From the editor . . .

The History Department once again brings you Past . . . and Future. This is our second issue of the revised, former Clio's Chronicle. Since every issue brings a new editor, you will see some changes; at the same time we have continued some of the same features from the inaugural issues. But plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose (the more things change, the more they stay the same): we encourage all of you alumni to please keep us posted on your lives--- especially regarding the way you may have used your History degree from the University of Dayton to add to all aspects of your life---social, cultural, economic and personal. An important part of the mission of Past...and Future is to help our students conceive a meaningful life after college that incorporates what they have learned in the process of obtaining their history degree. To that purpose, we have included in this issue an interesting and relevant interview with one of our more recent graduates. We hope that Past...and Future contributes in some way to facilitating this post-university imagining process.
 

Last year's Letter from the Department Chair emphasized the theme of change, pointing out the move to the new Past...and Future format for the department's newsletter, the new B.A. in history requirements, and revisions in course offerings. Change continues to be a major theme within the department. This year's Letter from the Department Chair is coming from a different chair. Dr. Janet Bednarek (that's me) replaced Dr. Larry Flockerzie as the head of the department in July 1999. Dr. Mary Carlson and Dr. Laura Yungblut are both enjoying sabbaticals this academic year. Dr. David Darrow will begin a one-year leave-of-absence in January 2000. So, some old faces have not been seen much this year, while some new faces have been helping us deliver the curriculum. But history is not just the story of change; it is also often the story of continuity. Members of this department have continued to teach and to conduct research over the last year. As a result, faculty have both inspired students in the classroom and produced a number of books and articles. Phi Alpha Theta continues to be a vital and active part of the life of the department. And, we hope, the history department is still somewhere you can feel a part of whether you are a recent alumni or a graduate from decades past.
 

Change, though, seems to be what captures our attention the most. Perhaps the most obvious recent change was that from the 20^th to the 21^st century, when many of the world's peoples moved not only into a new century, but a new millennium. All kinds of popular media outlets from CNN to local newspapers attempted to offer some "perspective" on the last century or the last millennium. We hope that the training you received as history majors will help you critically evaluate the media's message and inspire you to think out your own ideas about what this calendar change means and doesn't mean.
 

In closing, I hope this last year has been as challenging and productive for you as it has been for us and that you will enjoy keeping in touch with the history department through the reading of Past...and Future.
 
 
 

We are keeping up the tradition (a new one, to be sure) of interviewing a former history major who has used the history degree--in some cases in innovative or not very traditional ways--to develop a career or vocation. In this issue of Past...and Future, we feature Gary Adler (class of 1997), who was interviewed by Dr. Una Cadegan via e-mail from Washington, D.C.
 

UC: What is your position, the name of the organization you're working for, and what do you do, specifically?
 

GA: My official position title is Volunteer Coordinator/Development Assistant, but this doesn't say a whole lot about what I do, partly because I don't have a job description. The organization is D.C. Central Kitchen, a community kitchen in D.C. that recycles surplus food, prepares 3,000 meals a day, and trains 100 homeless men and women each year for jobs in the food service industry. My job falls broadly into three categories: Development, which includes grant writing, donor relations, database development; Public Relations, which includes being webmaster, writing a quarterly newsletter, public speaking, assisting with media relations; and Volunteer Coordinator, which involves recruiting about 7,000 volunteers a year for different tasks, and educating different groups on homelessness and hunger.
 

UC: How did you get the job? What was your training for it?
 

GA: I found out about the job via a friend/Dayton alum who worked with a nearby agency. Once I investigated the work a bit, I called to send a resume and eventually to interview. There are a couple of things, I believe, that helped me land the job: my experience at a homeless shelter, and my experience with publications and educating/working with groups. However, I think the most important aspect was my willingness to engage and discuss with my interviewers about my thoughts on ways to attack hunger and homelessness. The director likes to "think outside the box" and I felt very comfortable going out on a limb with views I have and the reason for the views.
 

UC: Did your training and education at UD prepare you well for this work?
 

GA: I never had any "formal" training, but I have had a number of experiences which allowed me a chance to develop a wide range of skills. A diversity of skills is extremely helpful in the non-profit world where a person can be called upon to do many tasks, even with no experience, but with a desire to go out and gain the knowledge and experience. I have learned a number of computer skills I never thought I would tackle, plus I have had to learn pieces of grant writing, public relations, etc.
 

UC: Were there any particular courses or professors at UD crucial to helping you in this work, either in the actual coursework or in a personal way (as a mentor, for example)?
 

