About Us

Why study history? Because the study of the past sheds light on the present.

History presents facts while allowing students to develop their own interpretations. Together, UVM history students and faculty discover and interpret the past by asking questions and conducting research.

Faculty in the history department are experts in their unique areas of study as well as talented teacher-mentors. We guide our students in their quest for research and writing skills as well as the development of critical thought. These critical thinking skills subsequently prepare you for any field. 

Guiding Principles in the Study of History

The Department of History strives:

  1. To expose our students to the diversity of the past and the diversity of methodological perspectives by offering courses that cover a wide range of topics and approaches.
  2. To encourage our students to understand history in a global context and to understand the interconnectedness of the world.
  3. To immerse our students in the close reading of secondary and primary sources (textual, visual, or material) and to help them acquire an understanding of how to use historical evidence.
  4. To encourage our students to acquire high-level and sophisticated historical-thinking skills that include, among others, periodization, contextualization, and causality.
  5. To teach our students how to conduct in-depth research and produce well-crafted and well-organized prose and well-articulated oral arguments. When appropriate, we also encourage students to think about how historical knowledge might be disseminated digitally or through other means.

In addition to the guiding principles outlined above, the Department of History, in offering graduate education at the M.A. level, strives:

  1. To assist our M.A. students in acquiring sophisticated methodological and historical knowledge.
  2. To encourage our M.A. students to master fields of knowledge and grasp the intricacies of historiographical traditions and intellectual debates within the discipline.
  3. To enable our M.A. students to produce essays and theses that display their ability to conduct innovative and original research.

Student Assessment
Body

Our students acquire mastery not only of content but also of historical methodology. Students are expected to research and write well in our program and, to achieve this goal, faculty routinely assign a range of innovative assignments that are thoroughly assessed. Faculty members provide substantive comments on papers and routinely work with students on research methodologies and rough drafts. Faculty explicitly outline course objectives in their syllabi so that students are aware of what will be expected of them and what they may hope to achieve in any given class.

To ensure that students are making substantial progress and meeting departmental learning objectives at the undergraduate level, they are also assessed in several other ways:

  1. The department conducts a survey of students as they complete HST 2050 (History Methods).
  2. Faculty members assess students as they complete their 2000-level seminar by filling out a survey on the student’s use of primary and secondary evidence, analytical and argumentation skills, citation methods, and writing effectiveness.
  3. An electronic survey of graduating majors is sent out every year asking students to assess what they have learned, their grasp of historical thinking skills, their ability to do sophisticated work in the discipline, their career goals, and how the history major has prepared them for the future.
  4. The department will inaugurate an alumni survey (to be conducted every five years) asking about graduate training, employment history, and those aspects of their undergraduate education that have been most and least valuable in their education or employment after graduation.

Graduate students in the M.A. program in history, in addition to being assessed in some of the ways highlighted above, are also expected to achieve a level of proficiency in the discipline that is tested in the following ways:

  1. Students are expected to take methodological/historiographical courses that enable them to understand the discipline at a level consistent with expectations for individuals working toward a master’s degree.
  2. Students are required to take comprehensive examinations that test both their mastery of specific content as well as historiography and historical methodologies.
  3. Students pursuing a thesis are required to submit a proposal that gets fully vetted.
  4. All graduate students (whether pursuing the thesis, extended research essay, or portfolio option) are required to undergo a formal defense.
  5. In 2019, the department will inaugurate an alumni survey (to be conducted every five years) asking about further graduate training, employment history, and those aspects of their graduate education that have been most and least valuable in their education or employment after graduation.