My paternal grandmother, Theresa, came to the United States as a teenager from Ireland, settled in the Boston area and married an American-born man of Irish descent. Together they raised their children in the Boston suburbs. She was "famous" in her neighborhood for being the mother of eight sons and undoubtedly received minimal recognition for the countless hours of chores she undertook daily to keep the household afloat through the Great Depression and World War II.    I think a lot about my grandmothers during the month of March as public attention turns briefly to women’s history. My maternal grandmother, Marion, wanted to be an artist, a profession that made no sense to working-class people hoping to marry their daughter to a man who could provide her a comfortable home. She painted as a hobby and I keep one of her works on a shelf as a reminder of not only her love for me as her first granddaughter, but also the opportunities that her generation of women were denied.   As a professor of US women’s history I see the value of all students learning about the many roles women have undertaken in the United States since our earliest colonial days. I worry, however, that students often see Women’s History Month as a time to acknowledge famous women while giving little thought to the quiet contributions made by women on a daily basis. A student once innocently commented that women “did the busywork” in colonial America: the domestic work, in other words. While their comment caused an uproar amongst students – particularly those who were shouldering household responsibilities while attending school – it provided a foundation for a conversation about reality versus perception.   A student publication at my college recently described famed anarchist Emma Goldman as “a strong woman.” I asked my students what made her “strong”: was she physically stronger than other women or was she “outspoken”? Perhaps, in the coded language sometimes used to criticize and condescend, “strong” meant she was “difficult.” Or it meant that she was politically-active in a time when women were not viewed as political agents. Would a woman who worked in a factory or as a domestic servant in early 20th-century America have been described as strong? Or did working-class women's daily grind pale in comparison to Goldman’s because their work was not political?   Women’s History Month is a fantastic time to have these conversations with students. Rather than focusing on the famous, ask your students to think about the lives of women through our national history. What kinds of challenges have they faced and how have they met with adversity? Such conversations provide an opportunity to help students to see how their personal experiences fit into the historical narrative. In other words, a woman does not have to be Oprah Winfrey or Rosa Parks or Margaret Sanger to have made significant contributions to her family, community, and the larger world. In fact, as I argued to my students, it’s the daily experiences of women that truly make the greatest marks on the time in which we live. If we can encourage this current generation of students to recognize the contributions of everyday women, then perhaps the accomplishments of the famous will become less remarkable and more commonplace. ... View more

Recently two of my classes began research projects. In one, a survey-level US History, I assigned each student a topic randomly. In the other, a 200-level US Women’s History course, I allowed the students to choose a topic of their own interest. For added context: US History I students are studying artwork from the 18th and 19th centuries. I gave each student an image to research and place in historical context using library resources. Students in US Women’s History were allowed to choose any women’s history related topic from 20th-century America – the caveat being that they could not do a traditional biography. A student who wanted to write about Oprah Winfrey, for example, had to narrow down their focus to a period of significance in her life.   My rationale for the varying approaches to choosing research topics stemmed in part from the different levels of courses. In my general US survey classes I have found that when students are allowed to choose their own topic they immediately move towards one they researched in high school. After I randomly distributed the images, for example, two students asked if they could instead study an image they were already familiar with from a previous class. I explained that one of the goals of the project is to study something unfamiliar. Allowing the students to choose an image that they had previously studied would, in my opinion, open up avenues for students to reuse materials from other classes and to fall back upon analysis that they conducted at an earlier point in their academic career. No one in the class, for example, is assigned Paul Revere’s famous engraving of the Boston Massacre because many students in New England study this image in depth during high school.   Allowing students to choose their own topics, however, comes with its own challenges. In my US Women’s History class students were assigned the task of identifying two possible topics for their semester-long research project. Admittedly, it was disappointing how quickly many simply submitted names of famous women as possible topics. I had hoped that the first few weeks of course material had opened students up to thinking more deeply about possible topics. I realized, therefore, that if I want the students to engage in something more than a traditional narrative biography I would have to help them to think more broadly about their choices. The students submitted their two ideas through the journaling tool in our course learning management system, which allowed me to then engage in some back and forth conversation with each student about their potential topic. Ultimately, with a lot of questions and answers, and some suggestions about starting the research and then circling back, each student chose a topic with which they were (seemingly) content.   So, here’s my question to the Macmillan Community: which approach do you find more productive? Have you had positive or negative experiences when assigning research topics? Do you have one method that works well in your classes? Please share in the comments below!    Looking forward to hearing about faculty experiences and sharing my observations from this semester's research projects in the next blog!  ... View more

