Fall 2010 Announcements
History Scholarships
For more information on the Susan Miles Scholarship, the Terry J. Lehmann Memorial Scholarship and the Dale Evans Memorial Scholarship, please visit the Financial Aid Office’s Departmental Scholarships page.
History Barbecue
5-8 p.m. Oct. 26 at the ASU Lake House
History Minor
Pursuing a history minor requires just four non-survey courses. You are already one-third of the way to a minor in history once you have taken History 1301 and History 1302, which are both required by the State of Texas.
History Honor Society
Membership in Phi Alpha Theta, the national history honor society, is not restricted to history majors. To be eligible for Phi Alpha Theta membership, students must complete 12 hours of history with a 3.1 or better GPA in those classes, and have an overall GPA of 3.0 or better. Phi Alpha Theta members attend historical conferences and organize lectures and coffeehouses, among other activities.
Courses
The fall 2010 semester at ASU kicked off in high gear for the Department of History. We offered a record number of American history survey classes (History 1301 and History 1302). Overall, 120 more students are enrolled in the American history survey courses than last year. Our hallways on the second floor of the Academic Building give off a bustling, dynamic vibe. We are open for business and we welcome walk-ins.
After a sweeping revision of its curriculum, the History Department placed a near-record-breaking eight non-U.S. and western civilization (History 2331 and History 2332) survey classes on its fall schedule. Five of these eight courses are new offerings designed for students interested in careers in American and international business, public relations and advertising, military and foreign service, law enforcement, museums, corporate research and the law. Our new courses include:
- History 2372 Introduction to Public History
- History 3308 U.S. Urban History
- History 3310 U.S. Constitutional History
- History 3372 China and the U.S. Since 1800
All our non-survey classes comfortably exceeded their minimum enrollment requirements and nearly all filled to the cap of 30 students. Our course rosters indicate that half to two-thirds of the students enrolled in the eight non-survey classes are majors from other departments. We are pleased to teach students who wish to enhance their knowledge of American, Latin-American, European and Asian economic, political and social history.
Dr. Jason Pierce and Suzanne Campbell of the West Texas Collection are expanding our public history and history internship opportunities. History majors and minors will be able to take a new course in the spring of 2011 to prepare them for possible employment as researchers, curators and writers in the private and public sectors. History 4314 Historical Preservation, Research and Writing will provide excellent preparation for an internship (History 4371 Internship in History) with our partners, which include Fort Concho and Downtown San Angelo Inc.
The History Department is searching for a 19th- and 20th-century American military historian with, hopefully, some background in international relations. We are excited to have this opportunity to bring in new faculty and improve our program. As teacher-scholars, we embrace undergraduate instruction as our first priority. We recognize as well that an active research and publication agenda keeps faculty intellectually fresh – and, of course, enhances the knowledge base we transfer to students.
Although boasting of the quality of our history faculty might seem immodest, we nonetheless point out that according to ASU’s standardized evaluation of teaching (IDEA), history faculty are among the best instructors – whether compared to others at ASU or to history faculty nationally. We provide quality instruction and are always available to answer questions inside and outside of the classroom. Moreover, while www.RateMyProfessors.com may not have any statistical validity, we are still pleased to report that two of our faculty members are, according to ASU students, “Red Hot Chili Peppers” when it comes to imparting historical knowledge.
Faculty Activities
Dr. Arnoldo DeLeón, C.J. “Red” Davidson Professor of History, is editing a major collection of essays (with Walter A. Buenger) titled Beyond Texas Through Time: Breaking Away from Past Interpretations. The work is scheduled for release by Texas A&M University Press in the spring of 2011. DeLeón is also editing War Along the Border: The Mexican Revolution and Tejano Communities (College Station: Texas A&M University Press) and leading a symposium on the topic at the University of Houston in September. His published essays this past year included “Annual Report on the Recent Literature on Tejano History” in Southwestern Historical Quarterly (October 2010). He also wrote forewords for two monographs written by fellow scholars in Texas. His forthcoming articles include Bruce Glasrud and Paul Carlson (eds.), The Giant Side of Texas: History of West Texas, along with contributions to the West Texas Historical Association Yearbook. DeLeón is the chair of the Excellence in West Texas History Fellowship Committee. He has been indispensable in bringing about revisions to history curriculum during the past academic year.
