FINAL Winter 2010 Hist Nwslttr.indd

Chair’s Corner
D ISCOURSE
C OLLABORATION
by Charles Israel
I NQUIRY
A UBURN U NIVERSITY ’ S D EPARTMENT
OF
HISTORY
Winter
2010
Vol. XXX
Happy New Year and hello from Thach Hall.
It has been a busy and productive year in the Department of History. We have been busy hiring and
welcoming new colleagues in several disciplines in
the fall of 2008 and 2009. We have been fortunate,
even in this troubled economy, to replace vacated
positions and to strike out in new directions like
Public History and War and Society.
Since the last newsletter, friends of history at Auburn have continued to remember the department generously. Thanks to you, the Kicklighter Endowed Professorship has been funded, the Gordon C. Bond Library in Thach Hall has been
beautifully refurbished, and students and faculty have been recognized with scholarships, named awards, and endowed support for research. Thank you!
The newsletter reveals that our faculty, alumni, and students have been busy.
Jenny Brooks was awarded tenure, Cate Giustino received a Fulbright Research
Award, and the online Encyclopedia of Alabama went public. A record number of
graduate students —15 — completed theses and dissertations during 2008–2009,
while a promising class of undergrads have headed to work and into such graduate programs as Ohio State and Vanderbilt universities. Alumna Leah Rawls
Atkins has continued her advocacy for Alabama history while Susan Youngblood
Ashmore and Ben Wise both won major research and publication awards at the
2009 Southern Historical Association meeting.
It’s been too long since we’ve talked. I’ve been chair for a bit over a year now,
but this is the first newsletter published under my watch. I became chair in fall
2008 when Anthony Gene Carey left Auburn. I am a historian of religion and society in the American South, though I’ll confess that recently I’ve felt more like a
student of bureaucracy than history. Thankfully the department has sustained its
reputation for collegiality and hard work, making a chair’s life almost enjoyable.
As this is the season for resolutions, I’ll promise we will not take so long to publish another edition. Please enjoy the newsletter, check the department website
(www.auburn.edu/history) for more timely and extensive updates, and join me in
a resolution to keep in touch. ●
Inside This Issue...
• EOA’s Success Owes Much to History Department . . . . . . . . . 2
• A Fond Farewell to Tony Carey . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
• American History Update . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
• Department Launches Public History Program . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
• European History Update . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
• History of Technology Update . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
• World History Update . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
• Kicklighter Professorship Fund Update . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
• Faculty Notes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
• Department Notes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
• Class Notes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
2
Auburn University
Encyclopedia’s Successful First Year Owes
Much to History Department
The online Encyclopedia of Alabama celebrated the
first anniversary of its official launch and surpassed
half a million visitors and 1.3 million page views in
September 2009 (www.EncyclopediaofAlabama.org).
The EOA is a free online resource on Alabama’s history, culture, geography, and natural environment.
It was developed through a partnership between Auburn University and the Alabama Humanities Foundation; the editorial staff is based in the Department
of History.
The site received national recognition when it was
included on Library Journal ’s list of best free reference
resources for 2008, described as “an excellent example of a well- designed site on the history, culture, and
geography of a U.S. state.”
“EOA is matching the expectations of the people
who worked so hard to make the site a reality,” said Dr.
Jeff Jakeman, EOA editor. “The statistical data we’re
collecting show that EOA is being used by schools,
libraries, journalists, bloggers, museums, businesses,
and even other online research tools. It is becoming a
valuable resource on all things Alabama.”
When EOA launched, it had 525 articles and approximately 2,000 images; since then, more than 350
new articles and 1,300 images have been added. New
articles are added each month. AU History alums have
contributed to EOA’s ever-increasing content. In the
list of top 100 most viewed articles for the first year, at
least 12 were written by people with department ties.
The list includes:
• Susan Abram (PhD ’09)
• Leah Rawls Atkins (MA ’60, PhD ’74)
• Allen Cronenberg (retired faculty)
• James Sanders Day (PhD ’02)
• Glenn T. Eskew (BA ’84)
• Linda McMurry Edwards (MA ’72, PhD ’76)
• Wayne Flynt (professor emeritus)
• W. David Lewis (professor emeritus)
• Raymond C. Morton (MA ’04)
• Kenneth Phillips (MA ’82, PhD ’99)
• Jennifer M. Murray (current PhD student)
• Marty Olliff (PhD ’98)
Current faculty members who have contributed
articles are: Lindy Biggs, Kathryn Braund, James
Hansen, Jeff Jakeman, Angela Lakwete, and William
Trimble. At least 29 History Department alumni have
contributed articles to the EOA.
— Laura Hill
The Encyclopedia of Alabama is
looking for authors who:
• have a keen interest in local and state
history, culture, and events
• are familiar with conducting research in
reliable print and Web-based sources
• are able to work with a predetermined
set of guidelines and article format
EOA is adding entries on topics in the
following areas:
• the largest and second largest cities
in each county, not including county
seats
• local figures who have had a significant
impact statewide and nationally; for
example, an area resident elected to a
federal office
• events, festivals, historical sites, etc.,
that draw statewide and nationwide
visitors and attention
If you are interested in writing for EOA,
please contact Pat Kaetz, managing editor,
at [email protected] or 334 - 844 - 4007.
Suggestions about other possible entries
are encouraged. Please visit EOA before
you volunteer for or suggest a topic to make
sure that it is not already covered.
History Department
3
A Fond Farewell to Tony Carey
In July 2008 the department bid a fond if sad farewell to Tony Carey and his wife, Layne McDaniel. Tony
joined Auburn’s History Department faculty in 1992,
and Layne taught for the Women’s Studies Program in
addition to working as a grant writer on campus. Both
trained as historians at Emory University, where Tony
wrote his dissertation under the direction of Jim Roark
and Layne under Elizabeth Fox-Genovese. They left
Auburn to take positions at Appalachian State University in Boone, North Carolina, where Layne is teaching
in the History Department and Tony is Vice Provost
for Faculty Affairs.
During his sixteen years in the History Department
and the College of Liberal Arts Tony became a major presence on campus. A highly rated teacher, he
was a one- man Old South program. He directed six
dissertations and served on a dozen dissertation committees (and he continues to serve on the committees
of some Auburn graduate students). Throughout the
period he was associate dean, Tony continued to offer
his seminar on the Old South and to advise graduate
students.
Auburn graduate Sara Frear, currently an instructor in U.S. History at the University of South Alabama
in Mobile, shares some of her thoughts about Tony as
teacher and mentor:
I recalled during moments of discouragement,
was also his simplest: “You can do this!”
Despite a heavy load of teaching and ultimately
administrative duties, Tony remained a significant
scholar of the Old South throughout his career at
Auburn. In 2005 he was honored with the Hollifield
Chair of Southern History. Among several works, he
is best known for his monograph Parties, Slavery, and
the Union in Antebellum Georgia, published to wide acclaim in 1997. A deeply researched examination of
Georgia party development in the three decades
before the Civil War, the book directly took on and
refuted the prevailing thesis that Georgia’s slaveholding aristocracy conspiratorially foisted secession onto
a distrusted and ill-used mass of white voters in order
to preserve their power at home.
