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Other Regional Archives & Resources

Cement placement, Grand Coulee Dam. Courtesy of WSU Libraries, MASC.
Cement placement, Grand Coulee Dam. Courtesy of WSU Libraries, MASC. Learn more about this image
Northern Pacific Railway map, 1896. Courtesy of WSU Libraries, MASC.
Northern Pacific Railway map, 1896. Courtesy of WSU Libraries, MASC. Learn more about this image

Greater Columbia Plateau Initiative


The Greater Columbia Plateau Initiative

The Columbia Plateau is a significant geologic, geographic, and social region encompassing large portions of eastern Washington, eastern Oregon, and Idaho. One of its defining features, the Columbia River drainage system, further connects the region to southwestern Canada, Montana, Wyoming, Utah, and Nevada. Through its history, the Greater Columbia Plateau has experienced dramatic environmental, social, and cultural transformations.

The Department of History at Washington State University is sponsoring a multidisciplinary initiative that explores and promotes work on two fundamental issues in the history of the Columbia Plateau: the nature of human interactions and the relationship between humans and the environment.

Under human interactions we include migrations, the treatment of indigenous peoples, militarization, transnational relations, the struggle between labor and capital, and the politics of inclusion and exclusion.

Among the human–environmental relations we focus on are environmental degradation and rehabilitation, the perception and construction of (sometimes contending) cultural landscapes and senses of place, industrial agriculture, tourism, and water development.

Nez Perce. Courtesy of WSU Libraries, MASC.
Nez Perce. Courtesy of WSU Libraries, MASC. Learn more about this image

Washington State University’s Greater Columbia Plateau Initiative, directed by members of the Department of History, has as its goal the creation of an enduring, multidisciplinary, and collaborative learning community both inside and outside the university and dedicated to the study and interpretation of the Greater Columbia Plateau region.

With funding and support from WSU’s Berry Family CLA Faculty Excellence program, the Columbia Chair in the History of the American West endowment, the WSU Department of History’s Pettyjohn Fund, and WSU’s Manuscripts, Archives, and Special Collections (MASC), we begin our initiative with (1) a two-year hybrid seminar for graduate and undergraduate students that explores the history and the environment of the Greater Plateau, (2) the sponsorship of a two-year speaker series to run in conjunction with our seminar, and (3) the establishment of a multi-tiered digital archive that includes the processing of Columbia Plateau–related collections within MASC and the creation of a Web site that highlights these collections as well as the work that WSU faculty and students are doing and which is related to the Columbia Plateau.

Columbia Basin Irrigation Project, 1928. Courtesy of WSU Libraries, MASC.
Columbia Basin Irrigation Project, 1928. Courtesy of WSU Libraries, MASC. Learn more about this image

Grand Coulee Dam construction. Courtesy of WSU Libraries, MASC.
Grand Coulee Dam construction. Courtesy of WSU Libraries, MASC. Learn more about this image
Grand Coulee Dam construction. Courtesy of WSU Libraries, MASC.
Grand Coulee Dam construction. Courtesy of WSU Libraries, MASC. Learn more about this image

Past Programming


Dr. Thomas Fuchs and Christian Kulosa – “The Rebirth of East Germany since 1990”

September 26, 2018

Since the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 and the reunification of Germany that followed a year later, life in the former German Democratic Republic (East Germany) has undergone considerable upheaval. Economic integration with the former West Germany, environmental clean-up, and the alteration of historical memory are but a few of the many changes there. Some of these have also led to considerable social discontent across the provinces of the former East Germany. Such discontent has recently coalesced into the new populist, far-right political party “Alternative for Germany” (AFD), founded in 2013. Currently the third largest political party in Germany, the AFD holds 94 seats in the German national parliament. Students interested in opportunities to study abroad in Germany are especially encouraged to attend as Dr. Fuchs will also discuss study abroad opportunities at Otto-von-Guericke Universität Magdeburg and the Hochschule Magdeburg/ Stendal, both in the city of Magdeburg, which was once part of the former East Germany and dates to the year 805 A.D. Dr. Thomas Fuchs teaches English at the Hochschule Magdeburg/Stendal and is an alumnus of the German Academic Exchange Service (D.A.A.D.). His colleague, Christian Kulosa, is a member of the General German Cyclist Club that promotes green-transportation and environmental causes across German.