Creating an environment in which students will ask for help is a critical component of a productive classroom: a space from which each student can gather positive lessons to carry as they continue their academic journey.    On the first day of spring semester I posed this question to my US History survey students: “What prevents you from asking for help when a class is not going well?” Without hesitation students offered the following: laziness, embarrassment, and fear of being “a burden.”    Leading a classroom of learners provides us the opportunity to model what to do if things are not going well. Here are some of the practices I’ve adopted:   Acknowledge that students will likely need help At our first class meeting I tell my students that I recognize that the majority of them will not be history majors. In fact, most students at the community college where I teach will only take one course in my discipline. As a result it is important for them to know that I do not expect them to be experts. We talk on the first day about some of the challenges they have had previously when studying history either in high school or in an unsuccessful attempt to complete their college history credits. Allowing the students to collectively address their anxiety on the first day of class opens up an avenue for a conversation about help.   Provide specific instructions about how to get help Most colleges and universities have a tutoring center. Before the semester starts I schedule a visit to each of my in-person classes during the first two weeks from an academic support coach. I allot 15 minutes at the end of a class meeting for her to outline the kinds of help available and to show the students exactly how to schedule meetings. Each student leaves class that day with her contact information in hand. Some even schedule meetings with her immediately after class that day. Ask your students if they are aware of the campus tutoring center they will probably acknowledge its existence but express a reluctance to go there on their own. Bringing a representative into the classroom provides them with a direct connection and an endorsement from their professor that the help available at the center has been proven to work in that course.    Encourage students to share their experiences Oftentimes after a student takes advantage of tutoring or other kinds of academic extra help they will share their experiences with me privately. In those conversations I encourage them to tell their friends and classmates about their positive interactions with academic support. Earlier this year I told a class about my own son’s experiences with academic support at the college he attends. Later that day a student emailed me to thank me for the share. He said he had been wrestling with embarrassment over asking for a tutor and after listening to my anecdote about my son’s experiences he realized he was expending more energy by not asking for help.    Finally, after that first visit by the academic support coach at the start of the semester, I continue to regularly remind the students that help is available in my weekly announcements and with emails/links through our class portal. In other words, I don’t expect them to remember how to get help, especially in the middle of the semester when they are feeling overwhelmed. In my experience, this little bit of academic hand-holding can go a long way in alleviating student stress and ultimately make the classroom environment more enjoyable for everyone who enters!  ... View more

Last year at this time I blogged about my observations of 2023 from my vantage point of a community college history classroom. At the top of my concerns for 2023 were student mental health and a general feeling that my students were disconnected from their peers, which I unscientifically speculated was fallout from the COVID years. A full year has passed and I’m again reflecting on what I observed over the past twelve  months. Here are some of my thoughts:   On one hand, the social disconnect prevalent amongst students that widened in the COVID years is becoming less noticeable in my classes.   The adjustments I made within my classroom to forge social connections at the start of 2023 appear to be catching on. At the conclusion of each semester this calendar year I felt as though many students ended my courses having interacted with several of their classmates. For some students my goal of increasing their in-class-interaction was limited to group work, while others seemed to create genuine bonds of friendship with their classmates that were evident as they came to class each day. In addition, I was particularly encouraged to hear that some students had enrolled in my sections of introductory courses because they knew they would be interactive.    While on the other hand, getting students to participate in campus-wide events remains a huge challenge.    Our campus has so many great events planned each year to engage students in areas outside of academics. Convincing students to attend such events solely for the purpose of expanding their understanding of the world around them remains incredibly challenging. Case in point: our college hosted two successful artists at separate events to showcase their work and talk about their career paths. It would not be an exaggeration to say that I had to beg and bribe students to attend (extra credit anyone?). The same held true for events related to academic success – in-person attendance at information sessions about majors and career paths, for example, were of little interest to students. “Can’t I get this information online?” was the common retort when I started my event-attendance sales pitch. Ultimately, those students who did attend on-campus events not directly related to class content almost unanimously reported positive experiences … getting them into those non-classroom spaces, however, was not easy.   History education is more important than ever before.    The 2024 election cycle proved, once again, that Americans need to be more informed about our national history. The proliferation of online news sources and social media channels have increased the spread of both information and misinformation. Our students need the tools to make informed, educated decisions based on what they read and see, coupled with a solid foundation in historical knowledge. There is no academic space better equipped to prepare them to be informed citizens than their history/civics classes. As we think about content coverage we also need to reflect on what lessons are particularly meaningful to the current times, which feel particularly unstable politically for many students.    One of the most important facets of teaching that was reaffirmed for me this year was that students need to feel comfortable asking questions. Even in the most difficult of political times when our nation is intensely divided ideologically, students must be able to pursue the study of history without fear.    Happy New Year! Looking forward to more collaborative conversations in 2025! ... View more