Instead, Tony argued vigorously that republican
notions of liberty endangered support for slavery,
and racism united white men of all classes to the
degree that nearly all of them voluntarily supported
secession after Abraham Lincoln’s election, dividing
only on timing and tactics. Secession was not elite
machination, in other words, but rather a popular
mass movement. One reviewer called the book “an
elegant and perhaps even definitive book on Georgia
politics,” while another deemed it “essential reading
for anyone attempting to understand the causes and
I thought he was an ideal mentor who struck
just the right balance between providing me
(continued on next page)
with direction and letting me explore matters for myself. I don’t know how he managed to be so available while he was first
dean, then department chair, but he always
seemed to have time to talk. His love for
southern history was (and still is, I am sure)
contagious. In class, he combined an easygoing manner with a certain intellectual
joie de guerre. He didn’t shy away from controversial topics, and he had a passion for
the moral as well as the analytical aspects of
historical study. He also had great empathy,
both for the denizens of the past and for his
students. I was struck by his frequent use of
the colloquial term ‘people’ when he talked about antebellum southerners. It made
them seem more accessible and human.
He provided me with plenty of scholarly
Tony Carey with students Colin Shannon, Mike Zarafonetis,
feedback as well as emotional support as I
David Self, and David McRae.
thrashed my way through my dissertation.
Perhaps his most helpful comment, one that
4
Auburn University
hiring of eight assistant professors, embarked on the
redecoration of the main office and library, and played
a crucial role in launching the Encyclopedia of Alabama
in September 2008. Tony personally expanded the
department’s outreach efforts by serving as historical
consultant on the Slavery Interpretation Project at
Westville, Georgia (which involved the construction
of a replica slave house), and on the “Cotton State”
rooms, which are part of a permanent exhibition at
the Alabama Department of Archives and History. For
an extended period he was Book Review Editor for
the Alabama Review, and he remains on the journal’s
editorial board.
Tony and Layne are sorely missed here on the
plains. We wish them well in their new lives and positions in the highlands of the Appalachians.
— Donna Bohanan and Ken Noe
Charles Israel, Tony, Guy Beckwith, and Larry Gerber at
Tony’s farewell party.
effects of the Civil War.” More recently, Tony has been
researching and writing what promises to be a major
new book on slavery, focusing on the Chattahoochee
Valley.
As associate dean in the College of Liberal Arts
Tony not only found and dispensed financial support for faculty and graduate student research, he
also embarked on a series of initiatives that affected
life in the college for many. Among them, he created
an integrated Instructional Technology program and
support network for the college, an idea that the History Department, preferring more autonomy in these
matters, opposed to the bitter end. He also oversaw
the renovations of Biggin and Thach halls. Unquestionably one of his greatest accomplishments was the
role he played in the construction of the Jule Collins
Smith Art Museum, a facility that the Auburn community treasures. Along with Dean Rebekah Pindzola,
Tony assumed responsibility for the completion of the
museum. He worked with the project manager and
the university’s administration to finish its construction and he oversaw its opening. For a period he
shared with Joe Ansell (interim dean) the position of
acting director of the museum. At the department’s
farewell party for Tony and Layne, Carole Ann Fowler,
who worked closely with Tony on fundraising for the
museum, paid tribute to his herculean efforts to make
the Jule Collins Smith Art Museum the extraordinary
facility that it is today.
After seven years as associate dean, Tony returned
to the History Department to assume the position of
department chair. In two years he presided over the
Abigail Swingen
Abby Swingen, who joined the department in 2007
after earning her doctorate from the University of
Chicago, has left Auburn to take up a new position as
assistant professor at Texas Tech University.
In a short two years at Auburn, she jumped
wholeheartedly into the Early Modern History program, in which she quickly attracted some strong
graduate students; into the intellectual life of
the department, by helping resurrect the History
Workshop for the discussion of faculty and graduate
student papers; and the social life of the department,
college, and town. Abby joins her husband, Soviet
Union historian Alan Barenberg, on the Texas Tech
faculty; along with daughter Ruby they have been in
Lubbock since the summer of 2009. •
History Department
5
American History Update
The Americanist wing of Auburn’s History Department continues to flourish. Several new colleagues
have joined us as we bid goodbye to others. Tony Carey
left Auburn to assume a new posting as Vice Provost
for Faculty Affairs at Appalachian State University.
Although Larry Gerber officially retired in 2008, he
continues to play a vital role in the Department, teaching popular courses each spring and serving on several
graduate student committees.
We welcome to our ranks four new colleagues. Reagan Grimsley joined us in 2008 from Georgia State’s
PhD program, and along with heading up Auburn’s
storied archival training program brings teaching and
research interests in the roles of place and environment in southern towns and cities. Adam Jortner, with
a PhD from the University of Virginia and research on
the political and religious power of miracles in the Age
of Jefferson, started in Fall 2009 and will be teaching
and supervising research on the U.S. Early Republic
period. Kelly Kennington is spending 2008–2009 on
a post-doctoral fellowship at the University of Wisconsin Law School’s Institute for Legal Studies. A recent
Duke PhD with research highlighting the complex relationships between slavery and freedom in St. Louis
and across the Border States, she will arrive on the
Plains in the Fall of 2010 to teach courses on the history of the Old South, slavery, and legal history. Aaron
Shapiro, who went
on from receiving
his PhD at the University of Chicago
to work in that city’s
Newberry Library
and then the U.S.
Forest Service in
Washington, D.C., is
in his second year at
Auburn. Along with
playing a central
role in the creation
of the Department’s
new Public History
program and teaching some of the
first courses in that
program, he brings
Ken Noe gives an on-site
to us research and
lecture on the Civil War.
teaching expertise
in twentieth century
U.S. history, the history of tourism, and environmental
history.
Veteran American history faculty members have
never been busier. Kathryn Braund remains engaged
in a range of scholarly and outreach activities related
to William Bartram and the battle of Mabila, and in
addition to
her teaching on the
colonial
and Revolutionary
eras is at
work on a
new study
of
the
Creek War.
Jennifer
Brooks is
immersed
in an examination
of the local
and
regional
impact of
Kathryn Braund discussing Creek
Cold War
history
with Dr. John C. Hall, curator of the
politics
Black Belt Museum.
on working-class
communities in the South, and along with teaching courses on the history of the New South she has
developed new undergraduate and graduate offerings on labor history in the modern South. David
Carter has continued to teach and research the civil
rights era while settling into his new role as Graduate Program Officer. Ruth Crocker balances her active research and teaching on U.S. women’s history
and the history of the Progressive Era with her role
as Director of Auburn’s Women’s Studies Program,
which continues to grow with exciting developments
at both the undergraduate and graduate levels. Patience Essah recently assumed the role of Director of
Auburn University’s Africana Studies Program, and
along with juggling new administrative duties she
continues to teach African history, African American
history, and Africana Studies courses. Despite his extensive duties as department chair, Charles Israel has
managed to keep one foot in the classroom, offering
popular courses on the New South and the history of
American religion while embarking on new research
(continued on next page)
6
Auburn University
on the social and reformist engagement of southern
white and black Christians. Having handed the editorial reins of the Alabama Review to William Trimble,
Jeff Jakeman continues his work editing the awardwinning Encyclopedia of Alabama, another example of
how Auburn’s history faculty are engaged in outreach
activities in and beyond the state. With a new book on
late- enlisting Confederates on the way, Ken Noe has
still managed to remain one of our busiest supervisors
of graduate research. In the spring of 2009 he won
the Phi Alpha Theta Robert Reid Outstanding Graduate Professor Award for the third time in his decade at
Auburn, a fitting testament to his passion for teaching
and mentoring.
