Past Is Prologue

History is the investigation of the human past. To study the past does not primarily mean to master a body of established facts about the past; it means to take part in an ongoing process of discovery.

Studying history gives students opportunities to:

	acquire a set of skills highly valued by professional schools and employers in today’s job market,
	deepen their understanding of the world by examining events, inventions, economic and social processes, and ideas that have shaped it,
	expand their mental horizons by exploring cultures different from their own, and
	take on special challenges that foster marketable skills such as internships, independent study, study abroad, and writing an honors thesis.

Every faculty member in the history department is a teacher and a professional historian, actively striving to expand the frontiers of historical knowledge. Their goal is to draw students into this search for new insights into the past to better understand the present and to seek to influence the future.
 

	Survival skills for the global marketplace. Students engage in in-depth study of a diverse array of societies and cultures including the United States, Latin America, Western Europe, Eastern Europe and Russia, the Middle East, and East Asia. This process cultivates the ability to think in new ways and to understand ways of living that are different from their own.
	Written communication skills. Students are assigned a substantial body of expository writing in every history course. They learn how to bring order to a body of data, to organize an argument, and to communicate ideas effectively.
	Oral communication skills. Students develop their abilities as public speakers in classroom debates, seminars, one-on-one meetings with faculty, and presentations to classes and other audiences.
	Analytical skills. In analyzing written texts, students learn how to pin down a writer's exact meaning and to draw out the unspoken implications of his or her statements.
	Research skills. Students are taught to use the full range of information resources including the rapidly expanding electronic and digital methods to locate the specific information relevant to a problem.

Broad Curriculum

Every history course gives students the chance to deepen their knowledge of history and to develop research, analytical, and communication skills. Students have a wide range of opportunities to work with professors on an individual basis and to participate in active learning through field trips in the local region, study abroad, and field research.

The department provides three levels of coursework. On the first level is an introduction to historical thinking and research, and surveys of American and European history. The intermediate level provides a diverse group of courses analyzing significant epochs or topics in European, Asian, Latin American, and United States history. In advanced-level courses, majors take topical seminars that involve in-depth study and original research papers. To develop a specialization within the broader field of historical study, each history major will take five closely related courses within a focus cluster. Focus clusters examine such themes as: premodern societies; 20th-century Europe; modernization, nationalism and revolution; intellectual history; Russian history; pluralism in American society; building America; U.S. foreign policy and world politics; and modern America.

"This is a very well thought out major, and we stress close, hands-on work in seminar-style classes for the basic courses," says Arnold Offner, Cornelia F. Hugel Professor of History. "We have also made a commitment to having senior faculty teach our first-year students, which is different than the way most schools do things."

The department encourages students to investigate historical topics of their own choice through independent study or an honors thesis under the direction of a professor. Topics explored by recent students include the history of women in the environmental movement, readings in contemporary Irish history, U.S. Indian policy in the 19th century, Darwin's scientific ideas and Victorian society, denazification in postwar Germany, cold war conflict, history of Chinese political thought, witchcraft trials in Scotland during the 17th century, and African Americans' personal narratives since the Civil War.

Special Features

Field trips and study abroad: History faculty lead trips to sites of historical interest in the region such as the Gettysburg battlefield, Valley Forge, New York City, and the Pennsylvania coal-mining country. They have also led trips overseas to Belgium, Cuba, France, Germany, the Czech Republic, Israel, Russia, and Spain.

Internships: Students have been placed in positions with local historical societies and museums, city and county government offices, charitable organizations, legal offices, schools, and businesses. Students gain experience as assistant teachers and assistants to principals in local high schools, as apprentice reporters at The Express-Times newspaper, and as assistants at local TV and radio stations.

After Graduation

Many recent history majors have won admission to prestigious graduate and law programs around the country. Others have gone into careers in banking, marketing, business management, public relations, advertising, journalism, and public policy.

Some have entered information management, a major growth industry that requires skills in gathering and organizing data. Graduates have found careers in secondary school or college teaching, in museums, public and private archives, at historic sites, in historic preservation, and in documentary editing.