Dr. David Dewar, assistant professor of history, published a review of Trudy Eden’s “The Early American Table: Food and Society in the New World” in the Journal of Canadian History 45:1 (Spring-Summer, 2010). In January of 2010, he served as a chair and commentator for a Phi Alpha Theta (history student honor society) panel session hosted by the American Historical Association Conference. The ASU Athletic Department gave Dewar public recognition as one of the “Faculty Who Make a Difference” in the education of students. Since the summer of 2010 Dewar has served on a faculty committee to formulate ASU’s Quality Enhancement Plan (QEP), and will continue into the foreseeable future.
Dr. Kenneth J. Heineman, professor of history and department head, completed his book manuscript, Civil War Dynasty: The Ewings of Ohio. It is in the editing and revision stages with New York University Press. Prentice-Hall in 2010 reprinted a previously published essay, “Reformation: Monsignor Charles Owen Rice and the Fragmentation of the New Deal Electoral Coalition in Pittsburgh, 1960-1972,” edited by Jeffrey A. Davis and Paul Douglas Newman and appearing in Pennsylvania History: Essays and Documents. Heineman also published book reviews in Labor History and California History, and wrote a book review for Pennsylvania History during the summer of 2010. He is now working on a review for the Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography and has gone over what he hopes are the final revisions of an essay on American religious political activism in the 1930s for Cambridge University Press. Heineman evaluated a book manuscript for Bedford-St. Martin Press and served on search committees for the ASU Admissions and Financial Aid offices. He recently received an invitation to join the board of Fort Concho and looks forward to increasing his community service.
Dr. James Hindman, professor of history, gave a July lecture on 20th-century American foreign policy to 25 public school teachers at the Texas Education Agency Region XV Service Center.
Dr. John Klingemann, assistant professor of history, has a busy fall semester planned. He will be in Houston in September for a University of Houston conference, “War Along the Border: The Mexican Revolution and Its Impact Upon Tejano Communities.” The conference commemorates the 100th anniversary of Mexico’s Revolution of 1910. His talk is titled “‘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.” This essay will result in the publication of The Mexican Revolution and its Impact on Tejano Communities (Houston: Mexican American Studies Center; College Station: Texas A&M University Press, 2011). In November, he will be at Texas Tech for another conference commemorating Mexico’s Revolution of 1910. The conference will have several speakers, including Heineman, who will discuss the revolution. That same month, Klingemann will attend a conference at the Center for Big Bend Studies dedicated to Mexico’s Revolution of 1910.
Dr. Jason Pierce, assistant professor of history, has developed two new public history courses that are on the schedule this year. He is also performing important community outreach through his courses, most notably with the committee working to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the opening of the O.C. Fisher Federal Building in San Angelo. This marriage of the classroom and the real world benefits both ASU students and the community that ASU serves. Pierce will also attend the Western History Association conference in October and has submitted an article for review to the Great Plains Quarterly.
Dr. Joe Zheng, associate professor of history, is offering two new courses this academic year: History 3372 China and the U.S. Since 1800 and History 3337 Comparative History of Ancient East and West. The latter course will be on the spring schedule. Zheng completed his translation into Mandarin and extensive historical annotation of Robert Darnton’s The Forbidden Best-Sellers of Pre-Revolutionary France, which will be published this year by the East China Normal University Press (Shanghai). In addition to five book reviews for Choice (American Library Association), Zheng will publish a review of Hu Anguang’s Mao Zedong yu Wenge in H-Diplomacy Roundtable Reviews, Volume XI, October 2010.
