40 Hours for the Forty Acres Spring 2023

Who We Are

In 2021 the US News & World Report recognized UT History in several areas. The department rankings overall have improved and is currently tied for the 11^th best graduate program. It is still #1 in the field of Latin America and has entered new rankings at 10^th in African American History and 16^th in Modern American History. These rankings represent one benchmark for recognizing our excellence. With a large, diverse, and productive faculty of sixty, the department teaches thousands of UT students every year and boasts colleagues who have won major book prizes, prestigious post-doctoral fellowships, and lifetime achievement awards in their fields of specialty. Our majors go out in the world to pursue many different careers, jobs that require good writing, analytical, and critical-thinking skills.

What We’re Fundraising For

The department is sponsoring three initiatives—funding for undergraduate research, for graduate student stipends, and for faculty support. We recently revised our major to emphasize undergraduate research. Now all students are required to take a course called “Thinking Like a Historian” to learn about the historian’s craft—how to analyze a monograph, how to document with footnotes and read a primary source critically. In the capstone course, seniors learn how to navigate the archives and practice history. In addition, our History Honors students are engaged in major, year-long research projects that often require them to visit the archives. In some cases, these projects take them out of Austin, and we would like to be able to pay the travel expenses of all who qualify for funding. Last year our undergraduate students launched a new journal, Past in Process and we would like to support this bold new initiative that offers our students valuable publishing experience. Likewise, our graduate students often travel to archives outside the United States; these research trips can be costly and time-consuming. To ease the financial burden on students, we would like to enhance the summer fellowships to support their research efforts and strengthen our recruiting efforts. Our goal is to attract the very best applicants in the country. And finally, we need to support faculty who want to travel to conferences and to archives. By providing grants that offset the costs of books, travel, and meeting registration, we provide the necessary support for our outstanding faculty.

Your Impact

RUTH FOLMAR, Class of 2020.
Honors Thesis: The Revolutionary Classroom in Nasserist Egypt, 1952-1967.
 
“As a history student in my junior year, I wanted to be given the space and direction to perform the work of a historian – absorb secondary literature, look into primary resources, and craft my own historical argument. The history honors program gave me the chance to do all that and more! The research process, guided by my advising professor, taught me about effective historical writing and the reward of producing such a long-term project. If you are curious about history and interested to produce an original piece of work, I would highly encourage you to apply to history honors.”

JOSUE TENIENTE, Class of 2019.
Honors Thesis: No Human is Illegal: The Evolution of Immigration Advocacy in the U.S.
 
“After a few months in law school, I can safely say that writing an honors thesis definitely prepared me for both the rigor and skill needed to study the law. Researching is critical to the legal profession, so in many ways, my thesis was a warm up for the kind of work I wanted to do. While the content and work may be different, the underlying skill of research, pulling a thread and unraveling a complex subject into cogent and understandable material, is crucial to what I want to do with my career. Ultimately, without the preparation I received from an honors thesis, law school would have been much more difficult, but thanks to the tireless work of the department, my advisor, and especially Dr. Spellberg, this skill is one I've begun to master.”

DASHIELL DANIELS, Class of 2016.
Honors Thesis: Newcastle is Peru: Church, Coin, and Coal in 16th -Century England.
 
“The History Honors program gave me the opportunity to dive deep into a subject, conduct extensive research on it, and craft a narrative argument on past events. I'm currently finishing my graduate program at the LBJ School of Public Affairs, and the experience from the Honors program put me ahead of the curve on using evidence to provide recommendations to decision makers: one of the most important parts of working in public policy. In the future, I plan on working in local government. The Honors program pushed me in this direction by demonstrating that HOW one goes about using evidence to make an argument is as important as the evidence itself.”