GA: The one intangible I love about my job is the director, and I have very honest, sometimes aggressive, conversations about the direction of the organization, about our thoughts on hunger policy, about the politics of challenging the non-profit world to think that free food doesn't fight hunger, that free homes don't cure homelessness. I firmly believe that the forum where I learned to articulate my own ideas and to integrate varying opinions was the different seminars I took at UD. The seminars I took varied from Russian Popular Culture to Modern Catholicism to Modern Democratic Theory, but they all encouraged a sort of intellectual responsibility. Each placed value on the active, often conflictual, exchange of thought-out ideas. Each also was open to considering the ethical influences that I try to integrate into my life. Even though the process seemed abstract at times, it proved invaluable in thinking through different issues. Now that I have the chance to see how ideas hit the road, this past "training" is even more relevant.
 

A number of professors helped prod me, although they may not know it. Larry Flockerzie in the History Department helped me to provide structure to multifaceted historical forces, encouraging the connections between past and present. Una Cadegan introduced me to the fact that the processes which foster thought are anything but neat and tidy. Steve Dandeneau, in Sociology, prodded me in a different way. Even though I disagreed with many of his ideas and conclusions, this raw disagreement made me consider the responsibility of my own privilege and the grim reality of so many who are affected by the privilege of this country. The people and programs in Campus Ministry helped to integrate my faith into this milieu.
 

My regret: I sometimes wish I had valued the growth of the mind more as a legitimate way to finding solidarity with those who lack opportunity, with working alongside people who differ from me and my experience in so many ways.
 

UC: What kind of advice might you offer to current history majors thinking about entering the working, "real" world?
 

GA: Advice? A degree in history prepares individuals to understand the broad events that answer the question of why we do what we do. Graduates entering the workforce will have to spend some time learning "hard" skills specific to their position. If students can participate in internships, especially beyond Dayton, I think they'll have a better sense of the numerous opportunities that are available for their future. Understanding of history, especially current history, is always evolving, so graduates should continue to see how different forces affect the work they are doing and the communities they live in. Lastly, don't miss an opportunity to share what you have learned--education, even on a very informal level, is something we can share to promote understanding and even change the world, one non-major at a time!
 

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The Book Nook
 

This regular feature includes reviews of books recommended by faculty.
 

Ann Little reviews: Strangers and Pilgrims: Female Preaching in America, 1740-1845 (University of North Carolina Press, 1998), by Catherine A. Brekus. What did it mean for women to follow the call to preach the Word, both for their denominations and for themselves? In Strangers and Pilgrims: Female Preaching in America, 1740-1845, Catherine Brekus has taken for herself a more difficult task in illuminating the forgotten role of female evangelical preachers. "Revolutionary in their defense of female preaching, yet orthodox in their theology, female preachers had been too conservative to be remembered by women's rights activists, but too radical to be remembered by evangelicals." Hers is avowedly a recovery mission, not only on behalf of historians, but on behalf of women in or aspiring to preach today. "Cut off from their collective past, women struggled to defend their right to preach without ever realizing that others had fought the same battles before them." Brekus aims to reconcile this broken history by revealing the openness to women preachers at the beginnings of some of the most conservative Protestant denominations, a fact that was denied or forgotten by their nineteenth- and twentieth-century chroniclers.
 

Juan C. Santamarina reviews: Lois M. Smith and Alfred Padula. Sex and Revolution: Women in Socialist Cuba (New York: Oxford University Press, 1996). As the authors note, this book was conceived in 1983 when they "naively" attempted to fill a void in works on the history of women in revolutionary Cuba by deciding to write one (p. vii). Indeed, the void consisted of, not only an unknown history of one-half of the Cuban population, but also of a history of Cuba largely devoid of an analysis of gender and its impact on Cuban development. Sex and Revolution: Women in Socialist Cuba provides not only a clear, concise, and easy to read history of women in Cuba, but also an extremely balanced and forceful critique of the Cuban revolution's efforts to improve the life of women in Cuba. It argues that women were active participants in the making of modern Cuba, but that at the same time they were often marginalized and their interests included only as peripheral elements of the revolution. In addition, Sex and Revolution argues that women's organizations and agendas, as promoted and defended by the Feminist Movement in Cuba (FMC), were often institutionalized as a way of keeping them under control and under check when the patriarchal system was challenged. Although women in socialist Cuba have achieved much, the achievements have always been what the male-dominated power structure would allow. They argue that neither capitalism nor socialism determine, improve, or worsen women's roles in society; the problem lies within the traditional patriarchal society which remains largely unchanged, in Cuba as elsewhere, regardless of the form of economic organization. As the authors conclude, "Ironically, the ultimate test of the achievements of the Cuban revolution for women will be women's ability to maneuver and progress in a post-socialist Cuba" (p. 187). Sex and Revolution: Women in Socialist Cuba is a testament to balanced and forceful criticism and an important contribution to the reevaluation of the history of Cuba, women in Cuba, and the history of women.
 