Our graduate students continue to cover us in reflected glory, with a surge of recent PhDs and MAs
in American history. Building on a long departmental tradition of excellence in American history, with a
rich blend of veterans and new colleagues, the future
looks exceptionally bright.
—David Carter
The Alabama Review
The Alabama Review, the official journal of
the Alabama Historical Association and the
state’s only scholarly journal of history, has
been produced at Auburn University since
1995. Editor Bill Trimble and the editorial
board help to select and refine the submitted articles, and the exacting work of organizing, editing, and production are in the
very capable hands of Carey Cauthen, who
has managed the editing process since 2006.
Not only does the Review serve the friends of
history in Alabama, it provides good training
in historical editing for Auburn graduate assistants and is an important component of
Auburn’s public history initiatives.
Department Launches New
Public History Program
Do you enjoy history museum exhibits and want to
learn more about how they are created? Does your car
veer off the road to visit historic sites and read roadside markers? Do you surf the web looking for history-related material or watch History Channel? Do
you enjoy studying historic buildings and structures
on the landscape? Are you interested in how people
explore the past in their daily lives? While answering
yes to any one of these questions does not make you
a public historian, it does suggest you have much in
common with students participating in the department’s new public history program.
Established by the department in 2008 and headed
by assistant professor Aaron Shapiro, the public history program is guided by the belief that an understanding of the past enriches the lives of individuals and
communities. Public historians explore ways to make
the past useful to the public and to foster historical engagement outside the classroom. By training students
as historians and preparing them to practice history
in the public sphere, the new program supports the
university’s land-grant mission of teaching, research,
service, and outreach to the community by providing
historical services for area institutions and the State
of Alabama. This new program joins the department’s
well- established Archival Studies program, now under
the direction of Reagan Grimsley.
Opportunities in public history organizations increasingly require specialized training. By combining
traditional historical skills of research, writing, analysis, critical thinking, and communication with practical experience in delivering historical scholarship to
diverse audiences, the program prepares students for
a variety of career opportunities. These include working as museum professionals, government and business historians, historical and historic preservation
consultants, archivists, cultural resource managers,
curators, historical media producers, policy advisors,
oral historians, and professors.
Graduate students at both the master’s and doctoral levels are eligible to participate in the program. Students seeking an MA degree can specialize in public
history, while those enrolled in the direct track PhD
may select public history as a minor or breadth field.
For more information on the program, contact Aaron Shapiro ([email protected], 334-844-6526)
or visit us on the department’s Web site: http://www.
auburn.edu/history. •
History Department
7
European History Update
These are exciting times for European history at
Auburn. New colleagues—Christopher Ferguson,
Mark Sheftall, and Ralph Kingston—have joined Professors Donna Bohanan, Cathleen Giustino, and Michael Melancon to maintain our strength in both early
modern and modern periods. Our medieval European
history slot continues to be filled by Professor Joseph
Kicklighter, who, as undergraduate advisor, shapes the
destiny of all the Department’s majors.
Our new colleagues have joined us from
far and wide. Christopher Ferguson comes
to us from Indiana University, where he did
his doctoral work on perceptions of the city
and urban life in Britain during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.
Mark Sheftall received his doctorate in
2001 from Duke University. He specializes
in the history of modern Britain and the
British Empire, modern European history,
and the relationship between war and social and cultural change in the modern
world, and has just published Altered Memories of the Great War: Divergent Narratives in
Britain, Australia, New Zealand and Canada
(London: I.B. Tauris, 2009).
Ralph Kingston, a specialist on the
French Revolution and early nineteenth
century, has travelled furthest. A graduate
of the University of London, he was a lecturer at Trinity College Dublin and a British
Academy Postdoctoral Fellow in University
College London before packing his bags for the USA.
While it is exciting to have new colleagues, unfortunately, in the past year or two, we’ve also seen some valued friends
move
on
to
other
things. Dan
Szechi, at
Auburn
since 1988,
left us to
take up a
Chair
in
History at
the University of Manc h e s t e r.
Mairéad
Donna Bohanan, 2008 Outstanding
Pratschke
Graduate Professor.
returned to
Canada after a brief stint teaching modern Irish history. And we lost Abby Swingen, who joins her husband Alan Barenberg on the faculty at Texas Tech.
For the rest of us, life continues to offer its rewards.
Donna Bohanan received the Robert Reid Award for
Outstanding Graduate Professor at the Department’s
2008 Spring Banquet. The previous year, Joseph
Kicklighter received the University’s Gerald and
Emily Leischuck Presidential Award for Excellence
Christopher Ferguson and Ralph Kingston,
two of the new faces in European History.
in Teaching (his former students, for their part, have
expressed their appreciation by successfully funding
the Joseph A. Kicklighter Endowed Professorship in
History; see story, p. 10 ).
Michael Melancon, on research leave in Spring and
Fall 2008, produced three articles for publication,
and he’s making excellent progress on his newest
book on the Left Socialist Revolutionaries who Supported
the Bolsheviks in 1917. Like Melancon, Cate Giustino
has also been able to take some time off teaching by
winning several prestigious research awards, including a Benjamin Franklin Grant from the American
Philosophical Society to study historic preservation
in Czechoslovakia during the Cold War. Most recently she received a Fulbright Fellowship and will be in
the Czech Republic September 2009 through summer 2010. She is also working on developing an educational website on the 1858 Brussels World’s Fair.
—Ralph Kingston
8
Auburn University
History of Technology Update
The department’s internationally recognized history of technology program has
undergone major changes in the last year
or so. Sadly, we lost David Lewis, distinguished university professor and founder
of the department’s Technology and Civilization program, to cancer in September
2007. His death left a void not only in the
department family, but also in the history
of technology, for David had been one of
its leading lights and in 1993 was the recipient of the Society for the History of
Technology’s Leonardo da Vinci Medal for
lifetime achievement.
Last year, Lindy Biggs became director of
Bill Trimble and graduate student Maurice Robinson.
the university’s new Office of Sustainability, and Jim Hansen was appointed direcbook on hot rod culture with Johns Hopkins Univertor of the university Honors College. Although both
sity Press, will be joining us in 2010.
Lindy and Jim remain part of our program, their new
Meanwhile, Guy Beckwith remains a mainstay in
responsibilities have reduced their opportunities for
our Honors Technology and Civilization courses,
teaching Technology and Civilization and other unMichael Kozuh helps out with Tech and Civ where
dergraduate and graduate courses in the history of
he adds depth to our understanding of the ancient
technology.
world, Angela Lakwete brings a regional focus with
her work on southern industry, and Bill Trimble continues his emphasis on aspects of aeronautics history.
His book The Air Hero: Glenn Curtiss and the Birth of
Naval Aviation will be available in Spring 2010 from
the U.S. Naval Institute Press.
—Bill Trimble
The Office of Sustainability
James Hansen and astronaut Neil Armstrong,
subject of Hansen’s 2005 book
First Man: The Life of Neil A. Armstrong.
Consequently, the department undertook a search
in the fall of 2008 to bring in three new faculty members with specializations in the field. We’re pleased
that Kristen Haring, from Harvard University with a
superb book on amateurs and radio, and Alan Meyer,
from the University of Delaware with an interest in
aviation history, joined us in Fall 2009. David Lucsko,
an MIT graduate who is currently the managing editor of Technology and Culture and recently published a
The Sustainability Office provides tools and
resources to help people learn to work and
live sustainably: to reduce their impact on
the environment while enjoying a full lifestyle. The office fosters formal classroom instruction in sustainability, enables the community to educate itself in the wide range
of issues related to sustainability, and motivates students, faculty, staff, and campus visitors by example. The office has assumed a
lead role in creating a sustainably functioning campus and will create a model of sustainability for the campus, community, and
region. Learn more at www.auburn.edu/
sustainability.
