As the government shutdown continues, more college students will face economic hardships. Educating our students on how to advocate for themselves is a critical life skill. Sometimes the help they need is academic and other times it’s socio-economic. Helping the students to see their professors as a resource is critical to their overall success in college and can link them to valuable resources during difficult economic times. Here are some ways that you can be helpful to your students without a lot of heavy lifting.   Know where to go at your institution for assistance. My college, for example, has a Benefits Hub – a web page with resources for everything from employment assistance, to housing and food insecurity, to health insurance guidance. I keep the page bookmarked so that I can quickly send the link to students should they ask for guidance. Sharing the link in a general email to students can also be useful at midsemester as many learn about the resources when they first enroll but forget about their availability when they are in crisis.    Invite the students to ask for help. Every few weeks I remind the students about my office hours by listing the many topics they might wish to discuss with me – academic work and career planning, but also any issues that might be impacting their school work. I point out to them that the college has resources that I can help them connect with and that they are not alone in the process of navigating college or daily life. My invitations generally result in students asking for academic support but a handful of times each semester I will have a student come to office hours to ask me for help with another class. Creating that safe space for dialogue with students can be enormously beneficial. I once had a student who lost her scientific calculator midway through the semester. Without the resources to purchase a replacement she had missed the previous two assignments in her math class. What she didn’t know until she visited my office hours was that our college library lends such technology to students: problem solved.   Use the Achieve Goal Setting and Reflection Surveys to check in. An easy way to get students to reflect on how their semester is progressing is to activate an Achieve survey. I use the surveys as extra credit, which generally makes the students happy and ensures that I get lots of responses. I curate them to include questions specific to each class. Next week, for example, I will deploy a Reflection Survey to assess students’ experience completing library-based research for our class project. Including a question about their overall sense of wellness enables students to express concerns that they might not bring up at class but that are impacting their school work (transportation or food issues, for example) and provides an opportunity for faculty to connect students with relevant resources in a non-intimidating way.    Additional ideas? Please share! ... View more

Fall semester is flying by! In the mad rush of midterm exams I’ve found a momentary escape from the stressors by reading fiction. I’ve never been a member of an actual book club so this week’s blog serves as an invitation to my virtual club here in the Macmillan History Community! Here’s what I’m reading lately: I came across Tony Morrison’s masterpiece The Bluest Eye (1970) while wandering a bookstore with my son, a college senior and aspiring writer. The store had a display of “banned books” and we spent some time discussing which we had read, and speculating about why each may have been banned. I determined in that moment that the next several books I read will be “banned” titles with the hope that I can expand my perspective of why book bans (still) exist in 21st-century America. What is it, for example, that leads a person/organization to believe that no one should have access to a book? Or that reading the book will endanger or injure a person in some irreparable way? And what can I learn about the current state of our society by considering those texts that some people don’t want other people to read? I’m an historian, which means my perspective of Morrison's The Bluest Eye – simply stated, the story of a traumatized black child who desires blue eyes – is influenced more by my understanding of the time period in which the book was written than the literary merits. In the foreword to the 2007 Vintage edition Morrison wrote that she “focused…on how something as grotesque as the demonization of an entire race could take root inside the most delicate member of society: a child; the most vulnerable member: a female. In trying to dramatize the devastation that even causal racial contempt can cause, I chose a unique situation, not a representative one.” (Morrison, xi) Morrison’s story, in a sense, imagines the worst possible outcomes of addiction and poverty in a community where there is no respite from pain and heartache. After reading The Bluest Eye I was compelled to revisit Ann Petry’s The Street (1946) in which the main character, Lutie, feels relentlessly oppressed by unwelcome reactions to her attractive physical appearance – first by the racist white community in which she works as a domestic servant and later by the creepy building superintendent whose glances repeatedly unnerve her. I first read The Street with students in a women’s history class in the early 2000s. Revisiting the book now after completing The Bluest Eye has made the story even more meaningful considering how similar the economic crises that Lutie faced in Petry’s story are to the families portrayed in Morrison’s novel, which takes place thirty years later.  While the time periods, writing styles, and focus of Morrison’s and Petry’s stories are quite different, each puts the black female experience at the center of a narrative that makes the reader undeniably uncomfortable. From my perspective, censorship of these women’s stories indicates an inclination by external powers (school boards, for example) to somehow “protect” the reader from the characters, rather than an impulse to address systemic social and economic problems that result in the same horrible consequences.  My brain continues to spin in with thoughts about the two books. Suggestions for my next read? Share comments below!  ... View more

