Student News
Our students continue to be extremely active in many different ways. The Society of History Scholars meets regularly and organizes various activities from afternoon teas to movies to trips. Our chapter of Phi Alpha Theta is developing a national reputation and students continue to be active participants at the regional meetings. Many of our students were very actively involved in the November election, which saw Indiana as a closely contested swing-state for the first time in many years. In March they were privileged to meet and then listen to former Congressman Lee Hamilton, one of the wisest heads of the past thirty years in Washington DC; his superb lecture was both sobering and fascinating.
The Thomas Fiddick Memorial Lecture has become a major event not just in the life of the department, but of the city of Evansville. We have had large audiences at all of the lectures, and we are very excited to see that program continue to grow through the hard work and generosity of Tom’s family as well as his countless friends and admirers. In October 2008 the lecturer was Dr Kevin Whelan, who gave a marvelous presentation on modern Ireland and some of the challenges that will be faced there as that country confronts the 21st century.
Undergraduate research is always going on, and in 2008 Dana Caldemeyer was funded to attend the National Conference for Undergraduate Research [NCUR] in San Diego; in 2009 Jessica Shewan will also be going to NCUR albeit to the less romantic surroundings of La Crosse, Wisconsin. Our Senior Seminar course [History 490] has gradually become a bigger and bigger part of the experience here, and the night of presentations has now become two nights! We have had some really memorable evenings in the last few years, and the Class of 2009 certainly lived up to the expectations with two evenings of truly remarkable presentations.
What ties some of this together is the exciting news that, through the generosity of the family, friends and former students of Professor Jaebker, we can announce that this year we will begin to award the annual Orville Jaebker Memorial Prize in History to the senior who in the judgment of the department produces the best Senior Thesis. It will be great to be able to reward some very hard-working students while at the same time perpetuating the memory of a very modest gentleman who always put his students first. Along with the Fiddick Lecture it in many ways the perfect symbol of the interconnectedness of this department’s Past, Present and Future.
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