Graduate Students
The Department has a graduate enrollment of about 90 students at all stages of their graduate careers. A self-governing History Graduate Student Association serves as a liaison between students and faculty. Two graduate students serve on the Department's Graduate Studies Committee, which administers the graduate program.
2009-20010 Graduate Student Representatives:
Welcome 2009-2010 History Graduate Students!
M.A. Graduates, 2009 |
 |
| From left to right: Holly Young, Kevin Impellizeri, Adam Plaiss, Kevin Brown, Keith Minsinger, Grace Patterson, and Tabitha Pryor. |
Ph.D. Graduates, 2009 |
 |
| From left to right: Alan Meyer, Rebecca Sheppard, Zara Anishanslin-Bernhardt, Alex Pavuk, and John Davies. |
2009 Honors and Awards
The hallways and library will temporarily seem a little emptier because ten students have defended their dissertations. If you haven't already done so, please offer your congratulations to Zara Anishanslin-Bernhardt, Pat Anderson, Kenneth Cohen, John Davies, Bryn Varley Hollenbeck, Alan Meyer, Alex Pavuk, Ben Schwantes, Rebecca Sheppard, and Daniel Winer.
It's been a banner year in other ways as well. Here's a sampling of the publications, presentations, prizes, and other accomplishments of our stellar group of graduate students.
Just in: Zara Anishanslin-Bernhardt has won the Sypherd Prize for the best dissertation in the Humanities at UD. This is a significant accomplishment and a huge honor.
Add to the list of the gainfully employed listed in last fall's memo: Zara Anishanslin-Bernhardt who will take up a tenure-track position in colonial history at CUNY-Staten Island and Dan Claro who accepted a position as the Visual Resources Curator at Princeton University's School of Architecture.
Good news has also trickled in about alumni. Congratulations to Diane Wenger, who has been awarded tenure at Wilkes Barre University. Cindy Falk published Architecture
and Artifacts of the Pennsylvania Germans. Gary Daynes has been appointed Director of
the Center for Civic Engagement at Westminster College.
Kudos to the dissertators who secured significant support for their projects from outside the University! Laura Johnson will be the Barra Foundation Fellow in Art and Material Culture at the McNeil Center next year. Andy Bozanic is looking forward to settling in at the Smithsonian on a pre-doctoral fellowship. A one-month fellowship will allow Matt Huddock to mine the collections of the Massachusetts Historical Society for his dissertation. This fall, Bess Williamson shoulders the mantle of Henry Belin Du Pont Dissertation Fellow at Hagley. Hannah Kim was awarded the Philip Jaisohn Foundation Scholarship.
Competition was fierce for funding from inside the University. Jamin Wells and Bess Williamson secured competitive fellowships from the Office of Graduate Studies. Janneken Smucker was also awarded a competitive dissertation fellowship, but turned it down to accept a Women's Studies Dissertation Fellowship. Two incoming Ph.D. students, Katrina Anderson and Shalon Hallager were also awarded competitive fellowships. Sally Stocksdale and Meredith Scott will be conducting research abroad this summer thanks to grants from the Graduate Office.
Kevin Barry is among the students who saw his work published this year. "German Violations of Irish Neutrality in World War Two" appeared in The Irish Sword, a journal dedicated to Irish military affairs. Kevin also won the prize for best paper at the College of William and Mary's Graduate Studies. Bess Williamson is also on a roll. Her article on engineering for the developing world appeared in the December 2008 issue of
Comparative Technology Transfer and Society. She won the Katzman-Yetman Prize for
the best graduate student paper from the Mid-America American Studies Association meeting. Nate Wiewora published a book review in the Stone-Campbell Journal.
The list of those who gave conference papers is long. It includes Christy Croxall, Amanda Guidotti, Alex Pavuk, Kevin Brown, Jamie Kuhns, Sally Stocksdale, Lily Santoro. Laura Walikainen has now knows the business of conferences from the other side. She was co-chair of this spring's Material Culture Symposium for Emerging Scholars.
The History Honors Banquet on April 301" provided a happy occasion for the distribution of the Department's own honors for graduate students. Alumni Award for Best Printed Article or Seminar paper by a graduate went to Kevin Barry. Christy Croxall took home the Stanley J. & Marion Goldfus Memorial Award for best Teaching Assistant. The John A. Munroe Memorial Award for a student who has excelled in developing and teaching his or her own course was awarded to Andy Bozanic. And, last but not least, Ashley Moreshead took home two prizes: the William H. Williams Award for outstanding scholarship focusing on Colonial America to 1865 and the National Society of Colonial Dames of America Award.
