In 1990 when historian Monys Hagen moved to Denver for her job at Metro, she made it a priority to visit Leadville and Camp Hale, where her mother was stationed as a WAC (Women's Army Corps) during WWII. At the Leadville Heritage Museum, she took in the display on Camp Hale and 10th Mountain Division and then asked a curator about the women stationed there.

No women were stationed at Camp Hale, she was told.

This Thursday, Hagen, an associate professor of history, will premiere the "Camp Hale" Web site—a new learning tool that attempts to right a historical wrong—from 3-5 p.m. in the Administration Building, room 580.

"There was this historical amnesia about women being there during the war," Hagen explains. "My question was, `Could I restore these women to Camp Hale?'"

Hagen embarked on a historical journey that would take more than a decade to complete. Securing funding from the Colorado Endowment for the Humanities and a research grant from the provost at Metro State, Hagen began the long process of locating these women, videotaping oral histories and digging through archives.

Camp Hale was built to train soldiers in the art of winter warfare. It housed mostly members of the fabled 10th Mountain Division, who would not only distinguish themselves as soldiers, but would also serve as linchpins in the development of Colorado's future ski industry. About 16,000 soldiers were stationed at the high-altitude camp, about 200 of them were members of the Women's Army Corps.

Hagen postulates that the reason WAC Camp Hale contributions were forgotten had to do with both the ratio of men to women as well as the combat status of men; though many never saw combat duty, those who did witnessed the death of many comrades. Also because the establishment of a "women's" army corps was new, it was also controversial, and Hagen thinks a degree of "hostility existed toward women in the military."

The project was originally conceived as a documentary, but when Hagen was approached by Steven Ernst from the Center for Academic Technology to develop a classroom learning tool, she liked the idea of deploying this information on a public platform like the Internet. "In this format, you can reach more people, it's more useable for classes and its accessible to the general public and interested parties."

The "Camp Hale" Web site, which contains videotaped interviews, primary documents, written history and photographs, was produced by Hagen and an undergraduate team from the Center for Academic Technology. It is currently being used by women's history, Colorado history and 20th century Colorado history classes at Metro.

"It's a good example of a reusable learning object," says Scott Houck, the academic media producer who managed the project. "It can be used and reused by many different classes."

Following WWII, the army decided to extend the Women's Army Corps. "The women I interviewed weren't angry (about their forgotten place at Camp Hale)," Hagen observes. "Rather they knew that the way they conducted themselves was a large reason for the decision to extend the WAC. They were very confident about what they had done and sure of their place in history."

To view the "Camp Hale" Web site go to http://www.mscd.edu/~history/camphale/