By Edmund M. Kern, associate professor of history, and Franklin M. Doeringer,
professor of history and the Nathan M. Pusey Professor of East Asian Studies
Lawrence
Today magazine, Spring 2006
In the Department of History, “doing history” doesn’t mean
training historians. It means educating young people to think historically. But, if a significant percentage of our graduates go on to become professional
historians, we’ll gladly take that as evidence that we’re doing
something right.
In September 2005, when a study sponsored by the American
Historical Association named Lawrence one of the “Select 25 Programs” in
the nation,
members of the department were pleasantly surprised. In the following weeks,
as we
began
to
consider
why so
many graduates
went
on
to complete
the Ph.D. in history, our initial wonder gave way to simple gratification.
Although we hadn’t really thought of ourselves as a program producing
large numbers of professional historians, we came to see the reasons for
this kind of success in our commitment to “doing history.” This
phrase has become departmental shorthand for a particular way of teaching
history
that seeks to balance our students’ intrinsic interests in the past “for
its own sake” with a hands-on approach
that emphasizes the centrality of critical thinking, the formal analysis
of source materials, and the development of appropriate skills and methods.
More important, we began to see the reasons for our success in our graduating
seniors’ increasing independence — and in the intellectual excitement
and disciplinary confidence that make such independence possible. Once our
students recognize their ability to transform historical curiosity into thoroughly
researched explanations of past events, pursuing graduate study seems a rather
small step to take. They know they can do it.
The practice of history
A hectic pace is typical of each Winter Term in the department, even as both
students and faculty fight off the instinct to hibernate in the cold Appleton
weather.
Between January and March, seniors majoring in history write a substantive
piece of original research in the program’s capstone course, The
Practice of History.
They find themselves completing projects of their own choosing, usually begun
the year before in one of a number of research seminars offered by departmental
faculty. Although this capstone requires students to spend long hours in
the library or archive, alone with their source materials,
it also fosters collaboration. Students in the course collectively interrogate
each other’s research design and methods, share early drafts of their
writing for critique, and present their findings in classroom presentations.
Individualized instruction from members of the faculty is another hallmark
of the course, as students work not only with the course instructor but also
with at least one other member of the department who serves as a research
advisor.
Of course, a capstone can only be placed on a structure built upon well-laid
foundations. And, for this reason, The Practice of History represents
the culmination of a process begun much earlier. Before students focus considerable
attention
upon a project of particular interest to them, the requirements for a major
in history encourage them to explore widely within topical and thematic
courses, while simultaneously developing a thorough understanding of the
methods and theory of the discipline.
When,
for example, Keven Bradley, ’06 (pictured, right, with his research
advisor, Assistant Professor of History Monica Rico), researches Lawrence
athletics during World War II, as he is doing this year,
he brings
to the
topic both
knowledge and skills gained in previous years. Seth Meinel, ’06 (pictured,
at the top of this article, with his advisor, Professor Kern), is doing likewise
as he turns last year’s
work in the archive of Appleton’s
First English Lutheran Church into a history of the congregation’s
founding in 1917. In both instances, exposure to history’s breadth
and in-depth training in its methods led back to projects in local history,
but such a
path isn’t always the case.
Some of the variety of student interests becomes apparent with a quick look
at a selection of history majors’ presentations in the past two years
at the Richard A. Harrison Symposium in the Humanities and Social Sciences,
held each spring on campus.
Two years ago, Carolyne Ryan, ’04, now studying at the University of
Wisconsin, presented “Trapalanda: An Argentine Myth in Historical and
Literary Context,” while Courtney Doucette, ’04, who received a
Fulbright Fellowship for study in Russia, contributed “Literature and
Life in the Bolshevik Revolution.” Last year, Elizabeth Spoden, ’05,
who completed an internship at the Witch House Museum in Salem, Massachusetts,
presented “Slavery and Identity: The Cherokee Conflict over Americanization
in the 19th Century,” while Heather Zabski, ’06, offered “Behind
the Gnomes: From Elitist Art to Suburban Camp.” All four students are
either in graduate school or headed there.
However, the vast majority of the department’s majors will continue
to pursue careers elsewhere, and this is the way it should be. Neither Keven
Bradley
nor Seth Meinel, it should be noted, intends to pursue graduate study in
history, but they are both already doing the kinds of work professional historians
do.
