Fall 2011 Announcements
Letter from the Department Head
Dear Friends:
As the 2011-12 academic year dawns, it is time to share some news, offer words of congratulations to colleagues and make a few announcements. Bob Bluthardt has generously offered to let us use Barracks 6 at Fort Concho for our history program student picnic at no charge. We are looking at Oct. 20, with a start time just before 5:30 p.m. Fort personnel will provide students and guests with an overview of the techniques of living history. We will set up the tables in a rectangle so that everyone will be seated together and can listen to the brief welcoming remarks and the historical presentation. Since barbecuing is a little awkward at the fort, and has always made for some logistical problems with feeding folks, Theresa and I will shop for good lunch meats and go deli. We will continue with the dish to pass tradition.
We are beginning the fall of 2011 with the largest core and advanced course enrollments ever recorded at ASU. Our 10 advanced history courses, the largest number offered to date, all made their minimal enrollment requirements by the fourth day of fall registration. At last count, those 10 courses have enrolled 260 students. This figure is among the highest at ASU. Overall, there are more than 1,400 students enrolled in history courses, and 102 in geography, representing more than 4,500 semester credit hours. Our classrooms on the second floor of the Academic Building are fully utilized, freshly painted and open for business. None of this would have been possible without having an excellent faculty that is dedicated to quality instruction, high academic standards and a commendable level of professional engagement. I am also very grateful to have a sterling office coordinator in Ms. Angela Howell. By all your examples, students learn that a college education is more than a credential – it is the beginning of a journey in which they attain knowledge, learn the importance of meeting deadlines and prepare to meet life head-on.
Regards,
Professor Ken Heineman
Nostrovia! for 2011
- Please extend to Dr. Jason Pierce and his public history students a hearty "well done" for their work on the O.C. Fisher Federal Building 100th Commemoration:
ASU Public History Students Prepare for Centennial Celebration of O.C. Fisher Building
Students from the history program at Angelo State University have spent the last year preparing for the centennial celebration of the O.C. Fisher Federal Building with the assistance of Joyce Lowe, the deputy-in-charge of the San Angelo Division, U.S. District Court, Northern District of Texas, and Dr. Jason Pierce, assistant professor of history. Students in History 2372 (Introduction to Public History) researched the role of post offices in the area, the development of the post office and its opening in 1911, the role of the federal courts in San Angelo, and the life and career of O.C. Fisher, for whom the building was renamed. ASU students Sarah Sanchez, Kagan Box and Kain Tomlin (under the direction of history M.A. student Heather Wylie) continued the work in History 4314 (Historical Preservation, Research and Writing). Sanchez, Box and Tomlin created a brochure for dissemination at the building and designed a website on the history of the building. The ASU history program and public history students are proud to have helped commemorate this important structure. The official celebration of the building's centennial was held Aug. 26 in front of the building.
O.C. Fisher Centennial Celebration Program
Master of Ceremonies
The Honorable Judge Sidney A. Fitzwater
Chief District Judge, U.S. District Court
Northern District of Texas
Presentation of Colors
All Service Honor Guard
Goodfellow Air Force Base
San Angelo, Texas
Pledge of Allegiance
Karen S. Mitchell, Esquire
Clerk of the Court, U.S. District Court
Northern District of Texas
National Anthem
Patriotic Blue
Goodfellow Air Force Base
Invocation
The Honorable Judge Ben Woodward
State District Judge, 119th District Court
Concho, Runnels and Tom Green Counties
Welcome
The Honorable Judge Sidney A. Fitzwater
Chief District Judge, U.S. District Court
Northern District of Texas
Remarks
J.D. Salinas III
U.S. General Services Administration
Regional Administrator, Greater Southwest Region
The Honorable Judge Sam R. Cummings
District Judge, U.S. District Court
Northern District of Texas
The Honorable Rep. Mike Conaway
11th Congressional District of Texas
U.S. Congress
Presentation
Dr. Jason Pierce
Angelo State University
San Angelo, Texas
- And another round of applause for Jason Pierce, as well as for Joe Zheng and John Klingemann, in recognition of their ASU-supported archival research in Utah, Texas, Mexico and China during the summer of 2011. Be sure to ask them about their experiences.
- Joe Zheng published "The Forbidden Best Seller of Pre-Revolutionary France" with the East China Normal University Press, and wrote two articles for the Journal of Modern Chinese History: "The May 4th Movement as Interpreted by the Chinese Intelligentsia of the 1930s" and "Interpreting 'Democracy' in Modern China."
- Arnoldo De León wrote book reviews for the Southwestern Historical Quarterly and the Journal of San Diego History, co-authored "Latinos in U.S. Sports" (Champaign, Ill.; Human Kinetics, 2011), and "Beyond Texas Through Time: Breaking Away from Past Interpretations" (Texas A&M University Press, 2011), as well as edited "War Along the Border: The Mexican Revolution and Tejano Communities" (Center for Mexican American Studies, University of Houston, and Texas A&M University Press), forthcoming in the fall of 2011. De León also won the Robert A. Calvert Award in 2011 for the best manuscript on Texas history ("War Along the Border") submitted to the Texas A&M University Press. He also supervised a graduate history paper written by Travis Taylor that received the Best Student Essay prize from the West Texas Historical Association in 2011.
