• Graduates with degrees in History from EMU have gone on to a wide variety of pursuits. John S. Ellis (History, Undergraduate ’90) went on to complete his Ph.D. at Boston College and currently teaches history at the University of Michigan at Flint. He has published articles in a variety of academic journals including the Journal of British Studies.
  • Another graduate, Lindsay F. Braun (History, Undergraduate ’94) went on to complete a master’s degree at Michigan State University is currently a Ph.D. Candidate at Rutgers University. He was awarded a Fulbright Fellowship to South Africa in 2002.
  • Long before many peer institutions, Eastern Michigan had a strong international focus, exemplified by the first textbook in twentieth-century world history, produced by Professors Terry, Goff, Upshur, and Moss, The Twentieth Century World (1979), now widely used in general education classes at many institutions. After the success of that book, Goff, Terry, and Upshur were joined by Professors Holoka and Cassar in developing a broader textbook, World History (1991), which spanned the whole course of human history, for courses in world history that are increasingly replacing the old Western Civilization surveys.
  • The section has always had strong support for an inclusive curriculum within the United States, with long-term offerings of African American and Native American history supplemented by a number of new permanent courses, including History of the Civil Rights Movement; a course on the history of African-American women, and Sexual Communities in U.S. History (a gay and lesbian history course), and Native American Women. Recently we offered a section of the History of the Civil Rights Movement as a bus tour of key locations of that movement. Our commitment to an inclusive pedagogy is best exemplified by Professor Higbee’s article, “Frederick Douglass and Today’s College Classroom,” which won one of the 2000 National Education Association’s Excellence in Academy Awards and which describes the opportunities and challenges of using Douglass’s Narrative in the classroom.
  • The American Historical Association presented Professor Citino with the 2004 Paul Birdsell Prize, offered biennially for a major work in European military and strategic history since 1870. This illustrious award, in a field of history unsurpassed in the number of scholarly books produced, underlines the strength of the history program at Eastern Michigan University.
  • Although history is not a field in which there are many external grants, Professor Vinyard has recently won an Earhart Foundation Research Grant for the academic year 2004-2005, allowing her to take a leave to finish her book, Behind Democracy: Grassroots Movements from the Ku Klux Klan to the Michigan Militia. At least ten faculty members have won various internal grants in support of their research, ranging from full-year sabbaticals and Faculty Research Fellowships to Spring/Summer grants and New Faculty research grants.
  • Service to professional associations is best exemplified by Professor Schmitz’s role as a founding member of the International Phoenician-Punic Studies Association and Professor Terry’s tenure as the editor of the Arab Studies Quarterly. For many years, Professor Upshur has been serving in various capacities with the College Board and Educational Testing Service regarding their examinations in world history, and Professor Vinyard has served on the editorial board of the Michigan Historical Review since 1987.
  • A number of faculty members have provided services to the community at large. The senior faculty in particular has made a variety of presentations to various community organizations, ranging from senior citizens’ groups to local art museums. Professor Vinyard has served as a consultant for the Detroit 300 Tercentennial Committee and for the NEH grant to the Rex Dobson Ruby Ellen Farm Foundation. Professor Higbee serves on the Washtenaw County Historic District Commission, as one of its professional members. Professor Homel has continued a monthly History Readers Group at one of the local bookstores that has been going since it was begun by a faculty member no longer with us in 1996. The section as a whole reached out to the community in its Automotive Heritage Lecture Series, bringing in noteworthy scholars from outside the department to public lectures well attended by members of the community.