Faculty of the Week: Jeffery T. Samuels

Samuels outside of Jeremiah Smith Hall. Teja Vankireddy/The Exonian

By Jeannie Eom, Lina Huang and Clark Wu

“My favorite historical event is whoever the person is who thought, ‘I have a great idea. I’m going to take this weird white stuff that cows or sheep produce and leave it out in the sun, let it sit there and rot internally until it becomes a thing we can eat.’ Whoever made cheese–think about how many times that went wrong for it to go right,” History Instructor Troy Samuels said. 

Samuels has always loved history. “Every morning, I would ride my bike and my father, an accountant who should have been a geology or history professor, would run along with me and tell me stories from the past,” he said. 

However, it was not until college that Samuels considered history a career. “I was convinced I was going to major in science, and I wanted to get my language credit out of the way,” he said. “I signed up for Latin, which I thought would be so bad. But I fell in love with ancient history again, and I was hooked.”

Through Samuels’s Latin course in college, he attended an archaeological excavation at Kenchreai, a hands-on experience he loved. 

He was later exposed to the Gabii project, an international archaeological initiative studying one of Rome’s early neighbors. “Once, we just stumbled across a burial,” he said. “The first we found through excavation, but the second one we found was because I was cleaning a patch of dirt, and I fell in up to my knee. It was a two meter void that was the shaft of a shaft grave.”

Samuels arrived at Exeter this year from Indiana University, following a conversation with an Exeter alumna. “I really wanted an opportunity to teach because that’s where I get my energy from,” he said. “The students and the teaching and the wonderful intellectual community I’d heard so much about from my friends and colleagues were what drew me to Exeter.”

Samuels’ connections with Exeter also include a distant familial relation with History Instructor Eve Southworth, which he discovered when tracing his own genealogy. “We share a common ancestor in 18th century New England,” Southworth said. “Furthermore, during the witch trials in Lancashire, England in 1612, our ancestor Jane Southworth was accused of witchcraft by a 14-year-old Grace Sourbutts. Jane stood trial, and Grace accused her of sending her specter to harass Grace and even push her off the roof. When the judges noticed that Grace had no injuries from the fall, other witnesses exposed her lies. The judges discovered [another] ancestor, Catholic priest Christopher Southworth, coerced Grace into accusing Jane of witchcraft. Jane was a Protestant and controlled the family property. There is speculation that Christopher Southworth wanted to regain control of the family property by ousting his widowed sister-in-law. Luckily, Jane wasn’t executed as a witch. This may sound fantastical, but it’s all documented in court records.”

Two months in, Exeter has held up to Samuels’ expectations. “The little discoveries, little moments where I can have a conversation with students, which will lead to something new, something different, are really exciting.”

Samuels’s teaching philosophy, which he outlines in three guiding principles, is centered around the ways students can benefit from the instruction. 

“One, history is about developing a way of thinking, of taking disparate, fragmentary pieces of evidence and adding them together into a coherent and convincing argument—that’s a skill set that will serve students well in whatever they do,” he said. 

“Two, using history to think critically about current issues. History can often be a safer space for examining contemporary issues that are important to see how we got to the place we are today,” he continued.

“Three: trying to find silent voices in the past, looking at the people who we don’t have in our texts, thinking about how we can reproduce their narratives, agency, or actions,” he said. “All of the people who I find myself dealing with don’t have names or faces in the past. The everyday people doing these everyday things of history are the ones who I really find myself drawn to and want to find a way to tell their story.”

Sabina Ion—an archeologist, Museum Events and Visits Manager, former-trainee of a master tea sommelier and Samuel’s spouse—believes that this focus is a central aspect of his teaching. “I think that what makes him a really exceptional teacher is that he sees more in the value of history than just memorizing dates, names, places—we can do so much more with history, and he goes out of his way to make sure that students see the ripples that history has to the modern day and is able to make them connect with it in a way that still resonates.” 

Samuels’ approach to teaching and history was partly informed by Ion’s. “I had always been interested in looking at some of those lower levels of society,” she said. “I don’t care about big fancy buildings, but tell me a little bit more about the capacity and practices that we saw in ancient daily life. I’d like to think that my interest in that aspect of life got him also interested in that.”