A shout out this week to peer tutors!   Last spring I was part of a pilot embedded peer tutor program at my college. My seven-week intensive US History II section had a student tutor employed by the college, chosen by me, at each class meeting. The tutor would participate in group activities, be present for lecture, and available for one on one appointments with students at the college’s Tutoring Center. In contrast to previous semesters when I often found students reluctant to seek help at the Tutoring Center, their willingness to work with our embedded tutor was far more positive.    This fall I’ve welcomed another fabulous peer tutor into my classroom. Here are some strategies I’ve adopted to help the students connect with our tutor:   Introductions  I’ve blogged before about my love of table tents (folded index cards with a student’s preferred name and pronouns). On the first day of class I bring markers, cards, and stickers. After going over the course syllabus and answering questions, I use the remaining class time for my tutor to introduce herself before we make our table tents as a group. This exercise allows the students to have a relaxed first interaction with both myself and the tutor. We have light conversation as we create our tents, the goal being to create a comfortable classroom environment from day one.   Encourage Engagement When I introduce the embedded tutor I ask her to say a few words about the courses she has taken with me, her experience as a student at our college, and her goals for the future. I want the students to recognize their own lives in her experiences. In past semesters students have been surprised to arrive at the Tutoring Center and find that they would be working with a student, which is less intimidating for some than the idea of one-on-one time with their professor. Having an embedded tutor takes away the feeling of uncertainty students may have before their first visit to the Tutoring Center: they know who they are meeting with and that first meeting feeling of apprehension is alleviated by their classroom interaction. At each meeting throughout the semester I include our class tutor in my pre-class announcements. I remind the students of her availability and give them the opportunity to ask her scheduling questions before we get started.    Ask for Feedback I meet with my peer tutor at least once a week.  She provides me with valuable feedback from her experiences working with my students, much of which is general – for example, if there is a common thread to the questions that students are asking at tutoring sessions I know that I need to review material that might not have made sense to students the first time through. Often, the kinds of questions students have for the tutor are specific to her previous experience in my classes. My peer tutor has successfully completed two introductory-level research papers under my instruction. She has the experience to answer students’ questions and to help them with drafts in a way that I’ve found even more effective than our college writing tutors. If my tutor tells a student that their research project needs the help of a librarian they take her advice!    Have you had a positive experience with peer tutoring? Please share!  ... View more