Lately it feels as though every article or news story I see about higher education is highlighting a negative: budget cuts, contentious debates about academic freedom/free speech, and arguments about the perceived value of a college education. This year is my nineteenth at a community college and my twenty-fifth as a college professor. While there is no shortage of issues to worry about my goal for this week is to accentuate the positive. Here are three bright spots from my first month of the school year:  1. Enrollment in Latin American History doubled at my college this semester! Two years ago I agreed to add the course to my load when the college was designated an Hispanic Serving Institution (HSI). This fall we filled two sections of the course. It hasn’t been easy to reacquaint myself with material that I had not studied since graduate school but now two years into the challenge it is thrilling to see more students taking advantage of the opportunity to learn about this critically important area of the world. Many of my students are first-generation Americans, which makes teaching the class even more rewarding. 2. More students than ever before are taking advantage of peer-tutoring! Once again this semester I am fortunate to have an embedded tutor in my 7-week intensive courses. Students this semester seem more willing than in previous semesters to both ask for and accept help. My peer-tutor reports to me that on a weekly basis she is seeing a higher number of students this semester than in the previous two. Given that my attendance has remained steady since the start of my current 7-week intensive I am sensing a correlation (hard numbers to follow at semester’s end) between increased visits to the Tutoring Center and potential positive student outcomes. 3. Two students thanked me for requiring them to participate in class! When we are in small groups in my US survey classes each person is expected to be engaged in the conversation and prepared to answer for the group if called on (in other words, no “spokesperson”). Last week as one of my classes reluctantly formed groups of 4-5 students I gave them a mom-style lecture (no other way to describe it) about organizing themselves so they could see, hear, and interact with all group members. They had to start by introducing themselves. There was a lot of groaning … a lot.  As the class period went on, however, the room grew louder. By the time we needed to come back together as a class the students were actually talking to each other – not just about the nonimportation movement of the 1760s but random things such as which math professor they have. As they were leaving two students individually approached me to say they were glad that they had been forced to interact with their classmates. One even asked if we could do another group activity the next week. In this era of digital/virtual/online the students’ expressed enjoyment felt like a huge win for human interaction! So I’m taking these three personal victories with me on the journey through the next two and one-half months of school. I’m using the positive to, as much as possible, block out the negative noise all around me. How about you? What’s giving you reasons to smile this semester? Please share!  ... View more