- David Dewar presented "Seeking Peace in Wartime: A Case Study in Cultural Brokerage During the American Revolution" at the Organization of American Historians 2011 national conference in Houston, and wrote a book review for the Journal of Canadian History. He is currently revising a book manuscript tentatively titled "George Morgan and the First American West." In 2011, ASU tenured and promoted Dewar to the rank of associate professor.
- Jim Hindman continued his work with regional schools, giving an in-service presentation in the summer of 2011 to 50 area public school teachers for Region XV. His presentation was on the U.S. and world affairs since 1898.
- Gary Pumphrey and his research colleagues have written a paper for Natural Resource Journal. This paper, titled "Building a Simple General Model of Municipal Water Conservation Policy for Communities overlying the Ogallala Aquifer," should come out early in 2012.
- Arnoldo De León, Joe Zheng and Ken Heineman have prepared new history courses for the fall of 2011: History 3309 U.S. in the Age of War and Upheaval, 1939 – 1989; History 4340 History of Globalization Since 1945; and History 4342 Dictatorship and Democracy in the 20th Century.
- John Klingemann published "'The Population is Overwhelmingly Mexican; Most of it is in Sympathy with the Revolution…': Mexico's Revolution of 1910 and the Tejano Community in the Big Bend," in, Arnoldo DeLeon, ed., "The Mexican Revolution and its Impact on Tejano Communities" (Mexican American Studies Center; Texas A&M University Press, 2011). In 2011, Klingemann gave public lectures at the San Angelo Fine Arts Museum and at ASU, and was named Advisor of the Year for his work with the ASU Association of Mexican-American Students.
- Ken Heineman's book manuscript, "Civil War Dynasty: The Ewings of Ohio," is in edit with New York University Press. In 2011, Heineman published book reviews in Pennsylvania History and the Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography, wrote an essay for Pennsylvania Legacies, drafted a seminar proposal with the Ohio Historical Society for the National Endowment for the Humanities, and served on an interdisciplinary doctoral dissertation committee (History, Music and Physics) at Ohio University.
-
Kanisorn Wongsrichanalai, or "Kid," has completed his trek to Texas. His dissertation, "The Burden of Their Class: College-Educated New Englanders and Leadership in the Civil War Era," written under the direction of noted Civil War historians Gary Gallagher and Ed Ayers, is under contract with Fordham University Press. After earning his B.A. in history and psychology from Bowdoin College, Wongsrichanalai received his Ph.D. in history from the University of Virginia in August of 2010. He may be reached in Room 239D of the Academic Building. His office phone is 325-942-2157. Wongsrichanalai presented a paper at the "New England in the Civil War" conference part of the Dublin Seminar for New England Folklife hosted by Historic Deerfield and the Society of Civil War Historians in June of 2011. He also took several research trips, and is working on a paper to be presented at the annual conference of the History of Education Society in November of 2011. He also wrapped up two essays that come out in November of 2011 and January of 2012, respectively. The first will appear in the Massachusetts Historical Review, and the second will be part of an edited collection on youth in the sectional conflict. In his spare time, Wongsrichanalai is warming up for this year's Civil War commemoration lecture series.
Civil War 150th Commemoration Discussion Series
Fall 2011 Schedule
The Civil War Comes to Texas
When: 7 p.m. Sept. 13
Where: Fort Concho Commissary
Panelists:
Dr. Arnoldo De León (ASU History): "Sam Houston and Texas Secession"
Mr. Curtis Milbourn (Civil War Roundtable): "Gen. Tom Green, Texas Warrior"
Moderator:
Dr. Jason Pierce (ASU History)
Civil War Commanders: Ulysses S. Grant vs. Robert E. Lee
When: 7 p.m. Oct. 11
Where: C.J. Davidson Center, University Center, ASU
Panelists:
Dr. Kanisorn Wongsrichanalai (ASU History): "Ulysses S. Grant"
Dr. Bill Taylor (ASU Department of Security Studies): "Robert E. Lee"
Moderator:
Dr. Robert Ehlers (ASU Department of Security Studies and Criminal Justice)
Guerilla Warfare, Counter-Insurgency and the Lessons of the Civil War
When: 7 p.m. Nov. 15
Where: C.J. Davidson Center, University Center, ASU
Panelists:
Dr. Ken Heineman (ASU History): "General Thomas Ewing Jr., and the Missouri Borderlands"
Dr. Robert Ehlers (ASU Department of Security Studies and Criminal Justice): "Aftermath: The Truisms, Continuities and Discontinuities of Irregular Warfare"
Moderator:
Col. Mike Buck, U.S. Air Force and ASU ROTC, Retired