The 2024 Presidential Election will undoubtedly be debated and analyzed by political scientists and historians for the foreseeable future. In the days immediately following November 5th when students asked me for my thoughts on the election results I resorted to humor: it hadn’t been long enough for me to comment on the election results. As a historian I will need at least twenty to thirty years to mull it over, examine the sources, and draw conclusions. And while I do believe that it will be decades until historians have a better understanding of how the election played out, the truth is that I did not want to engage in conversation with my students about the election results so close to the end of a volatile campaign.   Remaining neutral and unbiased when discussing difficult topics is a constant challenge in history education. I’ve addressed this topic in previous blogs and have encouraged faculty to keep the focus on civil discourse, which many public observers argue has significantly decreased in 21st-century presidential campaigns. As historians the presentation of information through evidence in the form of primary and secondary sources are critical to our field’s credibility and our ability to connect today’s students to the challenging lessons of our national past. But what if things are happening so fast that we don’t have time to be reflective? In other words, what do we do when we, the educator, feel overwhelmed by current events?    Election-related issues have inevitably leaked into our class discussions, especially as nominations for cabinet positions headline many news outlets. I’ve found that the best way to incorporate discussion of current events is to suggest that students do their own deep dives into issues of interest using the skills they are developing in class. Speculation about mass deportations of foreign-born workers, for example, leads to questions about historical immigration policies, detainment, and the use of the US military in World War II-era internment of Japanese-Americans. Discussions of rights for LGBTQ+ people opens avenues for discussion of the historical origins of civil rights. My advice to students is to engage in the research themselves so that they can develop their own educated opinions: in other words, rather than doom-scrolling, use the same library resources we are utilizing for our in-class research projects to examine the issues of personal concern.   As educators we have to constantly remind ourselves that our students come from a myriad of socio-economic backgrounds. We will never be in a classroom in which every student shares our political beliefs and it’s not our role to convince them that our perspective is the “right” one. The best we can do is to offer them the limitless tools of education: critical thinking, research, and reading skills so that they can continuously question the information that they are bombarded by each day and look for sources that provide them with the kind of evidence we use in history classes. Remind them that they have the ability to be knowledgeable voters rather than passive bystanders.    How are you talking with students about the 2024 Presidential Election? Please share!  ... View more

A short video to introduce/reintroduce myself to the Macmillan Community. I would love to hear from readers about topics of interests. What would you like to discuss with fellow historians and teachers? Respond here by commenting on this blog or email me: suzannekmccormack@gmail.com   Click here! https://youtu.be/VasAgXcpICw?si=SKt7joeVbp5W-5wl     ... View more

How is everyone feeling as we approach the Presidential Election? Are your students talking about the candidates or the information that is flooding their social media feeds?   My students have been noticeably quiet over the last few weeks. I think many of us are in a state of pre-election fatigue: overwhelmed by information, inundated with requests for donations, tiring of campaign advertisements. No doubt for some of my students there is a growing sense of concern for the election's outcome. Teaching at a Hispanic Serving Institution provides me with the opportunity to regularly interact with students whose familial origins stem from all parts of Latin America and the Caribbean. The increasingly anti-immigrant rhetoric that has been a hallmark of this election cycle is undoubtedly contributing to a sense of fear and uncertainty in the minds of some of my students.    This week I'm offering students a safe environment to express their pre-election concerns. I've tried to make our history classroom a space for open conversation, even about uncomfortable topics. As we enter these final days of the 2024 campaign I hope my students will offer their insights about the current state of political affairs so that I -- a Gen X'er -- can have a better understanding of how today's generation of college students are responding to the never-ending political rhetoric. I'm hopeful that our conversations about historical context are helping the students to better understand events as they unfold around them.    And, finally, a call for conversation -- I'm particularly interested in hearing from history teachers about how/if they will address the Trump Madison Square Garden rally in class this week. Thoughts? Share here in the comments or email me at suzannekmccormack@gmail.com ... View more

Following the Harris/Trump presidential debate on September 10th I hoped to chat with my students about what they saw, heard and felt after listening to the candidates. Few, unfortunately, had actually watched the debate. What was more common was for students to share what they had learned about the debate from social media. The conversation was therefore about what other people posted about the debate. And consequently, our “discussion” was a sharing of which snippets of the debate were trending as memes.   By now we recognize that social media has a huge impact on our lives as educators and human beings. As a historian I’m a bit nostalgic for the days when everyone watched the debate to learn about the candidates. I can’t help but wonder if the televised presidential debate format that was so consequential in previous decades is no longer relevant for Gen Z. For the current generation of college students it’s as if the “debate” is happening hourly on their social media feeds. From listening to my students’ views, I have to wonder if that barrage of information and mis-information may, in fact, lend to their feelings of apathy toward the political process. Is this trend reversible? Not likely.   More obvious is that my students are paying attention to celebrity endorsements. Female students specifically pointed to the Taylor Swift endorsement of Kamala Harris as an interesting development in the days following the debate. One student was able to give us exact figures on how many people had registered to vote within 24 hours of Swift’s Instagram post. And while it is sometimes difficult to know how students really feel when discussing political topics with classmates, the fact that several brought up the Swift endorsement leads me to believe that it caught their attention in a way that endorsements from well-known Republican politicians simply did not.   As we approach the October 1st debate between the candidates for vice president, how can we best prepare our students to be critical observers? And, what about voting? Are faculty talking about it with students? Do you feel comfortable encouraging students to vote? Or is the topic off-limits? With just six weeks until the general election, what’s happening in your classroom? Please share! Comment here or email me at suzannekmccormack@gmail.com ... View more