It’s always a good time to refresh the course curriculum. This fall I’m learning as much as I can about the 1893 Chicago World’s Fair (aka, Columbian Exposition) with the plan of incorporating discussion of the events of that year to my spring sections of US History since 1877.   The motivation to incorporate Chicago 1893 into the course curriculum came in part from my recent reading of Erik Larson’s best-selling 2003 work The Devil in the White City (Vintage). Although the book has been out for quite some time I was not exposed to the stories that Larson expertly wove through the narrative until summer 2024 when I visited Chicago. I’d never heard the city called anything but “windy” and the book’s subtitle Murder, Magic, and Madness at the Fair That Changed America caught my attention as someone who is interested in the concept of madness in American history.    Time Magazine’s Ruth Nelson opines that contemporary America could perhaps benefit from a World’s Fair. “Once again in 2024,” Nelson writes,  US society is deeply fractured and many Americans fear for the future thanks to growing geopolitical conflicts, polarization, climate change, the rising specter of authoritarianism, and the proliferation of AI. An epic world’s fair – an event that, historically, has provided visitors with a glimpse of a glorious future – could offer an antidote, or at least a balm, for this cultural storm. (Time Magazine, 13 September 2024)   What was it about these fairs that, as Nelson argues, “boosted morale” in the worst of economic and political times? In a survey-level US history class students could use the Chicago 1893 Fair as a framework for analyzing the challenges facing the country in the late 19th century and then consider the ways in which the Fair’s exhibits offered distraction from those daily stressors.     If you haven’t read Larson’s book it is an excellent starting point for gathering content about how the city secured the rights to host the Fair as well as the political wrangling that took place amongst planners, architects, landscape artists, unions, business owners, and politicians to build out the fairgrounds. In addition I’m using The World’s Columbian Exposition by Norman Bolotin and Christine Laing (National Trust for Historic Preservation, 1992) to gather facts, figures, and illustrations of the Fair. Several web sites have digitized images from the Fair. See, for example, The Atlantic’s “Photos of the 1893 Chicago World’s Fair” for a spectacular image of the Ferris Wheel as well as the crowds that gathered in Chicago throughout that year. Still looking for more resources so suggestions are welcome!   Do you have a topic that you have recently added to a history class or are considering adding? If so, let’s brainstorm!  ... View more

Every educator – no matter the age of their students – should revisit their first day plan before the start of each new school year as it sets the tone for the entire semester. Our students change, our disciplines change and, even if returning to the classroom in September feels like putting on a comfy cardigan, we should approach the start of the semester as a time ripe with new potential and opportunity. Here are some tips for a smooth start to the semester:   Syllabus  Before you even meet your students, you need to refresh the syllabus -- and I don't mean simply changing due dates! It is especially important to check in with your department chair or administrative support staff to ensure that any new requirements set forth by your college or changes in federal law are addressed in your syllabus. ADA accessibility for documents like course syllabi is one area that has changed with updated software. Also, check for outdated web links. My college, for example, moved the web host for student requests to borrow a laptop for the semester. A test-run through the syllabus’s hyperlinks can catch such problems before they cause confusion for students.    Office Hours If possible, post your current office hours before the first week of classes. At my college students schedule appointments through Starfish (a student/faculty support software) and we are expected to physically post our office hours as well. Students are understandably frustrated when they arrive at a faculty member’s office only to find hours listed for the previous semester or a “to be announced” sign. Do your best to post the information in an obvious location and keep it up to date. I include my email address on the office hours information sheet with a note about contacting me outside of regularly scheduled hours.   Respond to Emails Some students will email faculty with questions before the semester starts. I’ve found the best way to handle common questions with relatively little work on my part is to have an autoreply set for the two weeks before school starts with a general message that includes: Date that online course materials will be available Bookstore information A note about requests for “early” access to course materials (Sorry, no!)  Date that office hours begin Think about First Day Introduction Give some thought to what you want students to know about yourself and your discipline. Even at Year 25 of teaching college students I still get super nervous before my first class meetings. A single card of bulleted notes helps to keep me on track and to make sure I provide the same details to each group of students through those busy first meetings.   Finally, engaging students in an informal conversation about how studying history will help them in any academic/career path on the first day is also a great way to underscore the importance of our field. Check out Patryk J. Babiracki’s recent piece in The Chronicle of Higher Education, “A Plan to Rebuild History’s Brand” (12 August 2025) for some timely suggestions.   I would love to hear from historians and other teaching faculty: what topics are on your mind for the 2025-26 school year? Please share!  ... View more