“I think he has really seized on some of these feminist areas of archaeology because he’s always been surrounded by strong women in his life, so he’d better appreciate that,” Ion joked. 

Samuels undergraduate education in Minnesota also proved to be a formative experience for him. “I had to critically examine my experience growing up upper middle class in a gated community,” he said. “It informed how I think about history in general, and also made me constantly undergo this process of re-education, a relearning and openness.”

To Samuels, a reevaluation of antiquity may be a new perspective into Exeter’s anti-racist initiatives. “Archaeology has been a field that’s been used to justify white supremacist ideals forever. But it’s also an excellent way to look into the past and tell us the stories of marginalized groups who didn’t have a firm place in the world, that didn’t make it into writing,” he said. “I’m trying to find a way to deconstruct that white supremacist perspective, whilst not driving away students from the excitement of the unknown that is antiquity.”

Samuels also knows the importance of having fun, remembering the TikTok interpretations of Plato’s symposium his Ancient Classical Greek class recorded. “It’s a way to cross these thousands of years and make things relevant and vibrant.”

The energy and care Samuels brings to teaching is noted by his students. “His enthusiasm and his energy are definitely infectious. Especially because our classes are at 8p.m., you would think that people would be more tired, but [Dr. Samuel’s] creates a class atmosphere that makes people want to speak up and be excited about the things we’re learning,” upper Maxine Park said.

“He also makes historical events relatable and easy to understand,” Park added. “He’s been showing us musicals on the American Revolution, which makes us think about the ways that we can view history through the lens of mediums like art or music.”

Samuels’s commitment to history has him reading books and writing papers, all while supporting the students he teaches. “Every time he’s on duty, he has new updates on different publications he’s working on. Some are in the proofreading stage, while others he’s just beginning research on,” senior Charlie Preston said. “It’s a unique experience to be taught in high school by teachers who are constantly publishing and continue to contribute to their fields with books and articles.”

Samuels’ enthusiasm for history may also be boosted by his daily Grill smoothie and four cups of coffee.

This year, Samuels has not only had to cope with the challenges of being a new faculty member but also those presented by the pandemic. “I am a very social person; I am somebody who really thrives on those student interactions and finding time before or after class to talk, or leaving my door open at all times, and as soon as they come in, just chat about whatever’s on their mind.”

In the future, Samuels hopes to “rework and reimagine how Exeter teaches ancient history in ways that open up the Mediterranean.”

Samuels is already starting the process of looking outside the mainstream narrative by teaching a 999 in the winter term, albeit with a subject outside his areas of research. “One day, Dr. Samuels and I walked to practice together, and I described to him my hopes of exploring the town’s indigenous history to inform the school’s first reconciliation efforts. He said he didn’t know too much on the topic at the time but that he really wanted to learn more,” senior Emmauelle Brindamour said. “A couple weeks later, he was suggesting a plethora of potential sources for our syllabus, enthusiastically sharing new ideas and tips every time we saw each other at soccer practice.”

“I want to play a role in learning these histories that I’m not as familiar with and giving voices to stories in the past we don’t talk about is really in line with my own interests,” Samuels explained.

Soccer has held a large place in Samuels’s life beyond meeting students at Exeter. Growing up, Samuels played soccer predominantly as a defender. “I will forever resent this because I was tall, so they stuck me in the back. I love scoring goals, so I want to play forward.” Having never played forward, Samuels always calls himself an “attacking central defender, who tries to score goals from the center-back, which never works well.”

As a co-coach of Exeter’s Junior Varsity Girls’ Soccer team, Samuels at times plays goalie during practice. One of Samuels’s favorite shooting drills has the team predicting the number of goals they will score on him. If they score more than that, Samuels has to run, and if they score less, the team has to run. “They have never scored more than they guessed,” Samuels said. 