In “Facing My Fears of AI” (June 2024) I blogged about my desire to find ways to integrate artificial intelligence (AI) into my classroom assignments in a way that will enable students to learn to use new technological innovations, while also respecting academic integrity. While still a work-in-progress, I plan to share the ups and downs of my experiences as they develop.   In my summer courses I assigned research projects that required the use of library-based databases and materials. Knowing that students are increasingly likely to use AI, even when discouraged or even prohibited, my assignment instructions included the following statement: “Students should submit their own original work and cite all sources using MLA format. While use of AI is discouraged, any use of artificial intelligence should be cited as a source.”     We discussed as a class what it meant to submit original work and the importance of using each assignment in our introductory-level history course as a stepping stone to the challenges that will come later in their college careers. The vast majority of students followed my instructions and submitted work that was consistent with that of typical first-year students at my college. Several students came to me for help or consulted our college librarian outside of class for additional assistance.    Unfortunately, 10% of the students submitted work that was AI-generated and none of those submissions cited any AI-tool as a source per my instructions. I ran all student submissions through an AI and plagiarism detector and in each case it was determined that the work was 90% or more AI-written.    I reached out to each of the students to discuss the use of unattributed material as an academic integrity issue. Approximately half of the students did not respond to my email and accepted a zero for the assignment with no discussion. The other half denied any use of AI. When confronted with a detailed report from the detection tool, however, they changed their stories. They admitted to having used AI tools such as Grammarly and Brainly, they said, but not software that “created content.”    I learned a valuable, if not confusing, lesson from this experience: my students see a marked difference between tools such as Grammarly and Brainly, versus Chat GPT and the like. And so here is my quandary: is there harm in allowing the use of grammar-checking AI versus content-producing? Or, do they both create a product that is not the student’s original work?    My initial feeling was that grammar-checking tools can be helpful in “cleaning up” student work. In speaking with students, however, I realized that in a 3-4 page short essay they were accepting, without much thought, upwards of 30-40 suggested changes by Grammarly or Brainly. In other words: they were changing their entire paper based on suggestions from the AI tool.   As such, I’ve realized that either my instructions are going to need to be more specific or I need to re-evaluate my comfort level with grammar-corrective AI.    Some faculty reading this blog might ask: “I use Grammarly … why can’t my students?” This question is certainly valid. The difference for me, however, is that many of my students struggle with grammar. A tool that corrects their errors without requiring them to understand the fundamentals behind the mistakes is, in my view, unlikely to progress their writing skills.   I’d love to hear from others in the Macmillan Community about AI policies: how are yours evolving with new technology and new challenges? Please share.   ... View more

Last week I participated in the "Back to School with Achieve" webinar to learn about new tools available for students and faculty through Achieve as well as share my experience using the Achieve "Goal Setting & Reflection Surveys." The webinar, linked above, includes suggestions about how to start the semester off strong by gauging students' concerns about their academic performance, particularly the challenges they anticipate as they start a new semester. Learning more about the students through the Achieve surveys can help faculty to better plan for student support throughout the semester.  Please watch the webinar and share questions/thoughts/concerns for the new academic year here in Macmillan Community!  ... View more