Warning: blog is admittedly self-indulgent     This summer I had the opportunity to travel to the Netherlands, Belgium, and France. It has been 26 years since I last went to Europe. That same year, 1999, I was introduced to the writing of British novelist Pat Barker, winner of the Booker Prize, as a teaching assistant in a Western Civilization II class. It was Barker’s Regeneration that first introduced me to the horrors of the First World War and trench warfare. As a US History major I learned all about industrial mobilization, war bonds, and sedition acts. I studied the labor movement and the quota system that began to police our nation’s immigration process during the interwar years. Like most history majors, I understood a slice of the world in great detail and the rest in broad sweeping themes.    Each year since 1999 I have reread Barker’s Regeneration Trilogy. The titular first book in the series is a fictional account of soldiers’ 1917 and 1918 experiences at Edinburgh’s Craiglockhart Military Hospital based in part on the personal papers of Dr. WHR Rivers. Barker’s characters reference the horrors of war-time experience by simply identifying the town in which they were injured. The volume of injured, dead, and missing British soldiers from battles in French and Belgian towns meant that no further contextualization was needed. The names – Mons, the Somme, Reims – had deep meaning for Barker’s characters.   In my visit to western Europe this summer, therefore, I chose to spend a day – July 4th coincidentally – experiencing how Belgians commemorate World War I by visiting Ypres (Ieper), a city in the Flanders region of Belgium. For this week’s blog, I’ll share some of my observations and images from that experience.    As we walked towards the town center we were greeted by a metal sculpture depicting children offering thanks to soldiers (Figure One), which foreshadowed the themes of the day ahead. Arriving in the city center on foot we were immediately struck by the beauty and scope of the Menin Gate, a tribute to the more than fifty-thousand British and Commonwealth soldiers missing from the Battle of Ypres. (Figure Two) A visit to the In Flanders Field Museum documented the physical artifacts of the war in the region – the military history (uniforms, weapons, equipment) while writings about the war are interspersed among videos revealing the experiences of nurses and doctors. Pre and post-war images of Market Square and Cloth Hall, the location of the museum, provide visitors with evidence of the breathtaking scale of work required to reconstruct Ypres when the war ended.    Physical remains of the fighting that took place in Ypres can be explored at a number of locations around the city. For example, just 5k from town visitors can walk through an area of trenches discovered in an excavation during the 1990s (Figures Three and Four). For me, the boulder-lined trenches were the most vivid record of what had happened in Ypres more than a century ago. Walking along the trenches gave me chills – thinking about the lives lost in that location was overwhelming: a stark reminder of the physical space in which the war took place and the inconceivable loss that resulted. The visit to these trenches was a fitting end to my day.   I plan to share my experience in Ypres with my students this fall and hope to elicit discussion about the way in which we in the United States remember wars. For those like myself who teach in New England there are markers indicating battles from King Philip’s War and the American Revolution, and a couple well-known battlefields on which commemorative events are held. The centuries that separate our contemporary society from those long-ago conflicts, however, definitely holds them at a distance in our daily lives. I couldn’t help but wonder while exploring Ypres if students in the Flanders region of Belgium think more about the consequences of war because of the daily reminders they see in their communities.    Thoughts? Similar experiences? Recommendations of places to visit in the future? Please share.     Images by author   Image One Image Two Image Three Image Four                         ... View more