William Vance Trollinger reviews: Revive Us Again: The Reawakening of American Fundamentalism (Oxford University Press, 1997), by Joel A. Carpenter. In Revive Us Again Joel Carpenter tells the story of fundamentalism in the 1930s and 1940s. Carpenter knows as much about this topic as anyone, and the result is a sophisticated, textured, and well-written book. Carpenter argues that when the national crusades of the 1920s went bust, fundamentalists concentrated their energies on separating from "the world," an effort which included strict behavioral standards, intense piety, and missionary zeal. As brilliantly delineated by Carpenter, the "separated life" became the "identifying core of...a religious subculture" (88). Fundamentalists and their congregations were sustained by an interconnected web of Bible schools, Bible conferences, mission agencies, and publishing enterprises. It was from this base that, in the 1940s, fundamentalism slowly re-emerged on the public stage, bringing revival to America with radio evangelism, Youth for Christ, and Billy Graham. This is an important story in American religious history, and Carpenter tells it deftly--except when it comes to politics. Carpenter suggests that fundamentalist revivalists succeeded in the early years of the Cold War because their message provided frightened Americans with a powerful source of "courage, integrity, and hope" (231). But given the rabid anticommunist rhetoric of Billy Graham and others, it does not seem overly cynical to propose that postwar evangelists actually fanned the flames of Cold War hysteria, inspiring their followers not only to come to Jesus, but also to support the massive buildup of nuclear weapons, the McCarthyite witch-hunt, and eventually, U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War. This said, Revive Us Again remains, quite simply, required reading for anyone seeking to understand the history of American fundamentalism.
 

Ellen Fleischmann reviews: Three Mothers, Three Daughters: Palestinian Women's Stories (University of California Press, 1996) by Michael Gorkin and Rafiqa Othman. This book is unusual in a number of respects. First, it is the product of an extraordinary collaboration between an Israeli (married) man and a Palestinian (unmarried) woman. In the context of the ongoing Palestinian-Israeli conflict as well as within the context of Palestinian and Israeli cultural differences, this kind of cooperation is distinctive. The two authors, a psychologist and a social worker, interviewed three pairs of Palestinian mothers and daughters who talk relatively freely about a range of topics, including marriage, religion, childhood, education, sexuality, and politics. Another unusual aspect to this book is that the authors are, in fact, not really its authors; the women speak in their own voices with minimal editorializing. The result is sometimes surprising. The portraits that evolve both defy and reinforce stereotypes. The contradictions and complexities of the women's lives emerge with great clarity, directly from the women themselves. The diverse articulateness of these women---who, in the Palestinian context, are ordinary despite their collectively hard lives and tragic experiences---reveals their humanity and individuality in confronting the difficulties in their lives. The book helps to dispel all too common facile stereotypes about Muslim Middle Eastern women.

News from the Department
 

Last year we mentioned that the History Department effected major changes in the curriculum, directed both at fitting the University's new General Education and "cluster" requirements, as well as streamlining and improving our History Major program. Below we have a report on the rationale and substance of these changes.
 

As professional historians, we are trained to look into the past and to gauge the impact of change over time. Every so often, we are inspired to apply this vital skill to our own lives and to our own times. An example of this can be seen with the recent changes in the requirements for the history major at UD. Beginning in 1996 and ending (for now!) in the fall of 1998, the faculty of the Department of History carried out a general revision of the program requirements for the B.A. in history. We believe this effort may be of interest to all our readers.
 

Like all events, our curricular reorganization had its "historical context," and that context was in the far reaching General Education initiatives undertaken at the University of Dayton beginning in the mid 1980s. Many readers will recall that these efforts resulted in a whole range of new requirements and programs such as the Humanities Base, CORE, the Integrated Cluster program, the "block" requirements in the humanities. From the start, the Department of History was a leader in the formulation and launching of these initiatives. However, the role we played in this process took lots of time and energy. By the time that the General Education program was in place in the early 1990s, we in the department saw the opportunity and necessity to turn our energies once again toward our most singular mission: the B.A. in history.
 