No matter who wins the Presidential Election in November, there is no doubt the events of July 2024 will be discussed and debated by historians and political pundits for decades to come. If the 2024 election ended tomorrow it would already be memorable.    I started writing this blog shortly after the assassination attempt on former President Donald Trump took place on July 13th. In the two weeks since the horrific events in Butler, Pennsylvania, we have witnessed a sitting president drop out of the presidential race and the emergence of the vice president, a woman of color, as the presumptive nominee for the Democratic Party. Threads of sexism and racism have, predictably,  begun to infect the political discourse.   My reluctance to entertain any discussion of current events has only increased since 2016 and is firmly rooted in both the divisive nature of politics in the US today and social media’s role in worsening that divide. In the classroom political discussions can be civil, or they can devolve into anger and frustration that can carry over week to week as the students continue to meet in the classroom.    As future historians study the 2020 and 2024 presidential elections they will comb through volumes of video and print materials evidencing an unprecedented level of hate speech. When a Republican congressman called VP Kamala Harris a “DEI hire” earlier this week it appeared that the calls for a softening of rhetoric that followed the assassination attempt have been forgotten in favor of racially-charged politically divisive speech.    Barring total avoidance of conversation, how do we counter the chaos of the 2024 election in our classrooms? Here are three (simple) guiding principles to use in the next three months until Election Day.    Keep Discussion Brief – Taking 5 to 10 minutes at the start or end of class to discuss students’ observations of the political rhetoric can lead to greater understanding. Planning a start and end to the discussion is also helpful. I preface all political discussions with a simple: “let’s share observations rather than expressing personal viewpoints.” I ask the students what they’ve noticed: what is the rhetoric, what kinds of sources are they consulting, are they watching/listening to the news or has it become background in their daily lives as part of their social media feeds?    Explore Concepts and Ideas – Ask students if they understand the political conversations that are happening on television news, in print sources, and/or social media. As familiar as college faculty and administrators are with the acronym “DEI,” for example, many students do not know what the acronym stands for. When politicians use it as a slur the terminology only becomes more confusing. It’s up to us as teachers and historians to create an atmosphere in which students feel comfortable asking questions without being made to feel intellectually inferior or out of touch with current events.   Encourage Continuing Dialogue – Follow up with students at subsequent classes to provide an opportunity to offer new reflections that may have been percolating but were not expressed. This strategy is especially helpful for students who require more time to digest class discussion. Offering students the opportunity to submit questions about current events anonymously before class can also be a useful way to engage those who don’t feel comfortable speaking up in class.   As much as I would love to avoid all in-class political conversation for the next three months, it’s an impossible pursuit. My goal, instead, is to create a model for civil dialogue in the classroom that students can take with them into the rest of their daily experiences.   Suggestions? Please share!  ... View more

This week I'm sharing a presentation by Professor Erika Martinez about using artificial intelligence (AI) in the economic classroom, which has practical applications for history classes as well.   Recently I blogged about my need to come to terms with concerns about AI (see “Facing My Fears about AI”). Previously my worries about academic dishonesty have guided nearly all of my decision-making about AI. Professor Martinez’s presentation at Macmillan's TechEd has helped me to open my thinking to some new angles of consideration.   Tell me what you think!  AI for Educators_ Practical AI Applications (macmillanlearning.com) ... View more