2008 Honors and Awards
Bryn Varley Hollenbeck has taken a job as Visiting Assistant
Professor of American Studies at Skidmore beginning next Fall.
And Jamie Kuhns recently took a position as the Parks Historian
for the Maryland-National Capitol Parks and Planning Commission
in Maryland.
Among the many fellowships awarded for the coming year, Janneken
Smucker has been awarded a McNeil Dissertation Fellowship
at Winterthur, a Visiting Scholar Fellowship at the International
Quilt Study Center, the Meredith Scholar Award of the American
Quilt Study Group, and the James Renwick Predoctoral Fellowship
from the Smithsonian. Laura Johnson will work at the Newberry
Library during the next year with a short term research grant,
and she will travel to Spain for research with at the Archivo
General de Indias with a grant from the Center for International
Studies at UD. Two others also received Center funding for summer
research abroad: Meredith Scott will travel to the Bibliotheque
Nationale de France and the Archives Nationales, and Jen Moses
will also use funding from the Center to work this summer at the
Bibliotheque Nationale de France. Andy Bozanic was awarded
a short-term Lemelson Center Fellowship to work next year in the
National Museum of American History at the Smithsonian, and Colleen
Rafferty was awarded a short-term Program in Early American
Economy and Society fellowship for research this summer on her
on-going Pennsylvania backcountry stories. And Hannah Kim
received the Asian, Black, Hispanic, and Native American United
Methodist Research Award for work she will do in the church archives
of Madison, New Jersey.
And there is more: Three Stewart Internships have been awarded:
Jennifer Fang and Jamin Wells, to conduct work at
the Hagley Museum and Library, and Amanda Quackenbush,
to work at the First State Heritage Museum in Dover, Delaware.
Laura Walikainen will also be a research fellow this summer,
in the Material Culture Center at UD.
From the first two rounds of proposals to use our funds from
the Graduate Program Improvement grant, ten of our graduate students
received support to present papers at scholarly conferences during
the summer and fall this year, and fully thirteen have received
funds to begin or continue their dissertation research in far-flung
places in the U.S. and abroad.
Three of our best and brightest have landed important career
positions. After a full national search, the history department
of Calvin College in Grand Rapids, Michigan has moved Bob Schoone-Jongen
from a full-time temporary position to a tenure-track one. And
after an exhausting series of campus interviews, Ken Cohen
has taken a tenure-track position in early American history at
St. Mary's College. In addition, Lisa Prueter accepted
a position as the Social Studies Specialist for the Appoquinimink
School District.
A number of students have been awarded prestigious grants from
a wide array of institutions and universities so far this year.
A few of these have been awarded by our own University of Delaware:
Andy Bozanic received a Summer Fellowship in Material Culture;
Stephanie Lampkin, newly admitted recently, was given a
Graduate Scholar Award; two our our dissertators, Lily Santoro
and Janneken Smucker, will be Graduate Fellows next year;
and Megan Jones was awarded a dissertation fellowship from
the UD Women's Studies Program for the coming academic year.
Timothy Hack has been awarded a Dissertation Grant from
the New Jersey Historical Commission, as well as a coveted Gilder-Lehrman
fellowship to do research on his dissertation. Hannah Kim
recently won a Florence Tan Moeson Fellowship from the Library
of Congress, a short-term grant to study in their prestigious
Asian collections. Michelle Mormul has won two awards in
recent months: the John Pine Memorial Doctoral Scholarship from
Phi Alpha Theta, and a short-term grant from the Program in Early
American Economy and Society in Philadelphia. The award for traveling
the farthest was given this year to Bryn Varley Hollenbeck,
who was given a Charles Donald O'Malley Fellowship to work in
the Biomedical Library at UCLA. And Stephanie Holyfield
has been awarded a Grant-in-Aid from the Hagley Museum and Library
for summer research.
Cudos to all of these shining stars in our firmament! Keep it
comin'!
2007 Honors and Awards
Christine Sears will be starting a tenure track job at
the University of Alabama-Huntsville, and Christian Koot
will be taking up a tenure track job at Towson University. Alan
Meyer recently started a full-time job as a civilian historian
with the United States Air Force near the Pentagon. And Ryan
Thompson has accepted a tenure track position at Cleveland
State University in Chattanooga,Tenn.