History Department
9
World History Update
Within the last three years the History Department
hired three new faculty members to strengthen the
department’s program in non-U.S. and non-Western
history.
In 2007 Tiffany Thomas joined the history faculty.
She received her MA and PhD with Distinction in
Latin American History from the University of New
Mexico, and she graduated Magna Cum Laude from
Southwestern University with BAs in Art History and
Spanish. Thomas’ research focuses on the experience
of women in Latin America, as part of a broader commitment to the study of the operation of power in Latin American society. Her current research on prostitution in Cuba explores the connection between state
imperatives to control prostitutes’ lives, labors, and
bodies, and the development of broader categories
of appropriate behavior within a colonial and postcolonial setting. Thomas teaches courses in Latin
American history, comparative history of women and
gender, and world history.
Matt Malczycki started his teaching career at Auburn in 2008. He earned his BA in History from the
University of Arkansas and his MA in Middle East Studies and PhD in History from the University of Utah
in 2006. Prior to coming to Auburn, he worked for
three years as an assistant professor in the Department of Arab and Islamic Civilizations at the American University in Cairo. Malczycki’s research area is
Arabic papyrology,
which is
the study
of the oldest extant
Arabic
primary
source
d o c u ments.
Most of his
current
research
Graduate student Andy Wood and
centers
Matt Malczycki.
on
religious texts such as fragments of the Quran and parts
of hadith works. His teaching responsibility includes
world history survey and history and historiography of
the Middle East and Islam.
Michael Kozuh joined the AU history faculty in 2007.
He received his PhD with honors from the University
of Chicago in 2006
and
his
BA with
high honors from
the University of
Michigan.
Before
coming to
Auburn
he taught
at the UniGraduate student Abby Sayers and
versity of
Tiffany Thomas.
Maine at
Farmington and at Western Washington University.
At Auburn, Kozuh teaches in the Technology
and Civilization sequence, as well as classes on topics in ancient and medieval Near Eastern history,
ancient Mediterranean history, and historiography.
His research interests are on the ancient economy,
Babylonian temples, empires of the first millennium
BC, ancient slavery and semi-freedom, Elam and the
Elamites, and intercultural connections in the ancient world. His dissertation—“The Sacrificial Economy,” which deals with the management of blood
sacrifice at the Eanna temple of Uruk in southern
Babylonia—was given the Outstanding Dissertation
Award by the American Academic Research Institute in Iraq, which promotes scholarly research on
ancient Mesopotamia. He travels to Iran frequently;
in 2000 he joined the first American archaeological
team to excavate in Iran since the 1979 revolution.
Continuing faculty in world history have not kept
still amidst the excitement of new colleagues. Patience Essah is now director of the Africana Studies
program in the College of Liberal Arts, even as she
continues her work in the history department on the
history of slavery and emancipation. Associate Professor Morris Bian continues to be an exceptionally busy
and productive scholar, teaching classes in Asian and
world history, presenting papers during the past year
in China, Italy, and New York, and continuing his research into China’s regional state enterprise system
in the twentieth century. This fall he was recognized
by Auburn University’s Vice President for Research
with the prestigious Creative Research and Scholarship Award.
—Morris Bian
10
Auburn University
Kicklighter Professorship Fund Update
The Joseph A. Kicklighter Endowed Professorship
in History has been successfully funded, thanks to the
generous donations from alumni and other friends of
the History Department. The professorship has been
established through a special program through which
endowments could be established for half of the original $300,000 cost. Dr. Kicklighter’s endowment was
the first one to be completed under this temporary
university program.
Former students Tripp Haston (BA ’90) and Tad Lidikay (BA ’90) led the charge to fund the campaign to
honor and preserve the legacy of a professor who has
inspired thousands of Auburn University students.
Donations and pledges to the endowment currently
total a little over $160,000—and additional gifts to
this fund are still very welcome.
To make a donation, please use the donation form below, or give on the Web at http://
media.cla.auburn.edu/history/alumni/
kicklighter_professorship.cfm. Past donors are also
honored on that Web site. Your contribution will be a
tribute to a man whose enthusiasm for teaching and
inspiring students has exemplified the Auburn spirit
for over 30 years.
Contact Dr. Charles Israel, History Department
Chair, or the Development Office of the College of
Liberal Arts if you have questions about gift giving. •
Samantha Nicolle and Joseph Kicklighter.
I would like to make a donation to the History Department
Enclosed is my gift of:
$25 $50 $75 $100 $ _______
My gift is for: Joseph A. Kicklighter Endowed Professorship
Student Support and Awards
Milo B. Howard Award (for graduate student research)
Faculty Support and Awards
Other ___________________________
Please make checks payable to: Auburn University Foundation and indicate that the donation is for the History Dept.
Please mail to: Dept. of History, Auburn University, 310 Thach Hall, Auburn, AL 36849
The History newsletter is distributed to alumni, faculty, and friends of the Department.
This issue was edited and designed by Carey Cauthen (334 - 844 - 6770 or [email protected]).
News, photos, and information are also posted at media.cla.edu/history.
History Department
11
History Department Donors
The History Department gratefully acknowledges and thanks those who generously gave to the Department in the past year. Contributors include but are
not limited to:
Dr. Susan Y. Ashmore
Ms. Carol Lynn Hammond
Morgan Stanley
Mr. Alexander R. Atwater
Mr. Jacob Willis Hancock
Mr. Bruce Franklin Nichols
Mr. Keith Thompson Bagwell
Mr. Richard O. Harper Jr.
Mr. & Mrs. Andrew Baird
Mr. & Mrs. Fred Marion Haston
Dr. Estelle Owens
Mr. Frank C. Baker Jr.
Dr. Caroline Smith Helms
Mr. & Mrs. Andrew Parker
Mr. Peter Willem Baljet
Dr. David Phillip Herrick
Mr. Paul M. Pruitt Jr.
Sally Jones Hill
Mrs. Laura Newland Hill
Mr. John C. Quiring
Mrs. Stephanie Johns Bond
Mr. David Errette Hodgson
Mr. Clay Prescott Richmond
Mr. Timothy Harwood Briles
Ms. Karen Coyette Holley
Dr. William F. Robinson
Dr. Jennifer Elizabeth Brooks
Mrs. Ann Shipley Howard
Mr. William Luke Robinson
Mr. Terrance Michael Brown
Mr. Robert Rollins
Mrs. Mary Lynn Bryan
Ms. Connie Hays Jackson
Mr. Jeffrey L. Budimier
Mrs. Tyler Smith Jackson
Dr. W. Max Smith
Dr. Anthony G. Carey
Mr. John Albert Smyth III
Mr. & Mrs. Alexander Hooker Carothers
Dr. Joseph A. Kicklighter
Mr. Thomas Glenn Stephens Jr.
Mr. & Mrs. Andrew Clark Carroll
Mr. Ralph Francis Kingston
Mrs. Mary Swenson Stewart
Dr. & Mrs. David Charles Carter
Mrs. Judy Stone Kyper
Mr. Paul Dudley Taylor
Complete Office Solutions
Dr. Angela Lakwete
Dr. Alan Smith Thompson
Ms. Terri Hutchins Cournoyer
Mr. Eric Brandon Langley
Mr. Jay B. Thompson
Cournoyer’s Office Supply Co., Inc.
