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Click here to see what classes we're teaching this term, along with course syllabi, and the classes tentatively scheduled to be taught next term
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FACULTY ACHIEVEMENTS

2007

David Rich Lewis, with Michael Lansing, has published an article entitled "Surveying the Western History Association" in the Western Historical Quarterly (Autumn 2007).

Leonard Rosenband has published an article entitled “Becoming Competitive: England’s Papermaking Apprenticeship, 1700-1800,” in The Mindful Hand: Inquiry and Invention from the Late Renaissance to Early Industrialisation (2007).

Norman Jones has published an article entitled “Indispensable Digital Sources” in Sixteenth Century Journal (2007).

USU history majors Laura Newton and Joshua Booth were named first- and second-place winners of the Arrington Writing Award, offered in conjunction with the Leonard J. Arrington Mormon History Lecture at USU. Prizes of $1000 and $500 went to Newton and Booth.

Named the country’s “Top Young Historian” by the History News Network for the week of June 3, Lawrence Culver's op-ed essay on the history of tourism, “Are We There Yet? Historians and the History of Tourism,” appeared on the HNN web site. Click here to read the full essay.

Scott Davis, a History Major and Classics Minor, was named the USU Student Scholar of the Year at the Robins Awards for 2007. Many congratulations to Scott and his teachers!

Lawrence Culver was awarded a John Topham and Susan Redd Butler Faculty Fellowship from the Charles Redd Center for Western Studies at Brigham Young University for 2007-2008. He'll use it to fund travel this summer.

History students Chuck Oughton and Daniel Allred were given "Best Papers" awards at the Phi Alpha Theta 2007 state conference, Chuck in Ancient and Medieval history and Daniel in Asian and World history. Also, USU Latin students took five of the ten prizes offered by the state-wide Yengich Latin translation competition (for details, click here). Kudos to all these hard-working students!!

Congratulations to Jamie Sanders who was granted tenure and promoted to the rank of Associate Professor this Spring (2007)!

During USU's 2007 Research Week, held April 2-5, Michael Nicholls was named the Undergraduate Research Mentor of the Year for the College of HASS. His student Lenaye Howard was named the Undergraduate Researcher of the Year for the College of HASS (click here to see a photograph of the awards ceremony). In addition, Colleen O'Neill was named Researcher of the Year, and Daniel McInerney the Humanist of the Year. All in all, it's a fine year to be a historian!

The University of Nebraska Press has published Native Americans and the Environment: Perspectives on the Ecological Indian (2007), coedited by David Rich Lewis, editor of the Western Historical Quarterly.

Lawrence Culver has received the "Excellence in Instruction for First-Year Students" award from USU for the 2006-2007 academic year. He is only one of five professors at USU to receive this award.

2006

Our chapter of Phi Alpha Theta wins national recognition, again! (click here to read a full report)

The Society for the History of Technology in conjunction with the American Historical Association has published Peter Mentzel's booklet entitled Transportation Technology and Imperialism in the Ottoman Empire, 1800-1923. It is part of the Historical Perspectives on Technology, Society and Culture series.

Robert Cole was interviewed for a story entitled "Pentagon's Fine Line: War Machine, P.R. Machine" which aired nationally July 13 2006 on Morning Edition (NPR). Click here to listen to that report (hit the "Listen" button at the top of the page).

Jamie Sanders has won a Kluge Fellowship at the Library of Congress, from January to June 2007, for his project "Democracy in the New World: Imagining Politics, the West, and the Nineteenth-Century Atlantic World."

Colleen O'Neill has received a grant from The Wenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research, a private operating foundation that supports basic research in all branches of anthropology. This grant will fund a symposium entitled "American Indians and the Culture of Capitalism" which will discuss emerging work on American Indian culture and economies.

The USU chapter of Phi Alpha Theta was named the "Club of the Month" for March, 2006.

Four USU undergraduate history majors presented papers at this year's Utah Regional Conference of the international honor society in history, Phi Alpha Theta. Shay Wood won the award for "Best Paper in the History of the Americas" for his presentation "Polygamy and the Law: The Experience of Charles Lowell Walker."

The Historical Society of New Mexico gave Colleen O'Neill's latest book, Working the Navajo Way: Labor and Culture in the Twentieth Century (University Press of Kansas, 2005) the 2006 Gaspar Pérez de Villagrá Award for best historical publication (by an individual).

Scott Davis is one of six recipients nationwide of a Manson A. Stewart Scholarship for 2006, awarded by the Classical Association of the Middle West and South (CAMWS). Scott will receive $1000 toward tuition at Utah State University for the 2006-2007 school year, as well as a year's membership in CAMWS and a year's subscription to its scholarly journal, The Classical Journal. Warmest congratulations to Scott for winning this prestigious award!

Joel Miyasaki, a graduate student in the Department of History, has received the best paper prize for HASS at the Utah State Graduate Research Symposium. His paper was entitled "Irony, Good Intentions, and Misconceptions about the Manzanar Incarceration Camp."

Highland Sanctuary: Environmental History in Tanzania’s Usambara Mountains (Ohio University Press) by Christopher Conte has been included on Choice Magazine's list of the “best of the best” books for 2006 (click here to read more about this award).

