Anne Mitchell Whisnant Leads Award-Winning Group of Scholars
Anne Mitchell Whisnant chaired the group of scholars whose study, “Imperiled Promise: The State of History in the National Park Service,” won an Excellence in Consulting (Group) Award from the National Council on Public History.
University Recognizes Brett Whalen for Excellence in Teaching
Brett Whalen is one of the 2013 winners of a Chapman Family Teaching Award. These awards are given to full-time faculty members for excellence in undergraduate teaching. Chapman Fellows join the Faculty Fellows seminar at the IAH for one semester to pursue a study project with no teaching responsibilities for that term.
Excerpt from the award: Whalen treats his undergraduates as junior colleagues and makes believers out of skeptics by igniting a passion for learning—and history—in his students. He infuses his lectures with energy and fun. “In his hands, medieval history becomes engaging, challenging and alive,” a student said. A colleague in the History Department calls Whalen the “go to” person on questions of pedagogy because he thinks deeply about teaching and constantly refines his own methods. He skillfully weaves online Sakai discussions into the classroom and laces his lectures with references to popular culture and contemporary social and political issues.
History Honors Symposium April 23
History Honors students gathered for their annual presentation of research results. Friends, professors, and families came to Hamilton 569 on April 23 to hear some of the best in UNC undergraduate research and to enjoy end-of-year refreshments. Click here to read more about the projects.
UNC History Graduate Wins American Historical Association Undergraduate Writing Prize
T. Fielder Valone ’11 received the American Historical Association’s Raymond J. Cunningham Prize for the best article published in a history department journal written by an undergraduate student. Valone, currently a doctoral student at Indiana University, was honored for “Destroying the Ties that Bind: Rituals of Humiliation and the Holocaust in Provincial Lithuania,” which appeared in the inaugural issue of traces: The UNC-Chapel Hill Journal of History (spring 2012). Christopher Browning was his faculty adviser.
Malinda Maynor Lowery, Engaged Scholar
Malinda Maynor Lowery graduated in late November from the Faculty Engaged Scholars Program, sponsored by the Carolina Center for Public Service. To learn more about the program, see the Center’s story.
Professor Lowery recently spoke with Associate Chair Jay Smith about her goals and lessons learned. Read more HERE.
Richard J. A. Talbert Shares Scholarly Expertise on Rome, in Rome
Richard J. A. Talbert completed a week-long trip to Rome where he served as the inaugural Suzanne Deal Booth Scholar-in-Residence at the Intercollegiate Center for Classical Studies. For more about the program, and about Talbert’s lecture on “The Magnificent Peutinger Map,” see the story at the Ancient World Mapping Center.
Inaugural Issue of History Department Student Journal Honored
Traces: the UNC-Chapel Hill Journal of History, has received second prize in the 2012 competition for the Gerald D. Nash History Journal Award, presented annually by Phi Alpha Theta, the History Honor Society Inc. The executive student editors, Mark Hornburg and Lawson Kuehnert, deserve hearty congratulations for this accomplishment. Their faculty adviser is W. Miles Fletcher.
2012 History Graduate Awarded First Prize in the Elie Wiesel Foundation’s 2012 Ethics Essay Contest
Sarah Ransohoff ’12 traveled to New York City to accept first prize in the Elie Wiesel Foundation’s 2012 Ethics Essay Contest on September 20. Full-time juniors and seniors at accredited four-year colleges and universities are eligible to apply. The Foundation supplies suggested topics, but students are free to write about any topic as long as it pertains to ethics. You can read Sarah’s essay, “The Ethical Issues of Energy Dependence: Slavery in 1850s America and Oil Today” here. Her faculty adviser on the project was Joe Glatthaar.
Malinda Maynor Lowery Receives Hettleman Prize
Malinda Maynor Lowery is one of four recipients of this year’s Phillip and Ruth Hettleman Prizes for Artistic and Scholarly Achievement. She was recognized at the Faculty council meeting on September 7. The selection committee noted her outstanding contributions to research on Native American history, particularly the Lumbee Indians, as well as to the history of the American South and the evolution of digital humanities.
The Hettleman Prize, which carries a $5,000 stipend, recognizes the achievements of outstanding junior tenure-track faculty or recently tenured faculty. Phillip Hettleman, who was born in 1899 and grew up in Goldsboro, established the award in 1986. He earned a scholarship to UNC, went to New York and in 1938 founded Hettleman & Co., a Wall Street investment firm.
This is the second consecutive year a member of the History faculty has been selected for a Hettleman Prize. Last year Brett Whalen was among those chosen for this honor.
UNC Faculty at the DNC!
Watch as Peter Coclanis, Jacquelyn Hall, and other UNC scholars hold forth to journalists at the DNC here!
History Department Welcomes New Faculty Members (and Their New Courses) in Fall 2012!
Michael Cotey Morgan, Assistant Professor, studies the international history of the twentieth century, especially the Cold War. His Fall 2012 courses are “International Relations, 1618-1815” and “Human Rights in the Modern World.”
Molly Worthen, Assistant Professor, focuses on North American religious and intellectual history, particularly the ideas and culture of conservative Christianity in the twentieth century. This fall she is teaching “Global Evangelicalism” and “Sin and Evil in Modern America.”