The final meeting of the HIS 390 class, Friday, December 16, was attended by students, their families, the student teacher supervisors and department faculty.  Twenty-six students gathered together for words of recognition and encouragement at this final meeting, just before graduation.

Seven of them received the Distinguished Portfolio Award, given “In recognition of a thoughtful and well-assembled teaching portfolio representing the best work completed during his/her course of study in the field of History-Social Sciences Education.”  Receiving this recognition were Sam Fishman, Jessica Joyce, Valerie Kostogiannes, Emily Roberts, Brian Sabino, Laura Simonton and Cameron Zindars.  Out of this seven, two received the McBride Award, given in honor Lawrence W. McBride, a former faculty member and Director of the History-Social Sciences Education program; Jessica Joyce and Cameron Zindars.  John VanOverbake received the Howard Romanek Award, “in recognition of outstanding work in HIS 290 and HIS 390 and a student teaching experience demonstrating the potential to excel as an educator”.  Dr. Kyle Ciani and Dr. Stweart Winger were honored with Outstanding Faculty Awards by the 390 students.

Gene Burnett’s group

Joyce Witt’s group

 Mary Kay Zeter’s group

 Marcel Lewinski’s group

Margaret Danhof’s group

 Mike Tilford’s group

 Sara Piotrowski’s group

 The McBride Award winners

 The Romanek Award winner

 Winger and Ciani receive Faculty awards

 Diane Mueller’s group

Joe White’s group

Doris Weil and Sara Miner have both been invited to speak at national conferences in the spring.

Doris Weil will present “Teaching Archival Research Methods: Reflections from an American Political Development Course” at the American Political Science Association Annual Teaching and Learning Conference in Washington D.C. in February.  She and three other members of the group who wrote this paper as a collaborative project for Dr. Gelbman in Political Science were accepted through an application process to present as a group.  The paper is the result of looking at hundreds of slave narratives to assess the attitudes of governmental and political figures toward the governing of ex-slaves.

Doris has a B.S. in history with a minor in Political Science and will receive her Master’s Degree in May in the area of 19th Century Legal History.  She hails from Minooks, IL  and aspires to attend law school or teach at a Community College.

Sara Miner has been invited to present at the 22nd UCLA Thinking Gender National Conference in February.  Graduate studnents selected to attend this conference, held by the UCLA Center for the Study of Women were required to submit an application.  This year there were more than 250 applicants with 60 presenters selected.  The paper she is presenting is entitled “Cockfighting in the American Midwest during the Mid-Twentieth Century: Women’s Participation in the Practice”.  She has also presented her research as an undergraute at the Phi Alpha Theta Conference in 2010 and at the Indiana State Graduate Symposium in Spring 2011.

Sara’s interest in this subject developed when she learned her great grandfather raised game fighting cocks in Cornell, IL and was well known in the business.  After losing the family farm during the Great Depression, he got into this profession in an effort to support his family.  Sara had the opportunity to interview her grandfather who helped with the business as a child.  As a primary source, this interview required special documentation, a process she said that made her grandfather a bit uncomfortable even after all these years because he is aware that what his father was doing was illegal.

Sara is a graduate of Normal Community West High School who has a B.A. in  History with minors in French and Political Science.  She will receive her Master’s Degree in History in May.  Her area of interest is Mid-20th century American History.  She plans to take a year off while she considers applying to PhD programs in History.

Sara and Doris, congratulations!  We are excited and proud that both of you will be representing the ISU History Department

to see Dr. Touré Reed make his presentation on Industrial Democracy and the Civil Rights Establishment of the 1930sat the Library of Congress August 2, 2011.  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1S03IaX2nm4

At a special ceremony Tuesday, November 15, six of the eleven history department students were inducted into the Mu Upsilon chapter of Phi Alph Theta.  In front of family members and friends these students were introduced by History Department faculty members, sworn in, and received a membership certificate and honors cords to wear at graduation.

The newest members of Phi Alpha Theta are:  Marissa Reneé Burnes, Daniel J. Craig, Robert “Eric” Jones, Melaine M. Kahn, Macey C. King, Meghan Anne McDonnell, Brett L. Simon, Kera B. Storrs, Kevin Daniel Wallach and David J. Watt.

To qualify a student must have at least 12 semester hours in History with a GPA of at least 3.1 in History and 3.0 overall.  Graduate students must have 12 graduate hours completed toward their Master’s Degree with at least a 3.5 GPA.  Only Phi Beta Kappa has more stringent membership qualifications.  As a result, the faculty and staff of the History Department take these students’ achievement very seriously.

This is a professional society whose mission is to promote the study of history through the encouragement of research, good teaching, publication, and the exchange of learning and ideas among historians.  It was established in 1921, is a charger member of the Association of College Honor Societies, and currently has chapters on 820 college and university campuses.