Among graduates in the Classes of 2000-02, 29 percent accepted full-time employment, 25 percent enrolled in graduate schools, 10 percent chose law schools, 2 percent enrolled in health professions schools, 2 percent entered the military, and 24 percent were volunteering, traveling, or doing something else they wished.

Recent graduates have enrolled in graduate programs at American University, Boston University, University of Maryland, East Stroudsburg University, and American University of Cairo. Others have chosen LAW: Georgetown University, University of Vermont, Seton Hall University, Villanova University, Dickinson University; EDUCATION: University of Pennsylvania, University of Delaware, Lehigh University, and DeSales University; HEALTH PROFESSIONS: University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey, Widener University, and University of Portland.

Faculty

Paul D. Barclay, (Home Page), Associate Professor. Ph.D., University of Minnesota. Special interests: history of Japan and East Asia, early modern and modern global history, and comparative colonial studies.

Andrew C. Fix, Charles A. Dana Professor of History. Ph.D., Indiana University. Special interests: European intellectual history and the history of early modern Europe with emphasis on the development of religion and philosophy in 17th-century Holland. Recipient of the Jones Lecture Award, Jones Award for teaching and scholarship, and the Van Artsdalen Award for Scholarship.

Donald C. Jackson, Professor. Ph.D., University of Pennsylvania. Special interests: history of technology, United States history, industrial archaeology, material culture, and public history. Recipient of Student Government Superior Teaching award, and the Jones Lecture Award.

Donald L. Miller, John Henry MacCracken Professor of History. Ph.D., University of Maryland. Special interests: 20th century United States history and urban history. Documentary filmmaker. Recipient of the Marquis Distinguished Teaching Award, the Jones award for teaching and scholarship, and Student Government Superior Teaching award.

Arnold A. Offner, Cornelia F. Hugel Professor of History. Ph.D., Indiana University. Special interests: history of United States foreign policy, 20th century international relations, and American political history. Past President of the Society for Historians of American Foreign Relations, Recipient of the Marquis Distinguished Teaching Award and Van Artsdalen Award for scholarship.

Rebekah E. Pite
Assistant Professor of History. Ph.D., University of Michigan.
Special interests: History of Latin America and the Caribbean, history of Argentina, women’s and gender history, food history, oral history.  Currently writing a history of Argentina that explores the changing dynamics of gender, cooking, and consumption over the course of the twentieth century.

Deborah A. Rosen, Professor and Head. Ph.D., Columbia University. Special interests: colonial America, revolutionary America, early national period, legal history, women's history, race and ethnicity, and history of American Indians. Author of American Indians and State Law: Sovereignty, Race, and Citizenship, 1790-1880 (forthcoming 2007) and Courts and Commerce: Gender, Law, and the Market Economy in Colonial New York. Co-editor of Early American Indian Documents: Treaties and Laws, 1607-1789.  Recipient of the Marquis Distinguished Teaching Award and the Jones Lecture Award for Distinguished Teaching and Scholarship.

Joshua A. Sanborn, (Home Page), Associate Professor. Ph.D., University of Chicago. Special interests: Russian and East European history, war and society, peace studies, imperialism, nationalism, and gender studies. Recipient of the Jones Lecture Award for distinguished teaching and scholarship.

Robert I. Weiner, Thomas Roy and Lura Forrest Jones Professor of History and Jewish Chaplain. Ph.D. Rutgers University. Special interests: modern Europe, diplomatic history, and Jewish history. Five-time recipient of the Student Government Superior Teaching award, recipient of the Marquis Distinguished Teaching Award and Daniel Golden Faculty Service Award.

Deborah A. Rosen
Head, History
(610) 330-5170
FAX (610) 330-5176
rosend@lafayette.edu

For general information:
Office of admissions
Lafayette College
Easton, PA 18042
(610) 330-5100
FAX (610) 330-5355
admissions@lafayette.edu