Spring Semester Senior Thesis!

Here we are at the end of the year and hearing the wonderful thesis presentations of our Spring crop of graduating seniors. The topics were as varied as the students' interests; we learned about the Devil, Genghis Khan, John Eliot and the Peace Corps. The department is proud of the work our students have done and all that they have accomplished in their four years here at Saint Mike's!





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Location:Saint Edmund's Hall

Saint Michael's Student named as best paper presenter at Phi Alpha Theta conference

Matt Phillips was recognized as best presenter at the Phi Alpha Theta regional student conference on April 14, 2012 at Plattsburgh, NY. His study, "Revolution, Identity, and the Early American Textbook," examined the evolution of national identity through the texts of early American textbooks.

Congratulations, Matt!



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Location:Plattsburgh, NY

Saint Michael's students shine at the Phi Alpha Theta Regional Conference

History students Jacob (Jake) Carleen, Matthew Phillips, and Mary Farnsworth presented formal papers at the Phi Alpha Theta Regional History Honors conference. They made us proud with their professional delivery of original research and writing. Their attendance at the conference marks the end of very distinguished academic careers here at Saint Mike's as all three will graduate this next month.

Jake's paper focused on the story of Blues singer, Memphis Minnie, and the connection between the experiences of African Americans in the Depression. Matt's paper focused on the connection between national identity and the development of a national creation story in early history textbooks. Mary's paper looked at the WWI experiences of Albert Fray, shell shock and the larger story of the soldiers who returned with severe mental and physical disabilities.

We are all very proud of Jake, Matt, and Mary!



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Location:Plattsburgh, N.Y.

The end of finals!

Well, here we are at the very end of finals week in the last testing period of the last day! I appreciate that my students are all tired, anxious to be done, and to be on their way to home, family, and Christmas vacation. Amen.





I commend those students who stuck it out with me over the week and are diligently finishing their exams on this last day. I thank them all for their efforts.







I hope they all have a great vacation and come back safely. I look forward to seeing them all here in the new 2012 spring semester!


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Location:Saint Edmunds Hall, Room 106

Tis the Season!: Senior Thesis Presentations (2)

As the day progressed, so too did the wonderful presentations! The students were professional, absorbed in their topics and the faculty inordinately proud of their accomplishments! Congratulations!!!!!!!!!





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Location:STE 102

Tis the Season!: Senior Thesis Presentations

The sure signs are out that it is the end of the fall semester here at Saint Mike's. The bells are pealing with Christmas hymns, the library is full of students working with a redecorated effort (perhaps they are seeing the light at the end of the tunnel?), and in the History Department the seniors are finishing up their capstone projects in Senior Seminar. Saturday, December 3rd, is the day they present their project presentations and we all celebrate their creativity, industriousness, and the fruit of their labors.


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Location:Saint Ed's Hall

Early Fall Semester Update

It is indeed hard to believe that we are at the beginning of the fourth week of our fall (2011) semester! I think we have started the semester well here in the History Department. Our six full time and two part-time members of our department are offering sixteen courses on the introductory and upper levels, covering American, European, Latin American, Middle Eastern, and Asian history. (Our colleague, Dr. Douglas Slaybaugh, is on sabbatical this fall, as I think I have mentioned before.) We have a number of new seminars offered this fall. Each caps at fifteen students, and they include "Orwell in the 1930's" (Dr. Jennifer Purcell) and "Topics in Latin American History: Islands in the Caribbean" (Dr. Kathryn Dungy, pictured above). We also have one new introductory survey course, "Medieval Europe" (taught by yours truly), which is a one semester replacement for our medieval history survey that used to be two semesters. Other offerings on the upper level include "World War II in Asia," "The American Revolution," and "The Black Death."

What is also particularly exciting to me is the strong start of our senior seminar in History, required of all majors in their senior year. This is the capstone course for our majors, and each of them will be presenting his or her research results in early December. It is always a small seminar, and this semester we have fourteen students working on a variety of topics (ten History majors and four American Studies majors). The wide-ranging topics include the Armenian genocide, the history of policies in Major League Baseball on performance enhancing drugs, the Thomas Indian School in New York, and the legacy of racism in Birmingham, Alabama.

In the past few months we have been revising our History Department Web site, so if you have not yet checked it out, please do so. We also have a number of upcoming events, including our annual Kuntz Lecture early next semester and our bi-annual pre-registration pizza dinner for our majors in October (when we lay out the course selection for the following semester).

Today I am headed out to the Ethan Allen Homestead in the new North End of Burlington to hear a lecture by my colleague, Dr. Susan Ouellette. She is talking about what we can learn about women's work in early nineteenth century America from her study of the diary of Phebe Orvis Eastman (her current research). This comes just a few days after I heard my colleague in Religious Studies, Dr. John Kenney, speak at the College on Neo-Platonism and Saint Augustine. These are two reasons why being a faculty member at Saint Michael's College can always be so enlightening and also so much fun. The learning just never stops, even (or especially) for a middle-aged college professor.