It’s time to confront my fear of student use of artificial intelligence (AI). I realized this reality the first week of June while attending Macmillan’s 2024 TechEd where I heard from fellow Peer Advocates about their experiences bringing AI into the college classroom.   I have been admittedly reluctant to allow any student use of AI for the obvious reason: cheating. At the same time, I’ve avoided a zero-tolerance policy by reasoning that if students are going to use AI I want them to know how to properly cite it. My approach to AI has been to create assignments that require so many variants that AI use is exceedingly complicated and therefore, I reason, less attractive to students. As a result I’ve had only one case (that I’m sure of) in the last year where a student used AI instead of submitting their own original work.    Listening to my Peer Advocate colleagues at TechEd, however, made me question whether my approach has been short-sighted. If, for example, I am trying to help my students to be work-force ready, am I doing them a disservice by not allowing them some use of AI so that in an academic environment we can grapple with questions about appropriate and ethical uses? The history classroom, after all, is one of the best academic spaces in which to talk about sources. Do I need to start looking at AI as simply one more media source for consideration?    Part of my struggle with the use of AI in student writing has been my concern that a large percentage of my students do not have a strong grasp on basic grammar and writing skills. This reality is painfully obvious to me at the start of each semester when I ask students to introduce themselves in our class discussion board. Asking the students to write about themselves not only provides me information such as preferred pronouns, majors, and career goals, but also a sample of their skill level in regards to writing. I’ve had several students come across as articulate in class only to present significant academic deficits in their writing assignments. These no-stakes introductions alert me to students who require extra support for their writing assignments during the semester.    So what comes next? I have two plans for the summer to help move me from a place of fear and loathing of AI to one in which I better understand the role that the new technology may have in higher education.   First, along with more than 100 faculty at my college I will be participating in a summer read of Teaching with AI: A Practical Guide to a New Era of Human Learning (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2024). My college’s Center for Teaching Excellence supplied copies of the book at no charge to faculty interested in engaging in discussion of AI-related education during the 2024-25 academic year and I’m excited to hear my colleagues’ perspectives on the ideas presented by the authors when we return to campus in the fall.   Second, I plan to develop one low stakes AI-based assignment for my upper-level history students who undertake research projects during the semester. What that project will look like remains to be seen. Suggestions welcome! Drop a comment below or email me at: suzannekmccormack@gmail.com ... View more

My father passed away on May 1st. This blog will, therefore, be a bit indulgent as I want to share some stories about the most influential historian in my life.    My dad, Thomas Kelley, grew up just outside of Boston, Massachusetts, in a large Irish-Catholic family. His parents raised eight sons, all of whom served as altar boys at some point in their young lives. He studied history at Boston College in the early 1960s. I keep his History of Civilization textbooks in my office at home. Even before he passed away, I enjoyed thumbing through the texts and reading his hand-written notes in the margins – tiny windows into his life as a college student.   My dad enlisted in the Air Force upon graduation in 1966 – a choice that would keep him out of the draft and off the frontlines of combat but not immune to the long-term devastation of the war in Vietnam. As an air weapons controller he was unknowingly exposed to Agent Orange. Many, many years after his military deployments ended, the physical consequences of that service appeared, as it has for many Vietnam War-era veterans, in the form of Parkinson’s Disease, which he fought for the final twenty years of his life.    When I was a child my Dad taught history at a high school and continued to serve part-time in the military, which brought us as a family to Washington, DC, in the summers. We spent countless hours at the museums of the Smithsonian Institute and my favorite quickly became the National Museum of American History. I can’t remember any of the exhibits, just a general sense of enjoyment in learning the stories the museum shared with us, and listening to my Dad explain the historical events that were foreign to me as an elementary school student.   It wasn’t until I was in graduate school that I began to understand the role my Dad had played in the war in Vietnam and the impact the experience had on his life. Going through old boxes in the basement one weekend my Dad showed me a remnant of his time overseas – a small booklet he used for keeping track of his pay while stationed in Thailand. The year was 1970 and at the back of the book, in tiny letters, my Dad – then 26 years old – had written “Richard Nixon is a liar.” He shared with me that his unit conducted secret air operations over Laos, a neighboring nation of Vietnam that President Nixon swore was not being brought into the conflict. The short sentence, he said, was a reminder of the disconnect between his military orders and the president’s words – and a way to maintain some semblance of reality for himself through the difficult experience.   Two weeks after my Dad passed away we started summer session at my college. It was the first time in my career that I did not talk to my Dad before classes started about what I am teaching. That realization hit me hard as I entered the building on a gorgeous New England spring morning in May.    My Dad and I did not always agree on politics or our interpretations of historical events, but we always had lively conversations that pushed me to sharpen my arguments. When I started to teach I relied on his decades of secondary classroom experiences to help me find effective ways to deal with the challenges I faced. And, most importantly, I learned from my father that in a truly successful classroom the personal connection between the students and their teacher – including feelings of affirmation and belonging that can be cemented as academic content is transferred from teacher to student – are more significant and long-lasting than even the knowledge being taught. For this lesson, and many many others, I’m grateful.    ... View more