A lot has happened since our last newsletter. We have a new department head, we’ve moved from Dunford Hall to the Stokely Management Center (SMC), we’ve welcomed two new faculty members, and we’ve continued to be active and productive scholars. I started as department head on August 1, 2022, when Ernie Freeberg stepped down after heroically serving nine years. I agreed to take this on because we have such a great department, as you’ll see in the stories that follow.

While spring semester 2020 ended without our usual pomp and circumstance, from a safe social distance we have reason to celebrate getting through this most challenging academic year.

Few individuals have impacted the history of North America as visibly as James K. Polk. As president (1845–49), this Tennessean oversaw the Mexican War and the US acquisition of California and the Southwest.

The Department of History is honored to award Jack Neely the fourth annual Distinguished Alumnus Award.

The ability to cut through the digital flotsam and connect with an audience, whether it is a group of corporate executives or a grandmother in Flatbush, is a skill as prized in the professional world as a head for numbers or a sharp working knowledge of digital branding strategies.

Without apparent natural talent for writing, Haley worked diligently on his craft for decades and became enormously successful.