HISTORY DEPARTMENT STUDENT MANUAL v.5 (November 1, 2013)
Welcome
In this manual, students will find information on Major options, Minor information, history major goals and
objectives, general education and history major requirements, and a discussion of HIST 396 and HIST 496.
There is also a discussion of the History major e-portfolio, the importance of extra-curricular activities, tips on
navigating the history department and college, and what you can do with your history major. Please consult your
academic advisor if you still have questions.
The history department offers three options for majors. They include:
General: This option is for everyone who wants to pursue historical study. A degree in history offers one of the
best ways to develop your intellectual interests and a traditional liberal arts education. A history degree prepares
you well for many exciting careers (see below) and being an informed, engaged global citizen. Students can
focus their studies on comparative world, U.S., and Europe.
Public History: This option includes coursework on Public History, which is a historical practice that is seen,
heard, read, and interpreted by a popular audience. By emphasizing the public context of scholarship, public
history trains historians to transform their research to reach audiences outside the academy such as museums or
libraries.
Social Studies Licensure: The Social Studies for Secondary Teachers option gives high-quality academic
preparation to students who wish to earn a Colorado social studies license. This option requires careful planning
and advising. Students with this option should consult a History Department advisor as early as possible in their
academic careers, and should read the Teacher Education section of the catalog for the steps and requirements
for applying to the Teacher Education Licensure Program.
Students can also pursue the following historical paths:
Liberal Studies with a History concentration: This option emphasizes a broad range of history courses, but
also includes courses from other disciplines. See the Liberal Studies section in the catalogue for your calendar
year requirements.
Minor in History:
The minor in history offers a great way to pursue your interests in history and complement your primary major.
See a history faculty member, your advisor, or the catalogue for your year for specific requirements. Typically,
the minor requires a minimum of six courses, three lower and three upper division.
Double Major: Love history and another subject? You can do a double major with History as one of your
majors. Please see a History Faculty member for details.
History Major Goals and Objectives
The central objectives of the History major are to instill in students an appreciation of the complexity of history
and a life-long love for the discipline and learning about the world. Along with this, the History major has the
following objectives:
INSERT MOST CURRENT VERSION OF GOALS/OBJECTIVES
With these goals in mind, history majors should be thinking regularly about the ways their coursework and extra
curricular activities contribute to their development in these areas.
History Major Course Requirements
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History majors must satisfy FLC’s general education requirements. History majors must also satisfy specific
history department requirements based on their option. These requirements change depending on the catalogue
year. Be sure to check the requirements for your option for your catalogue year. Not all U.S. history courses, for
example, count for the social studies option.
Philosophy and Methods (HIST 396) and Senior Seminar (496)
These courses are the history department’s capstone courses. HIST 396 covers three basic topics: a survey of
historical methods and concepts, a history of history, and preparation of a research prospectus. The prospectus
outlines the preliminary research for the senior seminar paper and prepares the student for the work of HIST
496. This project is vital to success in the senior seminar. History faculty strongly encourage students to begin
thinking about the senior seminar projects before their last two semesters. Talk with your advisor about possible
topics.
If you are a post-bac student working on social studies teacher licensure, you must take HIST 396, but
instead of writing the research paper prospectus you can produce lesson plans and a reflective paper discussing
how you will use the ideas, concepts, and knowledge from this course as a secondary education teacher.
HIST 496, taken after the completion of HIST 396 and an approved research prospectus, has several
parts. Students must turn in a complete e-portfolio (see next section) and take the senior assessment exam. The
core assignment is writing the senior seminar paper under the guidance of department faculty and delivering a
public presentation of the research. This process of doing research, writing a clear, conceptually sophisticated
paper, and presenting the work to the public combines the objectives of the history department for its majors and
aims to prepare graduates for a life of academic inquiry.
The e-Portfolio
The e-portfolio is a history department requirement for all majors. It serves two important functions.
The first is it provides majors with the opportunity to begin organizing their work for future use,
whether it is for an internship, job, or graduate school application. More importantly, it provides students with
the opportunity to sharpen their own understanding of the intellectual and experiential work they are doing at
FLC. The most crucial dimension of the e-portfolio is the writing of three self-reflection papers.
The other function of the e-portfolio is to assist the history department in ensuring the highest quality
education for history majors. It allows the department to identify areas where faculty and students need to
improve.
