Welcome to the History Department’s website.  Our department consists of teachers and scholars who pride themselves on their commitment to the classroom, to original research, and to service to the university and community. The history department currently serves 257 undergraduates and offers an M. A. degree with an option to pursue new digital applications and media technologies.  Our faculty have received numerous awards for their outstanding teaching and scholarship.  They offer coursework in a diverse range of geographical fields and time periods, from the classical world to the modern United States.
 
In our coursework students will learn to evaluate evidence critically, to sift and organize it fairly and persuasively, and to analyze the past for its patterns and meanings. Historical study provides perspective, helping individuals to place their own lives, values, and world events in context, and to recognize the processes of change that have brought us to the present.
 
The history department has designed its major not only to increase students’ historical knowledge, but also to build crucial critical thinking and writing skills.  Students develop, practice and master historical methods that include research, analysis and strategic thinking, writing, and oral presentation.  These skills are essential ones, not only for professional historians, but also for a variety of other careers in such fields as education, law, business, and public affairs.  The major also serves students who wish to teach history by providing them with a knowledge both of the past and of the various methods and approaches by which historians have sought to understand it.  Moreover, such knowledge enriches the lives of all students by broadening their understanding of the world and their place within it.