A number of students have been awarded prestigious grants from
both the University and national competitions to continue working
on their dissertations during the coming year. Jennifer Armiger
has been granted not only a UD Dissertation Award for the 2007-2008
academic year, but also the American Fellowship from the American
Association of University Women and the University of Delaware's
newly minted Women's Studies Dissertation Fellowship. Ben Schwantes
has also been awarded a UD Dissertation Award, and Hillary
Murtha has been awarded a UD Competitive Award, both for the
2007-2008 academic year.
Lyndsay Rago scooped up the second UD Competitive Award
this year, and then went on to receive the Coordinating Conference
of Women in the Historical Profession (CCWH)/Berkshire Graduate
Student Award for dissertation research. Two of our continuing
graduate students will be gracing the McNeil Center in Philadelphia
as they continue writing their dissertations: Ken Cohen
has been awarded a year-long Cosortium Fellowship and Zara
Anishanslin-Bernhardt a year-long Consortium/Barra Fellowship.
And Dan Claro was awarded a year-long McNeil Dissertation
Fellowship to work at Winterthur in the coming year. Lily Santoro
has scooped up not only a prestigious grant from the Filson Historical
Society in Louisville, KY, but also a Peterson Fellowship to work
at the American Antiquarian Society in Worcester, MA, and from
our own History Department, our annual William Williams Award
for outstanding work in early American history.
Elise Ciregna has been given a New England Regional Fellowship
Consortium Grant recently; Karen Ryder received a Mellon
ellowship for research at the Virginia Historical Society; Katie
Turner will enjoy a short-term Winterthur research grant;
Michelle Mormul has been awarded a short-term Program in
Early Economy fellowship to work in Philadelphia; and Patricia
Keller has landed a 2007 Research Project Grant from the Center
for Craft, Creativity & Design in North Carolina. At the Maryland
Historical Magazine, Patricia Anderson has been appointed
editor.
In our own department, in addition to the William Williams award,
Heather Boyd and Mike Sparrow have been recognized
for their outstanding work as Teaching Assistants with the Stanley
J. and Marion Goldfus Memorial Award; and Christine Sears
has been awarded the first John Munroe prize for superior teaching
in her own courses in the History Department. At UD's recent Gels
Student Research on Women Conference, Jennifer Vess, won
the second place prize (graduate division) for her paper, "'Home
Influences' and 'Home Joys': American Women in World War I and
the Recreation of America Overseas."
And to continue this stellar list, Stephanie Holyfield's
dissertation prospectus was accepted to the Newcomen dissertation
colloquium at this year's Business History Conference, and Bonnie
Maxwell won the Raymond Callahan Prize for the years 2003
to 2006, for most outstanding member of the MALS program, with
special mention of her superior thesis.
As always, our grads have also been busy presenting their work
at numerous conferences and seminars around the country and beyond,
shining light on their achievements and making us all very proud.
Cudos to all!
2006 Honors and Awards
John Davies and Katherine Turner have been awarded
two of the University's Dissertation Fellow Awards, and Jennifer
Moses won a University Graduate Fellows Award, all for the coming
academic year.
Among the awards that our own department confers on graduate
students, Andy Bozanic has been recognized for his outstanding
work as a Teaching Assistant with the Stanley J. and Marion Goldfus
Memorial Award. This year's prize for the Alumni Award for Best
Printed Article or Seminar Paper, a submission judged by a committee
of former chairs of the History Department, has been conferred
on Janneken Smucker. And the departmental William H. Williams
Scholarship in Early American History, which is divided equally
between graduate and undergraduate students doing outstanding
scholarship in early American history, goes to Ted Sickler.
Jennifer Armiger recently received the New Jersey Historical
Commission's Smith Dissertation Fellowship for 2006, as well as
one of the prestigious Rovensky Fellowships for Dissertations
in American Business and Economic History, which is sponsored
in part by the Business History Conference.
Michelle Mormul has received a Travel and Data Grant from
the Economic History Association to conduct research on her dissertation.
At the recent Geis Student Research on Women Conference, Seabrook
Jones won second place among a number of Graduate papers presented
across numerous disciplines for her paper on Chester County women's
economic lives in the early 1800s.
|