They will bring the skills of the historian with them, regardless of where
their careers take them. Doing history the Lawrence way will produce the
occasional historian, to be sure, but it is intended to cultivate the historically-minded.
The history of history
This way of doing history at Lawrence has a long history itself. Among current
members of the department, it finds its warrant in the belief that the specific
skills associated with the discipline apply exceptionally well to many other
types of endeavor. Yet, for decades, a similar conviction has animated historians
teaching at Lawrence. Long before the AHA study, the department produced
both historians of note and historically minded professionals in other careers.
Earlier generations of Lawrence historians saw studying the past not only
as intrinsically interesting and rewarding but as providing the critical
apparatus
for making sound judgments and decisions in both personal and public matters.
In seeking to teach both substantive history and the skills its study requires,
they encouraged their students to go beyond merely remembering “the facts,” beyond
simply accepting the stories that others had told. They challenged students
to begin thinking in the ways historians themselves do and to employ the
methods and insights offered by the historical discipline in researching
and constructing
their own accounts of the past.
As inheritors of this legacy, current members of the department have sought
to extend its ethos by making a developmental approach to the historical
discipline even more explicit within the history major.
Such a developmental approach to studying the past is fundamentally at odds
with what has emerged as an à la carte approach to history at many
other colleges and universities. Given changing notions of what constitutes “cultural
literacy,” it has become
impossible to structure a core curriculum around content. No longer can history
departments simply convey the fundamentals of Western Civilization and American
History and call their students educated. Yet, looking at a “little
of this” and “a little of that” without any kind of unifying
framework goes no further toward developing a truly historical sensibility.
If fostering a historical sensibility is the appropriate goal of undergraduate
education in history, programs must find a new unifying framework. The Lawrence
Department of History has begun to meet the challenge by structuring its
core curriculum around the skills, methods, and theories appropriate to thoughtful
study of the past. If it has given its students new license to explore historical
themes and topics of particular interest to them, it has also required them
to do so while progressing through a sequence of courses that build upon
one
another.
Ultimately, what Lawrence history students choose to study is less important
than how they study it. As we hope the exciting work of our seniors in The
Practice of History illustrates, actually “doing history” serves
all our students, even as it inspires some to become professional historians.
Lawrence cited for producing history Ph.D.s
An article titled “Trends in the Undergraduate Origins” in the
September 2005 issue of Perspectives, newsletter of the American Historical
Association, ranked the Department of History at Lawrence among the “Select
25 Programs” most successful at producing graduates who go on to complete
the Ph.D. degree in history.
“We find ourselves in very impressive company,” says Edmund Kern,
associate professor of history and department chair. “With nine out of
every 100 graduates receiving their Ph.D.s — 20 out of 221 between 1989
and 2002 — we
rank alongside Brown, Harvard, Georgetown, Macalester,
Rice, and Yale, all of whom post the same ratio.”
The Perspectives article notes, “Beyond the Ph.D.-granting history programs,
a small number of private liberal arts colleges played a critical part in feeding
undergraduates into the pipeline of future history Ph.D.s.”
“The author of the study worries that so few schools produce so many
professional historians," Kern adds. "Seen in this context, the department
is proud that it’s one of a handful that is neither at a top research
institution nor at a top-ten liberal arts college. We buck the trend.”
The history major
In the Department of History, introductory surveys teach not only substantive
historical changes and continuities (“the stuff of history”)
but also the types of skills employed in comprehending them (“history
as discipline”).
Intermediate courses
continue to teach the same lessons, albeit with narrower focus and greater
nuance. Introduced a few years ago, Clionautics: An Introduction to Doing
History, a seminar designed expressly for freshman and sophomore majors, emphasizes
these lessons even more boldly by teaching practical skills through the careful
investigation of a particular theme or topic, which varies from instructor
to instructor.
During the junior year, history students enroll in Historiography, a seminar introduced to the curriculum in the 1970s, designed expressly for
majors and focusing on the philosophical and
theoretical aspects of the historical discipline.
Finally, in the junior and
senior years, students are expected to take a research seminar (a key component
of the major dating back decades) and The Practice of History (introduced
in the 1990s). Both courses guide students through the investigation of a historical
question of
their own choosing and the formal presentation of their own findings in a substantial
piece of original research.