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The Rutgers Living History Society, affiliated with the Rutgers Oral History Archives, is an honor society established to recognize those who participate in or loyally support the practice of oral history at Rutgers University. We cordially invite you to:
The 21st Rutgers Living History Society Annual Meeting
Stephen E. Ambrose Oral History Award Ceremony
May 2, 2026
11 AM Luncheon
12 PM Program
College Avenue Student Center Multipurpose Room
126 College Ave,
New Brunswick, NJ 08901
2026 Ambrose Award Recipient & Keynote Speaker: Viet Thanh Nguyen, Winner of the Pulitzer Prize for his novel The Sympathizer
Viet Thanh Nguyen is the recipient of the 2026 Stephen E. Ambrose Oral History Award and the keynote speaker for the event. He joins a list of distinguished individuals, such as Daniel James Brown (2025), Deborah Gray White (2019), Ken Burns (2009), and Tom Brokaw (2005), who have made an outstanding contribution to the practice and/or use of oral history.
Nguyen's novel The Sympathizer is a New York Times bestseller and won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction. Other honors include the Dayton Literary Peace Prize, the Edgar Award for Best First Novel from the Mystery Writers of America, the Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Fiction from the American Library Association, the First Novel Prize from the Center for Fiction, a Gold Medal in First Fiction from the California Book Awards, and the Asian/Pacific American Literature Award from the Asian/Pacific American Librarian Association.
His other books are Nothing Ever Dies: Vietnam and the Memory of War (a finalist for the National Book Award in nonfiction and the National Book Critics Circle Award in General Nonfiction) and Race and Resistance: Literature and Politics in Asian America. He is a University Professor, the Aerol Arnold Chair of English, and a Professor of English, American Studies and Ethnicity, and Comparative Literature at the University of Southern California. He has been interviewed by Tavis Smiley, Charlie Rose, Seth Meyers, and Terry Gross, among many others.
He is also the author of the bestselling short story collection, The Refugees. Most recently, he has been the recipient of fellowships from the Guggenheim and MacArthur Foundations, and le Prix du meilleur livre étranger (Best Foreign Book in France) for The Sympathizer. He is the editor of The Displaced: Refugee Writers on Refugee Lives and the Library of America volume for Maxine Hong Kingston. He co-authored Chicken of the Sea, a children’s book, with his then six-year-old son, Ellison, and his most recent novel is The Committed, the sequel to The Sympathizer.
HBO turned The Sympathizer into a TV series in 2024, directed by Park Chan-wook. Nguyen’s last book was Simone, a children’s book illustrated by Minnie Phan, while his next book is To Save and to Destroy: Writing as an Other, forthcoming from Harvard University Press in 2025.
Oral History Project Spotlight: Angela Scalpello RC’76 on the Pioneering Women of Rutgers College ’76 Oral History Project
Angela Scalpello grew up in Lyndhurst, New Jersey. She attended Rutgers College from 1972 to 1976. In her interview, she delves into dorm life in Hegeman Hall, majoring in English, memorable professors, and experiences in the first coed class at the college. She wrote theater, movie, and book reviews for The Targum, earned a women's studies certificate, and lived off campus junior and senior year.
Fifty years later, Scalpello is an irrefutable industry leader in talent development and performance management. She consults as a C-suite advisor and coach at her own firm, The Scalpello Group. She is the current chair of the Institute for Women’s Leadership Advisory Board and has been involved in the School of Arts and Sciences First Together Mentorship Program at Rutgers. She is also a Skillanthropist at the Business Council for Peace (Bpeace) and works with them to help grow businesses in crisis-affected countries.
Scalpello was interviewed by the Rutgers Oral History Archives in 2022 as part of the Pioneering Women of Rutgers College ‘76 Project, an oral history project documenting the experiences of the first women to attend Rutgers College after it became coeducational in 1972. The project is a collaboration between the Rutgers Oral History Archives, Rutgers School of Arts and Sciences, and the Institute for Women's Leadership.
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More details about the event will be forthcoming.