from the Nazi T-4 museum and memorial at Hartheim, Austria:
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YgM6LII6Cs4
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OALMtrVMYiI

    There is also DATA from both projects that might be plotted and analyzed (from a more quantitative perspective.

Role of a SHARE Summer Apprentice:

The summer intern could choose to be involved in one or both projects. They could also choose the percentage of hours/time they wanted to devote to each project. This is all open to discussion and conversations about the intern’s own research/field/learning goals and skills. We’ll work it out!

Summer Schedule/Time Commitment:

70-90 hours expected. Either through weekly Zoom meeting check-ins (as much as possible) or weekly record keeping of your work on shared google form/doc

Preferred Qualifications:

  • Website making/building skills
  • Writing skills (for the many artifacts sill not showcased)
  • Data analysis of the current corpus of available material (and developing forms and sources for data analysis)
  • People connecting/building skills: to carry out the first MTS Project Advisory board meetings

To Apply:

The application opens on Monday, March 2, 2026.  Click here to submit an online application for this SHARE apprenticeship through the Quest Portal. The application deadline is Monday, March 30, 2026, at 11:59pm.

Click here to view an outline of the general application questions. For the first question on the application, please write a narrative that directly addresses your fit and interest in relation to the two projects. Go beyond indicating a “general interest” in this apprenticeship. 

Please note:
All students hired for a SHARE Summer apprenticeship must complete a federal I-9 form and present original documents in person to OUR staff as part of the hiring process. Visit this U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services page for more information about acceptable documents. You cannot begin working until this is complete. Students are encouraged to plan ahead for this. For example, if you are going home for spring break, consider bringing original documents back to campus with you.