Mrs. Ruth Howe Liddell
Mr. Michael F. Tinkey
Mr. J. Foy Covington III
Mr. Charles Tad Lidikay III
Mr. Aaron J. Trehub
Mr. & Mrs. P. Thomas Dazzio
Mr. Calvin Markle
Verizon Foundation
Dr. Mary Dixie Dysart
Mr. Robert Alan Maruster
Mr. Austin R. Walsh
Mr. Roy Michael Easterwood
Dr. & Mrs. Robert Sidney McAnnally
Wellpoint Foundation
Mr. Terrence W. McCarthy
Mr. Scott Allen Farrow
Ms. Julie Martel McKinney
Mr. James M. Fleming III
Ms. Samantha Lynn McNeilly
Dr. Sara S. Frear
MECO of Montgomery
LTC Richard T. Goodwin Jr.
Mr. Kenneth E. Gross Jr.
Dr. Jennifer Joy Moody
Thank You!
12
Auburn University
Faculty Notes
Guy Beckwith was inducted into the College of Liberal
Arts Academy of Teaching and Outstanding Teachers
in 2008, and received the Gold Service Award at the
AU Honors College Awards Gala this spring. During
the fall term he addressed the History Faculty Seminar;
the title of his paper was “The Machine in the Temple
of the Muses: Interpreting Hellenistic Technology.”
He also lectured on Social Darwinism for Auburn’s
semester- long Charles Darwin Commemorative Celebration honoring Darwin’s 200th birthday and the
150th anniversary of the publication of On the Origin of
Species. Guy also introduced and provided brief comments on Moonwalk One, the 1970 NASA- sponsored
documentary film, for “The Eagle Has Landed at Auburn: A Commemoration of the 40th Anniversary of
the First Moon Landing.” He continues to serve as a
member of the Honors College Council and on the
editorial board of Issues in Integrative Studies, a journal
devoted to interdisciplinary theory and pedagogy.
Morris Bian deep in discussion with Encyclopedia
of Alabama associate editor Laura Hill.
Morris Bian made an invited presentation at the International Symposium on New Paradigms of Chinese
Business History: Concepts and Case Studies, at Fudan University, Shanghai, China, in August 2007. He
also published a peer-reviewed article, “How Crisis
Shapes Change: New Perspectives on China’s Political
Economy during the Sino-Japanese War, 1937–1945,”
in the July 2007 issue of History Compass. In 2007, the
International Convention of Asian Scholars named his
book, The Making of the State Enterprise System in Modern
China: The Dynamics of Institutional Change (Harvard
University Press, 2005), one of the top ten social science books in Asian studies, an award chosen from
titles published around the world during the previous
two years.
Kathryn H. Braund is
the current president of
the Bartram Trail Conference, and continues
to work on Bartram-related projects. Her latest
book, Fields of Vision: Essays on the Travels of William Bartram, co-edited
with Charlotte Porter of
the University of Florida,
is due out in February 2010. A revised second edition of her Deerskins and Duffels: The Creek Indians,
Anglo-America and the Deerskin Trade was released in late
2008. She contributed three chapters to The Search for
Mabila, a collaborative effort by a team of historians,
archaeologists, linguists, and historical geographers
to locate the site of the famous 1540 battle between
DeSoto and the Indians. She was the lead organizer
for a recent AU symposium on the Creek War and War
of 1812. The two-day event, sponsored by the Horseshoe Bend National Military Park, the National Park
Service and the Carolyn Marshall Draughon Center
for the Arts and Humanities, brought together 15
scholars and 150 participants. Last year, she served as
a script consultant and featured specialist for the PBS
video production “Andrew Jackson: Good, Evil, and
the Presidency,” as well as for the accompanying web
site. She also had the privilege of working with the
Jules Collins Smith Museum of Fine Art to develop an
exhibition of 19th-century Creek portraits by Henry
Inman. Over the past two years, she has served as a
consultant for master planning for several museum
and historic site projects and participated in numerous teaching workshops through the Teaching American History program. She is currently writing a book
on the Creek War.
David Carter’s book, The Music Has Gone Out of the Movement: Civil Rights and the Johnson Administration, 1965–1968
(University of North Carolina Press, 2009), has been
published. In the fall semester of 2008 he succeeded
Patience Essah as Graduate
Program Officer, chaired a panel at the Southern Historical Association meeting on field trips as a tool in
teaching the civil rights movement, and traveled to
History Department
Norway to deliver a paper examining media coverage
of the black freedom struggle in the U.S. from an international comparative perspective. In the summer
of 2009 he was one of four scholars who highlighted
new directions in civil rights scholarship at a National
Archives conference in Atlanta. Along with Kathryn
Braund and Ken Noe and colleagues in Auburn’s College of Education he will be participating in a Teaching American History grant in the years ahead. After
having served as president of the local chapter of the
Phi Beta Kappa Honor Society for many years, he happily passed the baton to Tiffany Thomas.
Ruth Crocker participated in the American
Historical Association
Meeting in New York
City in January 2008.
In September she gave
a paper at BrANCH,
the British American
Nineteenth- Century
History Conference
in Leicester, U.K., and
in November 2008
served as commentator on a panel at the Social Science History Association
in Miami. She was elected to the executive committee
of the SSHA, an interdisciplinary organization of historians and social scientists. Ruth is currently serving
as director of Auburn Women’s Studies Program.
Cathleen M. Giustino has been awarded a CIES Fulbright Research Scholarship to Prague for the 2009–
2010 academic year. She will be affiliated with the Institute of Art History of the Academy of Sciences of the
Czech Republic. During this time, she will continue
gathering research for her book-length manuscript on
memory and the fate of confiscated cultural property
(castles, chateaux, art, and antiques) in Czechoslovakia after World War II. She is also co- editing a volume
of essays, “Socialist Escapes: Breaks from the Everyday
in Eastern Europe, 1945–1989.” Last year she delivered
papers at the Savannah College of Art and Design, Columbia University, and the Central European University in Budapest. She was appointed to the editorial
board of HABSBURG, the H-Net list dedicated to the
history of the Habsburg Monarchy and its successor
states. In addition, she served on the College of Liberal
Art’s Community and Civic Engagement Committee.
Boris Gorshkov has had an academically profitable
year despite a heavy teaching load. His new book, Rus-
13
sia’s Factory Children, Society, and the State: Childhood,
Apprenticeship and Labor, 1800 –1917, is now available from the University of Pittsburg Press. His essay
“Teaching Modern Russian History in European and
Global Context” appeared in the March 2009 NewsNet, the magazine of the American Association for
the Advancement of Slavic Studies. He published two
essays about child labor and two book reviews. Gorshkov has also served as commentator at national and
regional conferences.
Reagan Grimsley received a Historic Columbus
Foundation Award for Outstanding Contributions in
the field of Historic Preservation for his 2008 monograph “Enriching Lives: A Pictorial History of Columbus State University.” During the past year he delivered papers and lectured in Alabama, Louisiana, and
Mississippi. In the fall of 2009 his co - authored article
“Creating Access to Oral Histories in Academic Libraries” will appear in College and Undergraduate Libraries. During the summer of 2009, Grimsley served
as one of two instructors for a three-day workshop
for secondary school teachers and media specialists
sponsored by the Library of Congress. The grant
focused on introducing students to online primary
sources and developing methods to integrate primary source materials into the secondary school curriculum. Grimsley and Pamela Baker, director of the
Center for Teaching and Learning at the University
of Cincinnati, worked together on the grant project
and are currently writing an article on methods to
integrate primary sources into introductory- level
college American history courses.
