Faculty Notes (March-April 2025)

Current History Faculty Notes

 

Ashley Johnson BaveryAshley Johnson Bavery chaired a panel at the annual meeting of the Organization of American Historians in Chicago, on April 5, 2025. The topic of the panel was “New Books in Immigration and Ethnic History.” Professor Bavery also received a JamesH. Brickley Endowment for Faculty Professional Development and Innovation Award for her research project “A New Archival Investigation into Islam and Race in the Twentieth-Century Midwest.”


 

Robert ErlewineRobert Erlewine recently published “Idols and the Sanctuary: Elliot R. Wolfson and Modern Jewish Thought” in New Paths in Jewish and Religious Studies: Essays in Honor of Professor Elliot R. Wolfson, edited by Glenn Dynner, Susannah Heschel, and Shaul Magid (Purdue University Press, 2024).

 

 

 

Mark HigbeeMark Higbee passed away on February 13, 2025. Professor Higbee taught U.S. history and African American history at EMU from 1994 to 2024. Professors Richard Nation and Amanda Maher hosted a memorial on April 3 at which several colleagues, former students, and friends shared their memories of Mark. See the EMU History Facebook post for more information about Mark Higbee.

 

 

 

Jesse KauffmanJesse Kauffman delivered a talk at Stanford University on April 4, 2025, titled “From the Central European Theater to Central Europe: The First World War and the Long Twentieth Century.” See the Stanford Events Calendar for more information.

 

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Fredrick Walter LorenzWalter Lorenz received a James H. Brickley Endowment for Faculty Professional Development and Innovation Award for his research project “The Sultanʼs Colony: Transforming Migrants, Refugees, and Exiles into Settler Colonists in Late Ottoman Libya.” He also received a 2025 Summer Research Award for his research project: “The ‘Second Egypt’: The Making of Ottoman Settler Colonies in North Africa.”

 

 

John McCurdyJohn McCurdy received EMU’s 2025 Distinguished Faculty Research II Award on March 25, 2025. Professor McCurdy has taught History at EMU since 2005. See the History News for Professor McCurdy’s video interview. 

 

 

 

 

Steven RamoldSteven Ramold will present “The Meaning of Victory: VE Day in American Memory” at the Westland Public Library in Westland, Michigan, on May 8, 2025. See the Westland Library webpage for more information.



 

 

Emeritus History Faculty Notes

 

  • Mary Frances Berry, former EMU History professor, returned to the university to deliver the annual Martin Luther King, Jr., Luncheon Keynote address. Berry was an Assistant Professor of History at EMU from 1968 to 1970, and her early years at the university demonstrate the ways that she has intervened for justice at both the top and the bottom. A native of Nashville, Berry came of age just as the modern Black freedom struggle was gaining momentum. She traveled to Washington, D.C. to study at Howard University as an undergraduate and then came to the Midwest to earn a Ph.D. in history and a law degree, both at the University of Michigan—Ann Arbor. In 1968, she joined the History faculty as one of EMU’s first Black faculty members, teaching some of the department’s first classes in African American history.See the CAS Newsletter for more information.

 

  • William Donald “Don” Briggs,who died in December 2021, left a generous gift the EMU History which has endowed the EMU History Speakers Series. Briggs’s sizable gift ensures that each year the History Section will be able to bring in several internationally acclaimed historians to present their latest research to EMU’s students, faculty, and friends. In addition to funding History speakers, the Briggs gift will fund an annual scholarship for a student in History. The first scholarship was awarded this winter. Don Briggs taught History at EMU from 1964 to 1995. See the CAS Newsletter for more information.

 

  • James Calvin Waltz passed away on January 5, 2025. He grew up in Grape, MI where his parents owned and operated a small grocery store. He attended Dundee High School, graduating in 1952. He attended Michigan State University, graduating with a bachelor’s degree in 1956, before attending and graduating from the Evangelical Theological Seminary in 1958 and being ordained as a pastor. He returned to Michigan State where he completed his master’s and then a doctorate in History in 1963. He held teaching positions at Albion College in Albion, MI, Inter-American University in Puerto Rico, and also pursued postgraduate studies at Princeton University and Harvard University before settling in Ypsilanti, MI with his wife and three children. He joined the faculty at Eastern Michigan University and served for 32 years in various roles such as Professor of History & Religion, Acting Head of the History Department, and eventually Associate Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences. He also completed an NEH Fellowship at the University of Chicago. He served for a year as editor of Michigan Academician, and he authored two books and numerous academic articles. He was active in the community as a Cub Scout Cubmaster and youth baseball league coach, and volunteered extensively at local charity Friends in Deed. See the full obituary.