You need to present your e-portfolio to your advisor during the spring advising session in your second,
third and senior years. It contains the following components:
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Title page
Table of Contents
A resume
A list of all history and relevant courses completed
A list of books read, broken down by different parts of the world.
Self-evaluation essays and skills checklist that comment on progress in meeting the goals of the major.
a. One for the end of second year (2 pages doubled spaced)
b. One for the end of third year (3 pages double spaced)
c. One for the senior year (5 pages double spaced)
7) A research paper from the first or second year
8) A research paper from the third year
9) A research paper (not senior seminar) from your final year of studies
10) Samples of non-essay assignments: journals, book reviews, powerpoint presentations, etc.
11) Senior Seminar Prospectus
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12) Senior Seminar paper and senior assessment essays
Funding your Degree
Currently, the History Department is building its own scholarship program. Until that fund grows, students
should work with FLC financial aid office and the FLC Foundation. Students can also seek outside scholarships
from foundations and other organizations. Again, the financial aid office can help in this area.
One of the most common scholarships history majors get is the FLC Undergraduate Research
scholarship. These are usually won in the final year of work and based on a major’s senior seminar project.
There is usually one funding cycle: Applications are due in early November.
Extracurricular Activities
While at FLC, the history department strongly encourages majors to do more than satisfy course requirements.
Students should consider the following activities:
1) Learn at least one other language.
2) Do an internship.
3) Study and travel abroad.
4) Become active in campus clubs and community projects.
5) Attend campus events, especially History sponsored events.
6) Join the History Club, the John Reed Honors Program, and Phi Alpha Theta, the honors society for history
majors.
7) Attend an academic conference.
All of these activities will enrich your life and make you a better student and global citizen. Talk with faculty in
the department about the above opportunities.
Tips on Navigating the History Department and College
The most important piece of advice for navigating the department and college is to be informed. Pay attention.
Talk with your advisor. Set goals and work towards them. If a problem emerges, talk with the appropriate
person at FLC. If it is academic, talk with a professor. If it concerns financial aid or records, stay on the problem
with the appropriate office until you have worked out a clear plan to resolve those concerns. If you are having
trouble writing, visit the writing center or a history professor.
What Can I Do With a History Major?1
Only a small percentage of history majors go on to be professional historians; most go on, instead, to become
lawyers, librarians, businesspersons, writers, archivists, researchers, teachers, politicians, and even entertainers.
Leaders in every industry, from business to the arts, can point to their training as history majors as the starting
point for their success. Below is a brief examination of the sorts of skills developed by the study of history and
various career options available to history majors. By examining the varieties of approaches historians use, the
discussion below seeks to identify the advantages of historical study in fostering well-rounded intellectual
development as well as developing valuable career skills in research, writing, argumentation, and
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This section borrows heavily and in some cases directly from a document prepared by Professor Catherine Lavender,
Dept. of History, The College of Staten Island, CUNY.
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documentation. One of the key ways of thinking about what a history major prepares you to pursue after
graduation is to focus on the skills one acquires as a history student. These include:
1) Effective writing skills--vital to any job requiring a college degree, effective writing means the ability to
successfully and precisely communicate one's ideas in text.
2) Critical analysis skills--vital to the decision-making process for any job, critical analysis means the ability to
analyze a situation and come up with creative and practical solutions.
3) Research skills--vital to any job, research skills mean the ability to understand past practices and policies and
to trace the roots of any issue, to find new information which bears on that issue, and to incorporate that
information into one's analysis of an issue.
4) Interdisciplinary thinking and training--vital to any position, interdisciplinary thinking and training means the
ability to think about a problem in a multitude of ways, to analyze it using multiple tools, and to provide
solutions which draw from different traditions of thought.
5) Curiosity and inquisitiveness--vital to any position, curiosity and inquisitiveness mean the desire to learn
more and to continue learning, to examine reasons beneath issues, and to come to understand them as part of a
continual, life-long, education process.
Graduate School
History majors have an excellent record of success in graduate school. Some go into Masters and Ph.D.
programs in history. Others choose to enter public policy, gender and women’s studies, sociology, public health,
and anthropology programs. Still others select law school, social work, and sometimes Masters in Business
Administration.