Charles Israel contributed an essay to the sesquicentennial history of Sewanee: the University of the
South. In it he explored the history of the professional schools of law and medicine that were part of
the university before 1915; he expanded this study to
look at southern medical education more broadly in
a paper presented to the southern History of Science,
Technology, and Medicine conference. As administrative and teaching duties allow, he is returning his
attention to a book project on religion and reform in
the early twentieth century South.
Jeff Jakeman has been honored by the Alabama Historical Association for his service
as editor of the state’s scholarly historical journal, the Alabama Review. In a resolution
adopted by the AHA board of
14
Auburn University
directors, the association commended Jakeman for
producing 50 issues of the journal from 1995–2008.
Jakeman was named a College of Liberal Arts Engaged
Scholar in 2008 for his work on the Review and the Encyclopedia of Alabama (EOA), which was designated a
“Best of Free Reference” by Library Journal, the library
field’s leading professional publication. While Jeff has
passed his Review duties to Bill Trimble, he continues
to direct the EOA and serves as its editor. In April
2009 Jeff completed a six-year term as Auburn’s representative on the Alabama Historical Commission.
He recently published “Memorializing World War I in
Alabama,” a chapter in the anthology The Great War in
the Heart of Dixie: Alabama during World War I.
W. Matt Malczycki had his article “A Page from an Aspiring
Muhaddith’s Notes” accepted
for publication in Documents
et historie: Islam VIIe-XVIe siècle.
That article contains a 9thcentury document that sheds
light on the early steps in
Islamic higher education.
Through the generosity of a College of Liberal Arts
summer research grant, he was able to finish two more
articles. One deals with a late 8th- century papyrus text
that contains one of the earliest examples of written
instructions for Islamic ritual; the second re-examines
long-held views about price-fixing and the role of the
state in papyrus manufacture ca 650-950 CE. In April
Dr. Malczycki presented a paper on a 9th- century Arabic historical text at the fourth conference of the International Society for Arabic Papyrology (ISAP) in
Vienna. He was the only participant from a U.S. landgrant institution to be invited. He currently serves as
the secretary- treasurer for ISAP and as secretary for
the Gamma chapter of Phi Beta Kappa.
Kenneth Noe served as president of the Alabama
Historical Association. He published a book chapter
as well as articles in the Ambrose Bierce Project Journal,
Civil War History, and the Journal of Military History.
He chaired a session at the 2009 American Historical Association annual meeting, and both spoke on
the opening panel and commented at the Society for
Military History’s 2009 conference. Additionally, he
gave a talk on counter-insurgency at Kennesaw State
University, and participated in teacher workshops at
East Tennessee State University and in Montgomery.
Noe also presented public lectures in suburban Chicago; Columbus, Ohio; Danville, Kentucky; Denver;
Morgantown, West Virginia; Seattle; and Starkville,
Kenneth Noe accepts the Outstanding
Graduate Professor Award from graduate student
Adrianne Lee Hodgin.
Mississippi. He led a three- day tour of the Perryville
battlefield for the Blue- Gray Education Association,
and spent a week as guest historian on the historic
riverboat Delta Queen. In April 2008 the university recognized his “exceptional merit” in post- tenure review.
He received the Robert Reid Phi Alpha Theta Outstanding Graduate Professor Award from the History
Department in May 2009.
Aaron Shapiro delivered presentations at the Oral
History Association (OHA) annual meeting in Pittsburgh, the Preserving the Historic Roads Conference
in Albuquerque, and the American Society for Environmental History (ASEH) annual meeting in Tallahassee. The OHA presentation highlighted an oral
history project on the Forest Products Laboratory that
Shapiro helped develop while with the Forest Service.
It can be viewed at http://digicoll.library.wisc.edu/
FPLHist. As part of his duties as chair of the ASEH
Education Committee, he organized and developed,
along with the Smithsonian’s Kate Christen, a halfday program introducing forty Tallahassee area high
school students to environmental history. Shapiro also
participated in Auburn’s Civic Engagement Summer
Academy and has enjoyed working with colleagues
and partners to develop the department’s new public
history program.
William Trimble is the new editor of the Alabama Review, taking over from Jeff Jakeman. He is planning
special commemorative issues addressing the Civil
War, the civil rights movement, and the War of 1812.
His book The Air Hero: Glenn Curtiss and the Birth of Naval Aviation will be available in Spring 2010 from the
U.S. Naval Institute Press. •
History Department
15
Department Notes
Six Auburn History Department graduates or faculty
have contributed to The Great War in the Heart of Dixie: Alabama during World War I, which was published
in August 2008. Marty Olliff (PhD ’98) edited and
introduced the collection of ten essays which include
contributions by David Alsobrook (PhD ’83), Jeff
Jakeman (PhD ’88 and currently Associate Professor),
Dowe Littleton (MA ’91), Wesley P. Newton (Professor Emeritus), and Robert Saunders (PhD ’94). This is
the only sustained investigation of the Alabama homefront during the “War to End All Wars,” and the authors hope it will inspire more research in the era.
Three students of the History Department doctoral
program worked tirelessly on a grant awarded to the
Phillip J. Hamm Library at Wallace Community College from the Save Our History Program of the History Channel. Kenneth Phillips (PhD ’99), Linda York
(PhD ’99), and Rebecca Woodham (ABD) used the
$100,000 grant to produce a documentary and accompanying text about segregated education in Southeast
Alabama, Our Forgotten Schools: Segregated Schools in the
Wiregrass of Alabama. The documentary shows the substandard conditions of black schools in the area and
includes footage from interviews with local residents.
The focus of the project is the struggle of the black
community to educate their children when the state
of Alabama would not. Kenneth and Rebecca are disciples of Wayne Flynt. Linda, a student of Dan Szechi
Some of Our Recent Graduates:
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Christopher Haveman (PhD ’09)
Susan Marie Abram (PhD ’09)
Melanie Welch (PhD ’09)
William Byrd (PhD ’09)
Patricia Hoskins (PhD ’09)
John Hardin (PhD ’09)
Brian Duke (MA ’09)
Jennifer Newman Treviño (PhD ’09)
Christopher Duncan (PhD ’08)
Bruce Gourley (PhD ’08)
Alex Spencer (PhD ’08)
Kristen Starr (PhD ’08)
Dana Chandler (MA ’08)
Deborah Belcher (MA ’08)
Gregory Markley (MA ’08)
and Donna Bohanan, has been adopted by the Flynt
disciples and finds herself becoming more “Southern” every day. All of them wish to say thanks to the
History Department for training them to save their
history.
Susan Abram and Rob Collins gave presentations at
Auburn’s “Symposium on the Creek War and War of
1812 in the South.” Abram described Cherokee warriors’ roles in the pivotal Battle of Horseshoe Bend
in March 1814. Collins discussed events in the Creek
Nation and in Spanish West Florida leading up to
the first battle of the Creek War in July 1813. The
conference was organized by the Caroline Marshall
Draughon Center for the Arts and Humanities; leading historians of the period and Creek scholars from
Alabama and Oklahoma participated. More information on the conference is available at http://www.
auburn.edu/creekwar.
Rob Collins also traveled to the Basel State Archive
(Staatsarchiv Basel-Stadt) in Switzerland in 2008 for
dissertation research, where he was reading the diaries and letters of Lukas Vischer.
