Visiting Scholars, Alumni, and Students Present
On March 6, in honor of the 10th year of the Fleming-Morrow Distinguished Lecture, the history department hosted a full-day symposium of panel sessions and discussions. The day culminated with a keynote lecture by Crystal R. Sanders titled, “Pursuing ‘Their Highest Potential’: Black Southerners and Graduate Education During the Era of Legal Segregation.”
The Fleming-Morrow Endowment in African American History was established in 2015 by faculty members to honor the distinguished careers of Professors Cynthia Griggs Fleming and John H. Morrow Jr. as pioneering African American faculty members at the University of Tennessee.
The symposium included engaging talks by Assistant Professor Anthony M. Donaldson Jr. (Sewanee: University of the South), Assistant Professor Le’Trice Donaldson (Auburn University), Associate Professor LaShawn Harris (Michigan State University), Professor Learotha Williams Jr. (Tennessee State University), and Associate Professor Shannen Dee Williams (University of Dayton).
The department also hosted a public workshop in March on “Career Diversity for Historians,” where six alumni spoke to students and faculty about how they make use of their graduate degrees in a wide variety of professional arenas.
Speaking at the workshop were Brittany Poe, marketing and communications specialist at Nisus Corporation; Katie Hodges-Kluck, assistant director of communications at the University of Virginia’s Rare Book School; Stefan Hodges-Kluck, software engineer at Very Good Ventures; Claire Mayo, manager of research development at UT’s Office of Research and Creative Activity in the College of Arts and Sciences; Lisa Oakley, vice president and curator of education at the East Tennessee Historical Society; and Pat Ezzell, senior specialist in history and communications, Tennessee Valley Authority.
In April, UT history honors student Keeley Wade presented her thesis research as part of the Blount Mansion Visitors Center lecture series. Tennessee’s ratification of the 19th Amendment in the summer of 1920 came as a shock to many. Wade’s presentation focused on Josephine Pearson, the formal leader of the anti-suffrage movement in Tennessee. Pearson serves as a fascinating case study of the circumstances that created anti-suffragists, the rhetoric and strategies they employed, and their ultimate failure at stopping the ratification of the 19th Amendment.
At the Americanists’ SoTA (Seminar on Thursday Afternoons), three graduate students presented their research to the faculty and student participants: Kyle Vratarich, Rachel Wiedman, and Stu Vanderkooi.
During the department’s annual awards ceremony, we recognized a number of students for excellence in research and teaching. These include: Patrick Ramey (Bryon-Groce Award for Public History), Roraig Finney (Charles Jackson Award for American History), Kyle Vratarich (Lee Verstandig Award for Nineteenth Century American History), Allie Richardson (Susan Becker Award for Excellence in Teaching), Stacie Beach (Claude Robertson Award for European History), Rachel Wiedman (Award for Excellence in Gender Studies), Casey Price (Josh Hodge Award for the Recovery of Lost Voices), Aimee Hunt-Beasley (Walkup-Thurman Award for the Best Paper on the Civil War Era), Annamaria Haden (Thomas and Kathryn Shelton Award for Best Dissertation Prospectus), and Stuart Vanderkooi and Nick Strasser, co-winners of the William B. Anderson Award for Military History. Congratulations to our winners!