For all of these paths, planning is very important. You usually apply for graduate school one year in
advance of entering, typically in the fall. History faculty can help you with the process of selecting schools and
getting your application materials together. You will sometimes need to take a graduate school exam. These
include the GRE, GMAT, and LSAT. You will also need to get letters of recommendation from faculty
members.
What are some of the careers that history majors commonly follow?
Historians as Educators: Many history majors go on to become educators, focusing on the communication of
their ideas. Educators include teachers K-12 education. They also include higher education on many levels,
including teaching at community colleges, undergraduate colleges, and universities. But educators are also
important members of other educational institutions that you may not think of as immediately as schools. These
include historic sites and museums, where history majors can become docents, education directors, curators,
guides, interpreters, and labor union researchers. In addition, there is work as historical consultants, contract
archivists, public historians, writers, and even filmmakers.
Historians as Researchers: Many history majors go on to careers as researchers, emphasizing their skills in
evaluating and analyzing documentary evidence. Historians as researchers include public historians as well as
policy advisors, who serve as planners, evaluators, and policy analysts, often for state, local, and federal
governments. In addition, historians often find employment as researchers for museums and historical
organizations, or pursue additional specialized training to become professionals in cultural resources
management and historic preservation.
Historians as Writers and Editors: Because success as a history major depends upon learning to write
effectively, many historians become writers and editors. They make their living as authors of historical books, or
more commonly, they work as editors. Many historians become print and broadcast journalists, and others
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become documentary editors who oversee the publication of documents such as those produced by government
agencies.
Historians as Information Managers: Because history majors must learn to deal with documents, many pursue
a one- or two-year graduate program in library studies (commonly, a Master of Library Science, or MLS,
degree) or archival management and enter careers as information managers. With this additional training, they
enter the fields of archives management, information management, records management, and librarianship.
Historians as Advocates: Many history majors find that historical training makes a perfect preparation for Law
School, as historians and lawyers often do roughly the same thing--they argue persuasively using historical data
to support their positions. Many history majors become lawyers; others undertake careers in litigation support as
paralegals. Others enter public service and become policymakers, serve as legislative staff at all levels of
government, work for labor unions and social justice organizations, and become officers of granting agencies
and foundations.
Historians as Businesspeople: Most people overlook the value of historical studies to prepare for a career in
business. Yet, historians track historic trends, an important skill for those developing products to market or
engaged in corporate or financial planning. Many history majors enter banking, insurance, and stock analysis.
Historians also learn how to write persuasively, and this training gives them an edge in advertising,
communications media, and marketing. Finally, many industries depend on an intimate knowledge of
government policies and historical trends; thus, history majors have found their skills useful in extractive
industries and in public utilities.
Historians as Public Historians: Public historians do many things. The work as historical consultants, museum
professionals, government and corporate historians, oral historians, cultural resource managers, curators, film
and media producers, local historians and community activists. All share an interest and commitment to making
history for the widest audience possible.
History Faculty Members
Dr. John Baranski
Ph.D., University of California, Santa Barbara
19th and 20th Century United States History
Office: Noble #211
Email: baranski_j@fortlewis.edu
Phone: 970.247.7269
Dr. Michael Fry
Ph.D., Tulane University
Latin American History
Office: Noble #205
Email: fry_m@fortlewis.edu
Phone: 970.247.7352
Dr. Andrew Guliford
Ph.D., Bowling Green State University
U.S., Southwest, and Public History
Office: Noble #200
Email: gulliford_a@fortlewis.edu
Dr. Ellen L. Paul
Ph.D., University of Kansas
Modern European History
Office: Noble #209
Email: paul_e@fortlewis.edu
Phone: 970.247.7267
Dr. Michael Martin
Ph.D., Western Michigan University
Medieval European History; Church History;
Ancient Greece and Rome; Gender and Queer
Studies/Theory
Office: Noble #210
Email: martin_m@fortlewis.edu
Phone: 970.247.7147
Dr. Neil McHugh
Ph.D., Northwestern University
African and Middle Eastern History
Office: Noble #207
Email: mchugh_n@fortlewis.edu
Phone: 970.247.7411
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Dr. Darrell Allen
Ph.D., University of Kansas
East Asian History
Office: Noble #208
Email: deallen@fortlewis.edu
Phone: 970.247.6166
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