Rich Hall has six articles that will be appearing in the
Encyclopedia of Movies and American Culture, which will
head to the publishers in January. He is teaching two
world history classes at Auburn University Montgomery, two U.S. history classes at Columbus State University, and two political science classes for Vincennes
University at Fort Benning. He is currently deep into
writing his dissertation on issues of race, gender, and
patriotism in Captain America comic books from
1941–2001; he expects to defend in the Spring.
Scott MacKenzie will publish his first article, “The
Slaveholders’ War: The Secession Crisis in Kanawha
County, West Virginia 1860 –1861,” in the Fall 2010
issue of West Virginia History.
Greg Markley presented a paper based on his thesis at
the 80th Conference of the Southern Political Science
Association in New Orleans in January and a paper on
Senator Hill and the ramifications for racial integration of Medicare’s passage at the Alabama Association
of Historians meeting at the University of West Alabama in February 2009. In August he completed an
internship at the Jimmy Carter Presidential Library in
Atlanta. •
16
Auburn University
Class Notes
1950s
Ralph Draughon Jr. (BA ’58) was appointed by the
Governor to a six- year term on the Alabama Historical Commission. In the past year he has served on
the state historical association’s executive committee,
acted as its program chair, and contributed a review to
its scholarly publication, the Alabama Review, and an
article on Civil War railroads to its newsletter. He also
is involved in a committee planning the bicentennial
of the Creek War and the War of 1812 in Alabama.
Active in local history, he serves on the board of the
Auburn Heritage Association and delivered a slide
show on “The Vanishing Loveliest Village” at its annual luncheon.
1960s
Jim Bullington
(BA ’62) was a
career Foreign
Service Officer
with the State
Department
for 27 years,
serving as Ambassador
to
Burundi and
in other diplomatic posts
in Africa and
Asia as well as
in Washington.
After retiring from the Foreign Service, he was director of a global business center at Old Dominion University and then was director of the U.S. Peace Corps
program in Niger, 2000–2006. He lives in Williamsburg, Va., and serves as editor of American Diplomacy
and as a senior fellow at the U.S. Joint Forces Staff
College. He published a book in December 2007, Adventures in Service, with Peace Corps in Niger.
Robert P. (Bob) Buchanan (BA ’62, MA ’63) retired
from his “second career” after first retiring from the
U.S. Navy, having worked in various capacities for the
Missile and Space Intelligence Center (MSIC), Defense Intelligence Agency, located on Redstone Arsenal in Huntsville.
Sally Jones Hill (BA ’63) was co-chair of the “It Begins
at Auburn” National Campaign, which raised the largest amount of private funds ever raised in the history
of the state, and served on the Presidential Search
Committee that selected Dr. Jay Gogue. She currently
serves as the President of the Women’s Philanthropy
Board.
Mike Watson (BA ’69) retired as a BellSouth executive in early 2006. He is still very active with numerous nonprofits and is Vice President of the Auburn
Alumni Association.
1970s
Ruthmary Williams (BA ’72) retired in 2006 from the
School District of Hillsborough County Florida. She is
now an Adjunct American History professor for Manatee Community College and has been appointed to
the Sarasota County Historical Commission.
Don Yates (BA ’73) earned a MA in Geography from
the University of Georgia. He found a career in economic development and recommends it as a career
option for history majors as “we have the ability to
write clearly, do timely research, and have the necessary background to understand current events.” His
job requires him to travel often overseas where again
his history degree is an asset. Having three children
means that he continues to work: his oldest, Maggie,
is a law student at George Washington University;
his son Joe graduated from the University of Florida
and reported for Navy flight school at Pensacola; and
his youngest, Caroline, is a student at Roswell High
School.
Rick Halperin (PhD ’78) is the Director of the Southern Methodist University Human Rights Education
Program, and teaches courses in human rights and
genocide. He has been a member of the Board of Directors of Amnesty International USA and serves as
the President of the Texas Coalition to Abolish the
Death Penalty. Rick takes groups of students, faculty,
and staff to various locations in the world three times
a year to confront human rights issues; recent trips
have been to Rwanda, Argentina, Cambodia, and to
Holocaust sites in Austria and Poland.
Donna C. Hole (MA ’79) served as Chief of Historic
Preservation for the city of Annapolis, Md., from 1996
to her retirement in June 2007. During that time,
she produced several publications and edited design
guidelines, and various brochures on Annapolis architecture, African American heritage, and the historic
History Department
preservation commission process. She was a founding
member of the Annapolis, London Town, and South
County Heritage Area and continues to serve on that
Board; she is also chairman of the Maryland Association of Historic District Commissions.
1980s
Edgar Hutch Johnson (PhD ’83) retired with Emeritus
status in 2005 from Gordon College, Barnesville, Georgia, after 25 years of teaching. He returned to Gordon
in Fall 2007 to teach one class each semester. His wife,
Gael M. Johnson, retired from the Lamar County High
School in 2006.
Dr. Daniel Crews (PhD ’84) published a major study
of the life and work of the great Spanish humanist,
Juan de Valdes. A University of Toronto Press publication, Twilight of the Renaissance: The Life of Juan de
Valdes, has been heralded for providing “significant
insight into the debates on Renaissance humanism as
an intellectual foundation for public life and on the
importance of diplomacy in the midst of a conflict
that permanently shattered the religious unity of Latin
Christendom.” Crews wrote his dissertation at Auburn
under the direction of Glenn Eaves, and is part of the
History faculty at the University of Central Missouri.
For over a decade, Crews has served as general editor
of the Bulletin of the Society for Spanish and Portuguese
Historical Studies.
Tara Lanier (BA ’84, MA ’87) returned to Auburn
University in May after 18 years with the Alabama Historical Commission in Montgomery. She now directs
communications and marketing for the College of Veterinary Medicine.
Jennifer Phelps Davis (BA ’89) and family moved back
to Montgomery after an 11-month stint in Spanish
Fort. Her husband Jason (’92) is a lobbyist for the Alabama Power Company. Jennifer is a stay-at-home mom
to Whit and Rivers.
1990s
Gene Allen Smith (BA ’84, MA ’87, PhD ’91), professor of early American history at Texas Christian University, also serves as director of the university’s Center
for Texas Studies, a community outreach venture that
conducts teacher education and community history
workshops, sponsors traveling exhibitions, and offers
adult and child educational programming. In April
2008 the Fort Worth Museum of Science and History
invited Gene to become the Curator of History; in this
17
position he is responsible for the care of more than
43,000 cultural artifacts and for developing strategic
relationships in the community. Gene has also edited
book on loyalty and national identity in the Gulf Borderlands, forthcoming with the University Press of
Florida, and he is trying to finish a larger project on
black combatants during the War of 1812.
Dr. Paul McCracken (BA ‘91) was interviewed by
Simcha Jacobovici of the History Channel regarding
the identification of Kursi, on the eastern shore of
the Sea of Galilee, as the site of Jesus’ healing of the
man possessed by a legion of demons (Jacobovoici
is best known for the series The Naked Archaeologist).
Dr. McCracken is the Associate Director of the Kursi
Excavation Project. For more information on Kursi,
known as Gergesa in the first century, please go to
http://www.jibe-edu.org.
Erik Hancock
(BA
’94)
received a JD
from Empire College
School of
Law in June
2002.
He
has been on
active duty
with the Army since January 2005, which included
two 12- month combat deployments in Iraq. He is currently serving as an infantryman with the 1st Infantry
Division at Ft. Riley, Kansas, and has applied for Army
Officer Candidate School.
