Overview

The History Department is committed to providing our students with a rich and rigorous understanding of history, which includes an appreciation for the diversity of human experiences across time and place. 

Faculty expertise is central to the mission of helping students develop a critical understanding of history, and we as a department unreservedly affirm the academic freedom of our faculty. Any serious study of history requires us to engage honestly with our sources without censoring them to meet the standards of our times. Similarly, in order to address present injustices we must be willing to take an unflinching look at the injustices of the past. Beyond the quality of instruction, academic freedom is key to the diversification of history as a discipline. Subfields such as labor history, women’s history, and African American history would not have taken root without professors having the latitude to pursue new areas of inquiry and having them officially recognized as part of the curriculum. 

The backgrounds and research interests of the History faculty reflect the value that we place on diversity. In line with our commitment to exploring a wide variety of historical topics, methods and sources through our teaching and research, we welcome students from diverse backgrounds and with various perspectives. We recognize that engaging across differences can be challenging and uncomfortable at times, but the real value of a diverse community is only realized by working through these difficult moments. As a department, we embrace the messiness and joy of learning together. The History Department has an innovative public history thread within the major that helps students explore “the many and diverse ways in which history is put to work in the world.” (National Council on Public History, NCPH). Students interested in public history are encouraged to participate in community engagement and also to take advantage of our exciting off-campus studies programs.