The first piece of order was some long overdue housecleaning: a number of our courses listed in the UD Bulletin had not been taught in years, others reflected specialities of faculty no longer at the university; and still others offered a very narrow focus that did not fit effectively with the new Gen Ed cluster requirements. A total of 21 courses were dropped in 1997. We also sought to clarify a longstanding confusion between 300 and 400 level History courses (no one alive in the department could remember why it actually was that some courses had a 300 designation while other, similar courses, were numbered in the 400s). Therefore, most of the 400 level courses were renumbered to the 300 level, and with two exceptions (HST 300 and 301, discussed below) the 300 level courses became the exclusive domain of the history "elective"and our upper-level Gen Ed offerings. The 400 level was left solely for "History major only" study such as senior seminars and internship study. At this level, the old generic senior seminar (HST 491) was replaced with separate seminars in African, American, Latin American, European, and Middle Eastern history as well as one focusing on historiography.
 

Necessary as this housecleaning effort was, we realized that it was only the beginning of the process, and that the time had come to revisit the current and future direction of the program. As all students of history know, things change, and even a traditionally strong program such as ours needed to keep abreast with the times--and the time had come to update and even refocus parts the B.A. in history in order to meet the rapidly changing needs and expectations of society. In setting out on this task, we decided to concentrate on two key concepts that clearly spoke to the current needs of our majors: these were the distinctiveness and utility of the B.A. in history at UD.
 

By distinctiveness, we mean to underscore the unique nature and contribution of the historian's craft. While we believe that a historian's education must be firmly grounded in the liberal arts, the reality is that scholars in the various disciplines approach knowledge in different ways and ask different questions. It serves no purpose to ignore this fact, even in the age of integrated curricular study. Historians, for example, will approach a problem differently than, say, a philosopher or a theologian. We see this difference as a strength in our common pursuit of knowledge and wisdom. Indeed, by attacking problems and issues from the standpoints of the different disciplines, we create a synergy that makes our integrated Gen Ed program at UD so effective. Equally important, a special emphasis on the distinctiveness of the historian's craft helps our history majors--for they come to know not only the dramatic events and developments of the past, but learn to apply to the past the special problem solving skills that are inherent in the professional historian's manner of thinking. Ultimately, such skills are transferable to the present, and our majors are able to articulate to prospective employers the special skills that they as trained historians could bring to a job. By utility, we aim to help our majors realize that the B.A. in history from UD has many professional applications after graduation. This utility, of course, is not new. Alumni surveys have been telling us for years that the vast majority of our graduates had gone on to exciting and fulfilling careers. Nevertheless, we felt that more could be done to help our majors plan strategically for the future and to articulate their special skills to prospective employers. The fast paced and transformational economic conditions of the 1990s made acquisition of these efforts all the more pressing.
 

With these two leading concepts in mind, the revision process concentrated on three initiatives:
 

1. To increase the amount of advanced historical study in the major with an emphasis on developing advanced skills in historical methodology and historiography. This translated into a reorganization of HST 301, which constitutes the gateway to advanced study for our majors. The course name was changed from Research Seminar to Research Methods Seminar; earlier enrollment (as early as second semester sophomore year) was emphasized, and new ways were explored to better introduce to our majors professional skills and attitudes, as well as to the mysteries of historiography. In emphasizing the importance of advance skills, we have also increased the senior seminar requirement from one seminar to two, and have mandated the systematic treatment of the concepts of historical thinking such as methodology and historiography in all upper-level history courses. A less intense focus on these concepts is also required in all 100 and 200 level history courses.
 

2. In a new era of globalism, the skills and insights of a distinctive B.A. in history must be applicable to historical development in all regions of the planet. Therefore, we now require that in addition to a fair balance between United States and European history electives, majors must take at least one upper-level elective in Asian, African, Latin American or Middle Eastern history. To broaden this important area of study, new 300 level courses in the history of the developing world are being added to the curriculum.
 

Department of History

University of Dayton

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Dayton, Ohio 45469-1540
 
 

3. Our majors should be aware of the utility of their B.A in history and of the vast career opportunities open to them. To this end the department has further expanded its internship program on local, regional, and national levels. An annual Internship fair where students meet with local and regional leaders in public history was begun in 1996. Moreover, according to the new curricular guidelines, students who are interested in a public history career track may substitute an internship for one of their two required senior seminars. Finally, a new course, HST 300: Career Development in History, offers majors the opportunity to systematically explore career options and to formulate effective strategies for a job search.
 

As a capstone to these efforts, and to ensure that our program continues to serve the interests our majors, the department has introduced a rigorous, annual assessment program that evaluates the effectiveness of the above initiatives according to 21 separate measures.