D eanna Sorrells didn’t realize she liked history until she walked into Dr. Stephen Auerbach’s World Civilization classroom as a first-year student at Georgia College. The Savannah-born and -raised history major now can’t get enough of it. 

“Dr. Auerbach's the reason I wanted to major in history. The way he taught it was more like he was telling a story,” she said. “It was more narrative than just providing dates and names. And I have not looked back.”

Sorrells has taken four courses with Auerbach, and though each one is different, she feels they build on top of each other.

“I can go back to that first course and be like, ‘Oh, this applies here,’” she said. “Connecting the dots has never been an issue with his teachings.”

Sorrells works at Andalusia—the home of famed writer Flannery O’Connor—as a docent. She enjoys meeting new people and sharing information about O’Connor and her home. 

However, she finds the most exciting part of her job is working with the peafowl. There is a peacock named Astor and hen named Mrs. Shortly on the property. Sorrells feeds them and cleans their pen every day.

“They’re mostly pretty chill, but Mrs. Shortly is more territorial, she said. “If she's not in a good mood, I just toss the food in and go my own way. Astor is very laid back. They're in a pen for their own safety. But they're fine with people walking up to them to say ‘hi.’”

Although Sorrells heard about Flannery O’Connor in middle and high school, it wasn’t until she took Dr. Bruce Gentry’s Flannery O'Connor English course that it clicked with her. She drew from her experience at Andalusia and then coupled it with O’Connor’s literature to gain better insight into who O’Connor was.

Sorrells was recently initiated into Phi Alpha Theta—the American Honor Society for history. She’s also in the History Club, where she enjoyed meeting other history majors and English and liberal studies majors. 

Matt Davis, director of Historic Museums at Georgia College, taught two of her museum studies courses. She applied what she learned to her Andalusia job, working in collections.

“I can never look at a museum the same way,” Sorrells said. “I'm always dissecting the exhibits. Through that experience and learning Dr. Auerbach’s way of educating history to others through stories, I’ve learned what profession I want to pursue.”

Sorrells has been accepted to the Graduate Library Science program at the University of Alabama, where she will begin her studies in the fall.

“I will take the archival certificate route, working in museum archives and even state archives,” she said, “I'm very excited about this endeavor.”