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History:
On the Move
By Rob Stewart
Photography by Chuck Zovko
The eyes of the College community focused on history Oct. 20 as Lafayette dedicated its newest academic building, Ramer History House. Ramer gives the history department striking, modern classrooms and  interior spaces that are more conducive to faculty-student and faculty-faculty interaction than history’s previous location, Fretz House, from which it moved
last summer. All in all, says Professor Deborah Rosen, “It’s a great asset, one that will enhance the department’s strengths right away and in the long-term.”
From Rosen’s vantage point as the current head of this department on the move, those strengths include
a faculty of productive scholars, excellent teachers, and dedicated mentors, and students who are highly engaged and motivated. As it settles into its new home, history remains in motion, investing significant energy in becoming even stronger through a review of the curriculum and search for a new faculty member.
“Right now, in terms of faculty and the quality of our teaching, we are at the top,” Rosen says. Barclay is just the latest of the department’s tenured faculty members to receive major annual College awards for teaching and/or scholarship. Indeed they are unusually productive and distinguished scholars, Rosen notes,
emphasizing that their explorations at the boundaries of knowledge
make them better teachers and translate into immense benefits for students in the classroom.
“Scholarship invigorates our teaching,” she says. “By doing research,
you stay intellectually alive. New ideas bring a certain energy. You bring
that energy into the classroom and you bring sources that you might not have discovered if not for your research.”
The department places particular emphasis on using primary sources, Rosen says, “to make the history come alive. We think it’s exciting for
the students to be able to see the original words that somebody wrote —their own perspective from that time—and let them come to their
own conclusions.”
Dedicated teacher-scholars, history faculty also engage extensively
with students as research mentors, and it’s their practice to let students
come to their own conclusions in that arena as well as in the classroom.
Faculty involve students in their own research agendas through the EXCEL Scholars program and serve as advisers on in-depth research projects—independent studies and honors theses—initiated by the students themselves. Mentoring seniors in honors research is a particular source
of departmental pride.
“It’s a very important aspect of what we do as faculty. The thesis is
one of the most specialized intellectual experiences students remember.
It takes them to a new intellectual level and shows them what historians
do,” Rosen says.
Last year 33 majors in history and the coordinate major in history/government & law received diplomas at commencement (a total
exceeded only by majors in economics and business, government and law itself, English, psychology, and mechanical engineering). Of these, seven
earned departmental honors in history.
Advisers meet with thesis students every week, guiding them in selecting their topic, finding and interpreting primary sources, identifying relevant secondary sources, and putting together a multi-chapter product.
“It’s a tremendous achievement for those who successfully complete
the thesis,” Rosen says. “They
Professor D.C. Jackson
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do a fantastic job intellectually, and we
are very proud of the outcomes.”
The number of history majors currently stands at 65, including 18 in history/gov-law. The curriculum is designed to give majors skills that are “essential for an educated citizen in our country and also skills that are expected of somebody who is trained in history,” Rosen says. These include the ability to read texts analytically, whether primary sources or secondary sources, and to do research, including using electronic resources, along
with writing and oral presentation skills.
The curriculum exposes majors to a variety of geographic regions and
time periods and “different kinds of history,” Rosen says, for example,
social, political, and religious history. It also insures that they go in-depth
in their understanding of a selected region or theme.
The history curriculum serves non-majors as well. “There we want to offer the type of course that students who are majoring in psychology, engineering, math, art, or whatever can use to enhance their knowledge and analytical skills as future citizens and liberally educated people,” Rosen says.
The department is not standing pat with respect to curriculum. Now in
the works is a new introductory course in world history that will expose students to the modern interconnections among nations. This will be a significant addition, something not found at a lot of undergraduate schools.
The newest member of the history faculty, Assistant Professor Shobana Shankar, joined the department last year with a Ph.D. from UCLA and expertise in African history, and a search is under way for a specialist in
Latin American and Caribbean studies.
So, as history looks to the future, Rosen says, “I am hoping that we will be at the cutting edge in many regards.”
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All eyes are on the speaker, Paul Barclay, associate professor of history, whom the College has awarded
the honor of delivering the fall term’s Thomas Roy and Lura Forrest Jones Faculty Lecture in recognition of excellence in teaching and scholarship.
Barclay is talking about the indigenous peoples of Taiwan. In accounts that have surfaced only recently, he says, these peoples are variously portrayed as most unfortunate victims of Japanese aggression, pristine avatars of Taiwanese cultural diversity, and symbols of the island’s savage condition before Chinese immigration. As he discusses these controversial and contradictory perspectives, he cites primary sources and weaves insightful analysis and commentary with wit and enthusiasm, and his audience gets a sense
of what Lafayette students experience every day in courses throughout the Department of History.
Associate Professor Joshua Sanborn and Douglas Maryott ’07
Dedicated
teacher-scholars,
history faculty also
engage extensively
with students as
research mentors.
Deborah Rosen, professor and department head
Members of the history department play key roles as faculty affiliates of
several interdisciplinary major and minor programs, including American studies,
Asian studies, international affairs, Jewish studies, policy studies, Russian
and East European studies, and women’s studies.
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