History NewsWe would like to announce that we are in the early stages of planning an “Historic Homecoming” for all History Alums to coincide with the tenth annual Fiddick Lecture, in Fall 2011. We hope that lecture to be from a really spectacular figure, and we sincerely hope that as many of you as possible will make arrangements to come to Evansville for that weekend. We will keep you updated on this, but wanted you all to have it at least at the backs of your minds – 2011 will be here sooner than we think! Talking of spectacular figures, one of our own alums, Dr Roger Beck of Eastern Illinois University [the second Fiddick Lecturer], has won that institution’s Distinguished Faculty Award. In typically modest fashion, Beck’s response was, "I couldn't believe it, I was really shocked. I was really speechless for about five minutes." Despite his modesty, it is a well-deserved honor; Anita Shelton, chair of the EIU history department, said Beck is a “masterful teacher” who earns consistent high marks from his students. “No matter how busy he is with other activities, his students come first. However, his great talents and experience have been put to use extensively outside of his own classroom as well, both on campus and beyond.” We are very proud of Roger, and send him our warmest congratulations. This year the Department played host to two major conferences on campus. The first was the 45th annual meeting of the Midwest Medieval History Conference. The 2 day conference featured 16 papers in graduate student and professional sessions and drew about 50 attendees. Special credit for this must go to Annette Parks; Annette worked tirelessly for months to make this happen, and was delighted to see the conference end so successfully – indeed was delighted just to see it end! The second conference was the regional Phi Alpha Theta conference, held here in March. Twenty papers were presented in five panels, and it was extremely well attended, not least by UE history students who came out in large numbers to support their colleagues, six of whom presented excellent papers. The conference was extremely well-organized, credit for which must go to two of our colleagues – Dan Byrne and Annette Parks – and two of our students – senior Josh Cain and junior Jay Carroll. These four worked very hard over many months to make the dream a reality. We hope to travel in large numbers to next year’s conference, hosted by Indiana State. |
