History
Students
Contact UsHistory
Address:
404 Wayne Hall
West Chester, PA 19382
Phone: 610-436-2201
Fax: 610-436-3069
Carole Marciano
Departmental Secretary
Office: Wayne 404
Phone: 610-436-2201
Fax: 610-436-3069
CMarciano@wcupa.edu
Dr. Wayne Hanley
Departmental Chairperson
Office: Wayne 406
Phone: 610-436-2201
Fax: 610-436-3069
WHanley@wcupa.edu
Dr. Karin Gedge
Social Studies Coordinator
Office: Wayne 416
Phone: 610-436-2971
KGedge@wcupa.edu
Brenda Gaydosh
Acting Graduate Coordinator
Office: Wayne 421
Phone: 610-436-0734
BGaydosh@wcupa.edu
Jonathan Friedman
Director, Holocaust-Genocide Studies
Office: Main 409
Phone: 610-436-2972
JFriedman@wcupa.edu
Students
History students do much more than memorize obscure historical facts: our department is home to well-rounded individuals who apply themselves inside and outside the classroom, creating opportunities to engage with the past and the present. Meet some of our students and hear about their adventures in history. See our Undergraduate Handbook to explore what it means to be a History major at WCU. And get involved!
History Club
History Club has planned trips to Eastern State Penitentiary's Terror Behind the Walls and to Washington DC, and is sponsoring a Fall 2015 trip Pennhurst Haunted Asylum. Stay tuned for more events!
Follow History Club on Instagram and Follow History Club on Orgsync.
Phi Alpha Theta
Phi Alpha Theta (ΦΑΘ) is an American honor society for undergraduate and graduate students and professors of history. A professional society, Phi Alpha Theta promotes the study of history by encouraging excellence in research, teaching, publication and exchange among historians. It fosters a sense of community while assisting in the research, teaching and publication of its members.
The Nu Sigma chapter of Phi Alpha Theta’s mission is to encourage scholastic excellence while fostering a sense of community among West Chester University's history faculty and students, past and present.
On April 9, 2016, West Chester University will host the regional conference of Phi Alpha Theta. For details, visit the conference website.
Chapter advisors are faculty members Dr. Steve Gimber and Dr. Robert J. Kodosky.
Learn more about Phi Theta on Facebook.Student Projects
Sara Hasted
In Summer 2015, senior Sara Hasted was selected, along with 8 other students from around the country to participate in the Chipstone Foundation Object Lab in Milwaukee, WI. Hasted reports, "it was a wonderful experience working with the other students and having various viewpoints on the exercises really made us question objects and material culture on a much deeper level. The mentors and scholars who we worked along side really challenged us, and helped hone in our abilities to understand an object."
Students present at Phi Alpha Theta National Conference in Orlando
In January 2016, Professor Robert Kodosky and four undergraduate students attended the Phi Alpha Theta Bienniel Convention held in Orlando, Florida. Undergraduate history majors Patrick Hughes, Aaron Lockard, Heather Williams, and Tom Petrozzo won a departmental paper competition to recieve a free trip to the conference, where each presented their scholarship. The department's Drayer endowment provided funds for this opportunity.
Students present at the Historical Society of Pennsylvania
MA graduate Amanda Tuttle and current student Kelly McGwire presented “The End of Archival Adventures in Small Repositories,” at Historical Society of Pennsylvania’s Hidden Collective Initiatives for Small Archival Repositories wrap up event, April 20, 2016.
Melanie Pezdirtz and John Smith Present with Professors at OHMAR
2016 graduate John Smith III and current student Melanie Pezdirtz joined professors Janneken Smucker and Charles Hardy along with outside partner Doug Boyd, director of the Louie B. Nunn Center for Oral History at the University of Kentucky Libraries for a roundtable presentation, "Goin’ North: Technology Experiments in the Oral History Classroom," at the Oral History in the Mid-Atlantic Region conference, April 14, 2016, hosted by the Hagley Museum & Library. They shared their experiences working on Goin' North: Stories from the First Great Migration to Philadelphia, a classroom digital history project.
Three 2016 Grads accepted to Temple University's Public History MA Program
WCU has long produced outstanding students, many of whom lead careers in secondary education. This year, we have a bumper crop of students graduating who hope to pursue careers in Public History. Three of our graduates--Kaitlyn Sheeran, John Smith III, and Derek Duquette--were accepted into Temple University's premier MA program in Public History.
Suzanne Irvin
Graduate student Suzanne Irvin has curated a physical exhibit at the Virginia War Memorial dedicated to the 50 Patrol Craft Fast (PCF) sailors killed during the Vietnam War. The exhibit consists of pictures of the men, a model Swift Boat, and a mahogany wood monument etched with the names of the fallen and a short description of the boats' length, speed, number of crew members and armament. The heart of the exhibit is the Swift Boats Sailors Memorial Digital Repository, featuring a collection of primary sources from the swift boat sailors themselves. The Swift Boats Sailors Memorial website created by Irvin, contains 11 Virtual exhibits, 15 personal collections, over 2000 photos, and over 60 minutes of film.
SRCA Awards
Undergraduates Derek Duquette, John Smith III, and Kristen Waltz, and graduate student Kristin Geiger received the 2015 Student Research and Creativity Awards for their work on Goin' North: Stories from the First Great Migration to Philadelphia. The students were part of Janneken Smucker and Charles Hardy's "Digital Storytelling and the Great Migration to Philadelphia," in Fall 2014, a combined course teaming WCU graduate students enrolled in Prof. Smucker's graduate seminar in digital history with undergraduate Honors College students and history majors enrolled in Prof. Hardy's special topics course.