Glenn Feldman (PhD ’96) has been promoted to full
professor in the Center for Labor Education and Research, School of Business, at University of Alabama
at Birmingham.
John-Bauer Graham (BA ’96) was promoted to Dean
of Library Services at Jacksonville State University in
March 2008.
Michael Pintagro
(MA ’96) serves
as
Noncommissioned
Officer
in Charge of the
U.S. Army Public
Affairs Center at
Fort Meade, Md. A
18
Auburn University
master sergeant, he’s worked in Army Public Affairs
since 1997 and served in Afghanistan with the 3rd Brigade, 10th Mountain Division 2006–2007. He and his
wife Divina have three children.
Matt Abbott (BA ’97) opened his own law firm in Pell
City in November 2007, where he specializes his practice in the areas of personal injury, wrongful death,
and consumer fraud. He married Shannon Lee Jordan of Montgomery in 2006 and their child Reed Matthew Abbott was born on October 24, 2007.
Scott Carter (BA ’98) teaches World history, U.S. history, AP European History, and U.S. Government at
St. Pius X Catholic High School in Atlanta, where he
also serves as head coach for the boys’ lacrosse team
and the boys’ and girls’ swimming and diving teams.
He has been regional lacrosse coach of the year in
2006, 2007, and 2008.
Gordon Harvey (PhD ’98) left University of Louisiana
at Monroe after nine years to become Professor and
Head of History & Foreign Languages at Jacksonville
State University. He had served as Head of ULM’s
History Department and had been named the Tom
and Mayme Scott Professor of Teaching Excellence
(an honor he had to resign when he returned home
to Alabama). Gordon’s political biography of Florida
Governor Reubin Askew (1971–1979) was accepted by
the University of Georgia Press. He is beginning work
on a synthetic study of the 1970s American South,
while continuing as a
contributor
and
consulting editor for the
Encyclopedia
of Alabama.
While Gordon
will
most
assuredly
miss eating
boudin and
crawfish,
the move is a good one for career and family. Marie
and the kids (Preston and Hudson) are thriving.
Grant Chaney (BA ’98) has been appointed Vice
President, Existing Industry, of the Coastal Gateway
Economic Development Authority, where he will coordinate local economic development efforts by co-
ordinating with industrial development boards and
economic developers.
Jim Neese (BA ’98) and his wife April Moore Neese
(’04) welcomed their son Carter Stephen Neese on
June 10, 2008.
Marylyn Elizabeth Turnipseed (BA ’98) in April started a new job with Jefferson Title Corporation, located
in Birmingham, as an account executive.
Susan Youngblood Ashmore’s (PhD ’99) Carry It On:
The War on Poverty and the Civil Rights Movement in Alabama, 1964 –1972, has been published by the University of Georgia Press. It has won major awards, including the Willie Lee Rose prize of the Southern Association for Women Historians and the Francis B. Simkins
award of the Southern Historical Association.
Jeffrey R. Bibbee (BA ’97,
MA ’99) successfully defended
his
doctoral
thesis,
“The
Church of England and Russian Orthodoxy:
Politics and the
Ecumenical
dialogue, 1888–
1917,” at the
University
of
London (King’s
College) in January 2008. Jeffrey had been working as a researcher
for the London School of Economics and the University of Edinburgh on a project studying pandemic
influenza. He is now a visiting assistant professor at
the University of North Alabama.
Edwin Vaughan (BA ’99) received a Masters of Arts in
Education from the University of North Alabama in
December of 2007.
2000s
Chuck Smith (PhD ’00) is currently an Assistant Professor of History at the University of the Cumberlands
in Williamsburg, Kentucky. His book, Awarded for
Valour: A History of the Victoria Cross and the Evolution of
British Heroism, was released in July 2008 by Palgrave
Macmillan.
History Department
19
Lyndsey Turner (BA ’00) is working on a Masters of
Secondary Education in History at Auburn University
Montgomery. She will start working on her PhD in Medieval History in 2010.
Kristen Andersen (BA ’04) graduated from Auburn’s
Master of Community Planning program in May
2008, and is now working as a Transportation Planner at Metra Commuter Rail in Chicago.
Ruth Ann Fite (BA ’01) served as an Academic Advisor in Auburn’s College of Sciences and Mathematics
from August 2003 until she left in May 2008. She relocated with her husband and baby to Decatur, Alabama,
where her husband works with his family’s construction company.
Cole Hendon (BA ’04) married his college sweetheart, Katrin Anne, a year after college. They have
a daughter, Madeline Kate, born June 26, 2007, and
expected their second child in February 2009. Cole is
a branch manager at First Federal Savings and Loan
Association of Charleston.
Bert Frandsen (PhD ’01) has been working at Air University (Air Command and Staff College), Maxwell Air
Force Base in Alabama since 2002, where he teaches
air power history and strategy. He was promoted to associate professor in 2006.
Heather Greenemeier Christensen (BA ’05) earned a
Master of Public Health degree with a concentration
in Maternal and Child Health in May 2008 from the
University of Alabama at Birmingham.
Laura Douglas Megginson (BA ’01) and her husband
Trice celebrated with their son Benjamin for his first
birthday on August 8, 2008. Trice is a photographer
for the University of Wyoming, and Laura works with
Big Brothers Big Sisters and is teaching humanities at
the local junior college. They have lived in Laramie,
Wyoming, for the last two years.
David J. Welch (BA ’01) received Master of Science
in Civil Engineering from Auburn in 2003. He married Cynthia N. Schmaeman (’07) in April 2007, and
in January 2008 he was promoted to Assistant Consultant Management Engineer for the Design Bureau of
the Alabama Department of Transportation, located
in Montgomery.
Benjamine E. Wise (BA ’02) has been appointed Assistant Professor of History at the University of Florida.
He won the C. Vann Woodward award from the Southern Historical Association for his 2008 Rice University
dissertation, Cosmopolitan Southerner: The Life and World
of William Alexander Percy.
Scott Billingsley (PhD ’03) wrote It’s a New Day: Race
and Gender in the Modern Charismatic Movement, which
was published by the Alabama Press in April. It is included in the Religion and American Culture series
edited by Wayne Flynt, David Edwin Harrell Jr., and
Edith Blumhofer.
Ann Ingram Carroll (BA ’01, MA ’03) and her husband Andy (’98) would like to announce the births of
their children William ( July 23, 2005) and Charlotte
(March 18, 2007).
Jason Strada (BA ’05) will be returning to Auburn in
the fall to obtain a master’s degree in communications.
Paul T. Mooney (BA ’07) is pursuing a JD at Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law, Yeshiva University,
New York.
Kate Stamps (BA ’07) also received an undergraduate
degree in Secondary Social Science Education and
a minor in vocal music. She has been accepted into
the joint Clemson University/College of Charleston
master’s program in historic preservation and community planning, for which she has been awarded a
fellowship. Her classes began in August at the College of Charleston in Charleston, South Carolina.
Austin Walsh (BA ’07)
moved to Charlotte,
North Carolina, after
graduation to teach
7th grade Language
Arts with Teach For
America. Outside of
teaching, he coaches
his middle school
football team and
participates in the Auburn Alumni Club’s
intramural kickball
league. He got married in June 2008 to an Auburn
alumna, Laura Steele.
Anne Womack (BA ’07) moved to Washington, D.C.,
and currently works for U.S. Senator Jeff Sessions
(R–Ala.). •
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