Players commended Samuels for being a supportive and lively coach who brightens the practice environment. Senior Sarah Wang described Samuels as a helpful coach who gives meaningful guidance on soccer techniques, bringing energy with games like Sharks and Minnows. “One of our practices was dedicated to playing footgolf—golf but using soccer balls—and Coach Samuels arrived dressed in khaki shorts and a polo shirt with flamingos printed all over it,” Wang recalled. 

Samuels also brought with him a bag filled with random prizes. “There was everything from Russian nesting dolls to his wedding program!” Wang said.

“It was the most random of ‘treasures’—among them were a used book that he personally signed, as well as an old map of Europe that had been hanging out in his freezer. It makes you wonder what else is in there,” co-coach and History Instructor Michael Matsumaru said.

Managing the balance as the soccer coach and a compassionate adult, Samuels is always present to support the players outside of the practices and games. “He never fails to walk back from the fields with us, listening to us tell stories about our lives and giving us advice,” Wang said. 

Samuels has regularly followed soccer throughout his life, as Ion can attest to. “When we had both started graduate school, I was in Cincinnati while he was in Ann Arbor—it’s about a four hour drive. I would come up fairly regularly, and not infrequently would I come up to him being gone at a soccer game,” she said one hundred percent seriously, lovingly seriously, but very seriously.

Currently, Samuels is following and promoting the Chelsea F.C. women. “They’re very good and never lose, and often, how my soccer team does affects my mood,” he said. “I’ll be very grumpy when they lose, so the more I follow teams that win, the better.”

“It’s an escape from work and one of my happiest places,” Samuels said about coaching soccer. “I couldn’t say yes [to coaching soccer at Exeter] fast enough.”

Samuels brings the same energy to Ewald, where he serves as a dorm faculty. “I mean, all the guys there are just the absolute worst,” he joked. “It’s hard not to just enjoy all the time I get to spend in the dorm. They’ve been so welcoming of a new faculty member who you know will, at times, start searching for a student who actually came early to check in.”

“Even though I’m on Sundays regularly, which is a night where everybody’s got homework and overtaxed, I can count on at least like three wonderful conversations about both schoolwork and whatever I’m working on or random questions of history or a sports game that’s on the TV,” he said. “It’s been just beyond fantastic to get to spend time in the dorm.”

“He’s a very good Among Us player and has fooled a whole common room full of Ewaldians while playing impostor before,” Preston said. “I’d like to say that he’s made himself an invaluable part of Exeter’s campus already. He takes great care in his roles as teacher, dorm fac and coach, and I hope he enjoys us just as much as we enjoy him.”

Besides his roles at Exeter, Samuels also takes great joy in traveling and has returned to Rome every summer. “It really is a second home; I know that neighborhood so well, I know the little shops”

Romania, Ion’s home country, also “captured [Samuels’] heart.” “You see this juxtaposition of somebody pulling a brand new Audi into a driveway next to a horse drawn carriage,” he said. “The city Timisoara, which is my wife’s family’s hometown, is just enchanting. It has this beautiful 19th century architecture... and there are these things called limo in Romanian, which are these frozen lemonades that you can drink on the float in their little canal. There are few things more perfect in the world than a summer day, sipping those in an old European city.”

He and Ion have also been to southern Africa. “I’ve always loved animals; I wanted to be a zookeeper, so we got to go into Zimbabwe and Botswana and see in real life all these animals that I dreamed of seeing as a child and meet some truly amazing people who still owe me a trip to Oktoberfest in Munich,” he said.

Samuels’s love for new places extends to everyday life. “I live in the oldest house on campus (Wells Kerr House). When I joked to Dr. Samuels and his spouse about how I have a scary old attic that’s potentially full of secret treasure, they both got very excited and started planning an archaeological-type expedition into the unknown,” History Instructor Dionna Richardson said.

Ion’s favorite memory, which she considers representative of Samuels, involved their travels. “Landing in the Makgadikgadi desert with Lady Madonna by The Beatles playing and him puking in the back of the airplane on the airplane,” she said. “It’s a very iconic and funny memory that will always live on. A lot of my memories that I most love of him are ridiculous like that—a product of his ability to take things in stride.”