The University of Oklahoma Press has published O Tempora! O Mores! Cicero's Catlinarian Orations: A Student Edition with Historical Essays by Susan O. Shapiro.

2005

In December 2005, USU bestowed a "Golden Mouse" award on Mark Damen for his work on the History Department web site—and if you're reading this, you can see it for yourself!—noting, in particular, his preternatural interest in exploring various genres of classroom technology. Our condolences to his wife Fran!

The University Press of Kansas has published Working the Navajo Way: Labor and Culture in the Twentieth Century by Colleen O'Neill, the associate editor of The Western Historical Quarterly.

The Logan City School District—and its partner, the Utah State University History Department—have received a $999,974 grant from the U.S. Department of Education's "Teaching American History" program. The award is part of a nationwide program to raise student achievement by improving teachers' knowledge, understanding, and appreciation of American history. Professors Norman L. Jones and Daniel J. McInerney worked with the local school district to create the successful grant proposal.

Norm Jones and Robert Tittler were awarded the Roland Bainton Prize for the best reference work on early modern Europe in 2004 for their Companion to Tudor Britain . The prize was awarded to them by the Sixteenth Century Studies Conference.

Michael Lansing, formerly the visiting assistant editor of The Western Historical Quarterly and a visiting assistant professor in 2003-5, now a tenure-track assistant professor at Augsburg College, Minneapolis, MN, has won the 2005 Dale L. Morgan Award from the Utah State Historical Society for the best article published in The Utah Historical Quarterly.

Susan O. Shapiro, who is Vice President for Utah of the Classical Association of the Middle West and South, was named Outstanding State Vice President for 2004-2005.

Four History professors — Lawrence Culver, Victoria Grieve, Colleen O'Neill and Tim Wolters — have been awarded New Faculty Research Grants for 2005-2006. Mike Johnson has also received a Community/University Research Initiative.

At this year's Top Prof awards ceremony, Mortarboard members honored three(!) professors from the History Department: Norm Jones, David Lewis and Mark Damen.

The College of Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences has chosen Denise Conover as the Faculty Advisor of the Year and Monica Ingold as the Outstanding Classified Employee of the Year. A round of applause for their outstanding service to our program!

Lawrence Culver has won the 2005 Rachel Carson Prize for the best dissertation in Environmental History completed between November 1, 2003 and October 31, 2004. His dissertation, filed in June 2004 at UCLA, is entitled "The Island, the Oasis, and the City: Santa Catalina, Palm Springs, Los Angeles, and Southern California's Shaping of American Life and Leisure." This award is given out annually by the American Society for Environmental History. It will be presented to him at the Society's annual meeting in Houston.

PROMOTION AND TENURE: 2005
Mark Damen was promoted to Full Professor.
Colleen O'Neill and Susan O. Shapiro were granted tenure.

2004

The Utah Humanities Council awarded Ona Siporin, Assistant Editor of the Western Historical Quarterly, the Albert J. Colton Research Fellowship for Projects of National and International Scope for her work on a translation of a biography of a Venetian architect. The work is entitled The Boat Knows the Way: The Biography of a Venetian.

Jamie Sanders was selected to receive the James Alexander Robertson Prize for his article entitled "'Citizens of a Free People': Popular Liberalism and Race in Nineteenth-Century Southwestern Colombia," Hispanic American Historical Review, 84:2 (May 2004). The Robertson Prize is for the best article in the Hispanic American Historical Review for the year under review.

The University of Press of Colorado has published Colleen O'Neill's book coedited with Brian Hosmer. It is called Native Pathways: American Indian Culture and Economic Development in the Twentieth Century.

Mark Damen, Associate Professor of History, presented the commencement speech this year at Utah State's graduation ceremony on December 18, the first ever held at the end of Fall term.

Professor Mick Nicholls was featured in the December 6th edition of The Utah Statesman, the student newspaper of Utah State University.

Christopher Conte, Associate Professor of History, recently published Highland Sanctuary: Environmental History in Tanzania's Usambara Highlands. This book is part of the Ecology and History series put out by Ohio University Press.

Oxford's Blackwell Publishing has recently released The Blackwell Companion to Tudor Britain, a collection of essays co-edited by Robert Tittler and Norm Jones, the Chair of the History Department.

Jamie Sanders' book, Contentious Republicans: Popular Politics, Race, and Class in Nineteenth-Century Colombia, has recently been published by Duke University Press and is for sale at Amazon, Barnes and Noble and The Duke University Press.

Leonard Rosenband was selected Researcher of the Year for 2004 by the College of Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences at Utah State University.

An audio course (Roman History) by Frances Titchener is currently available from the Listener's College Division of Recorded Books.

Susan O. Shapiro was given a Top Professor Award by the Mortar Board Senior Honor Society of Utah State University on March 23, 2004.

Jennifer Ritterhouse is a Visiting Fellow at the Tanner Humanities Center, University of Utah, for the academic year 2004-5.



 

Mark Damen designed this web site and is the current web master.
Comments? Questions about the History Department? Monica.Ingold@usu.edu

Comments? Questions about the web site? Mark.Damen@usu.edu
or Diane.Buist@usu.edu


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