In a recent issue of Perspectives on History, the newsmagazine of the American Historical Association, Dr. Vicki L Ruiz, the President of the AHA, reflected on the gift of mentorship. She recalled how as an undergraduate at FSU, Assistant Professor of History Dr. Jean Gould Bryant, “changed [her] life.” Bryant, a graduate of Stanford University who taught at FSU from 1972 until 2001, when she became emeritus professor, fostered Ruiz’s confidence to pursue a doctoral degree in History. It worked and the rest is history, so to speak. Dr. Ruiz graduated with a PhD from Stanford in 1982, is the author of a seminal work in women’s labor history and race relations, Cannery Women, Cannery Lives: Mexican Women, Unionization, and the California Food Processing Industry, 1930-1950 (New Mexico, 1987), and has served as past President of the Berkshire Conference of Women Historians, the Organization of American Historians, and the American Studies Association. Among other recent honors, she was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. She currently holds a position as Professor of History at the University of California, Irvine.