Chair Katrin Schultheiss
Welcome! I am very happy to share with you highlights of the past academic year and to give you a glimpse of some of the plans we have for the future. We were fortunate to have hired two new faculty. Joel Blecher joined us this fall as a specialist in the history of early and medieval Islam. Arie Dubnov will arrive in January 2017 as the inaugural Max Ticktin Professor of Israel Studies. On a more wistful note, in spring we celebrated the career of Professor Emerita Linda Levy Peck, who retired after 19 years.
Several of our current faculty garnered notable honors this year: Marcy Norton was awarded a prestigious Guggenheim Fellowship. The department also earned four university-wide teaching prizes, two each for Denver Brunsman and Christopher Klemek.
This year, we are launching a new initiative in public history that will enable students to explore the many uses of history in the “real world,” including in museums, at historical sites and in the political arena. We are also continuing popular programs such as The Price of Freedom: Normandy 1944, which features a trip to France for undergraduates who visit the sites of the D-Day invasion.
As you can see, the department has ambitious plans. Unfortunately, funding reductions have impeded our efforts to extend critical support for graduate student summer research, student conference travel, and talks by important visiting scholars. Please consider donating to the department this year, if you can. Your support has a real impact on our research and on the educational activities we are able to offer our students.
Most of all, however, we would like to stay in touch with you. Please feel free to contact me at [email protected]. Thank you for your ongoing interest in the History Department.