In May I attended the annual meeting for the American Association for History of Medicine (AAHM) in Boston, Massachusetts. As a graduate student my research placed me solidly within the field of US foreign policy and I vividly remember my first Society for Historians of American Foreign Relations (SHAFR) meeting at Princeton University in 1999 where I had the great honor of meeting George Herring, the renowned Vietnam War-era historian. Many years later my interests began to shift. Since 2015 I’ve been spending whatever research time I have studying health care for women in the late 19th/early 20th centuries.    The AAHM was my first professional conference in this field and I’m just beginning to learn more about the work that historians and scholars are doing in this area. I feel as though a whole new world has opened to me academically – one I’m excited to share with my students and the Macmillan Community. In upcoming blogs I will include discussion of some of the fantastic works-in-progress that I was exposed to, starting this week with the work of the Hogg Foundation for Mental Health at the University of Texas at Austin.   I was introduced to the Hogg Foundation’s work at a roundtable titled “HIPAA, Privacy, and Accessing Historical Medical Records” where Elizabeth Stauber invited participation in the Foundation’s “Dialogues on Mental Health Records” project, which seeks to bring together a wide range of historians, archivists, genealogists, psychiatrists, social workers, and former patients of mental health institutions. According to the project’s website, the goals include to “discuss what types of historical public mental health records should be preserved, how they should be shared, who should have access, and many other questions.” (Hogg Foundation)   Last week I participated in an online discussion with 30+ historians and scholars hosted by the Foundation. We shared the challenges we have faced in gaining access to historical medical records across the United States and talked about what kinds of changes we would like to see in the states where we are currently doing research. We were encouraged to review the Hogg Foundation’s “landscape analysis” on the challenges of historical research in the area of mental health, State School and Hospital Preservation: A Survey of the Field and to consider ways in which we can influence research and access to materials in our communities through our scholarship and teaching.    The Hogg Foundation will host more upcoming virtual opportunities for scholars to connect. For more information click here to subscribe to their mailings and join the conversation! ... View more

On April 26th I had the honor of being a judge at Rhode Island History Day, a regional qualifying event for National History Day, which seeks to engage students in grades 6-12 in history education through research, presentations and performances. The program’s website defines their mission as “Studying the past to inform the present and shape the future.”    After twenty-five years of teaching college students, the exposure to middle and high school-level historical research was nothing short of invigorating. In addition to experiencing the vibrant energy of younger students, History Day was a reminder to me that a good chunk of the motivation to learn for young people comes from the contagious enthusiasm of teachers. Every student I spoke with identified a specific teacher from their school whose excitement about studying history had motivated them to undertake historical research. The experience was a reminder of the importance of my own enthusiasm in the classroom, but also the need to foster that energy amongst today’s college students – not necessarily to create a room full of history majors but to encourage engagement with history outside of the confines of course requirements.    Rhode Island History Day participants studied everything from civil rights activism amongst black Americans and LGBTQ+ groups to the alliance system in the era of the World Wars. Some of the projects focused on local issues specific to RI cities and towns, while others examined the better-known histories of Roger Williams and Anne Hutchinson in the state. Nearly every student I spoke to completed the research in addition to classroom assignments. In other words, they were motivated by their teachers to do historical research on their own time as an extracurricular activity.    The future of National History Day will no doubt be impacted by cuts to federal grants to the National Endowment for the Humanities. If you’re interested in being part of your state/region’s activities, please visit Find Your Local Affiliate - National History Day to identify the non-profit organization that works with students in your community. Get involved as a judge, an organizer, or a mentor. Participation is one small way that we as history faculty can provide support for those in K-12 who are working hard to educate the students who will populate our college classrooms in the future! ... View more

Students in my introductory-level US History since 1877 class are currently engaged in research projects based on randomly assigned photographs from the period 1890 to 1970. Images range from Japanese “picture brides,” to actors James Dean and Clara Bow, to migrant workers in the era of the Dust Bowl. The topics that students are most excited about, however, are those of sports figures from the time period.   Biographical study of sports figures can be a fun way to engage early-career students in academic research. Since people’s lives have definitive start/end dates biographical study feels manageable to students from the project’s onset. Once they have identified the time period in which the subject lived they can align the person’s life with historical events, forging an understanding of historical context and significance. A student studying Satchel Paige (1906-1982), for example, researches not only Paige’s personal story but also race relations and the history of professional baseball.   Here is a list of sports-related topics from my current students’ projects. No doubt there are many more possibilities -- and lots of famous athletes not on this list. Suggestions of great sports/history research topics for first-year students? Please share below:   Roberto Clemente Althea Gibson Jack Johnson Satchel Paige Wilma Rudolph Marshall “Major” Taylor  Jim Thorpe Carlisle Indian School basketball team ... View more

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