Professor Dee Garceau – ”Narrative and Counter -Narrative in Commemorative Performance: Native American Powwow Dancing and African-American Stepping”

March 27, 2018

Historian and filmmaker Dee Garceau discussed and presented clips from her two documentaries “We Sing” and “Stepping: Beyond the Line,” exploring powwow dances and songs of Blackfeet and Salish people in Montana, an intertribal drum in Idaho Falls, and African-American stepping, a percussive dance invented in the twentieth century by black fraternities and sororities. Both African-American and Native American dances and songs commemorate historic identities in ways that differ from conventional historical narratives about each group. In the process, they broaden audience perceptions about their cultures in the American West. In discussing her work, Prof. Garceau also looks introspectively, commenting on the challenges of her role as a white filmmaker who examines cultures to which she is an outsider.

Professor Darren Dochuk – ”Crude Awakenings: A Sacred History of Oil in the Early 20th Century American West”

 

 September 20, 2017

Oil has long inspired Americans to think about their future in sacred terms. Extracted from the earth in mysterious ways, often with the help of spiritualists, oil was at its origins imagined as the divinely sanctioned lifeblood of a modernizing nation. America’s powerbrokers and rank-and-file both ascribed a special status to this resource, and in turn used its wealth to construct and legitimate imposing corporate and church institutions, missionary organizations, and an expansive petro-state. This lecture explores how religion and oil together shaped existence for modern Americans, paying special attention to oil patches west of the Mississippi, 1890s-1940s, when, amid petroleum’s most violent boom-bust cycles, wildcatters and residents theologized their encounter with soil and its subsurface wealth and constructed a distinctive life geared to new logics of capitalism, technology, time, energy, environment, and political power.

Co-Sponsor Casey Cater – ”Public Dams, Private Power: The Fight for Clarks Hill, 1946-1957”

April 5, 2016

In the decade following the end of World War II, public and private forces collided over plans to construct a massive federal dam on the Snake River at Hells Canyon. The battle sparked national debates about nature, energy, economic development, and political power, as private interests successfully “unplugged” the New Deal in the US Northwest and ushered in an energy regime of private dams and public power. At the same time, Southerners too engaged in battles over whether the private or public sector should control their rivers. Clarks Hill dam on the Savannah River assumed a central position in regional and national questions about the fate of the New Deal. Casey Cater offers a comparative regional analysis for WSU’s Northwest audience. Despite important similarities between the Northwest and South, Cater argues that what Southerners got at Clarks Hill was the reverse of the outcome at Hells Canyon: public dams but private power. Private utilities “unplugged” the New Deal in the South, but plugged its machinery of hydropower into its increasingly coal-based network, reaffirming a Southern political economy based on state-sanctioned, federally subsidized private monopoly over nature.

Western History Association’s 55th Annual Conference

October 21-24, 2015

October 21-24, 2015, the Columbia Chair in the History of the American West and the Washington State University Department of History were sponsors of the Western History Association’s 55th Annual Conference, “Thresholds, Walls, & Bridges,” in Portland, Oregon. The event was the largest annual meeting of historians of the American West; it boasted dozens of academic sessions, book displays from publishers of western history titles, five local history tours and parallel exhibits, as well as an opening reception at the Oregon Historical Society, and a banquet honoring recipients of several awards bestowed on western historians. Several faculty and graduate students from WSU’s Department of History gave papers, lead tours, chaired committees, and otherwise participated in the conference. Download the official conference program

Co-Sponsor, Visiting Writer Series

October 6, 2015

Tthe Columbia Chair in the History of the American West helped to sponsor the participation of Terry Tempest Williams and Brooke Williams in the Department of English’s Visiting Writer Series.

Professor Renée Laegreid – ”The Legacy of the American West in Contemporary Italy”

March 25, 2015

In popular culture, connections between the American West and Italy rarely extend beyond consideration of America’s western films that invaded Italy in the post-World War II period and the rise of the so-called Italian Spaghetti Westerns in the 1960s. Professor Laegreid’s research, however, expands and deepens our understanding of the reciprocal influences between the U.S. and Italy, focusing on the idea of the American frontier in Italy from the late nineteenth century to the early twenty-first century. Based on research for her current book project, Professor Laegreid will speak on three waves of western American influences on Italy, and how Italians have used western American mythology for their own personal, political, and financial purposes.

Prof. Laegreid is the author of Riding Pretty: Rodeo Royalty in the American West (2006), and co-editor of Women on the North American Plains (2011) and “Finding the American West in Twenty-First-Century Italy,” Western Historical Quarterly (Autumn 2014).

Professor Coll Thrush – ”Indigenous London: Native Travellers at the Heart of Empire”

 March 03, 2014

Urban and Indigenous histories have usually been treated as though they are mutually exclusive. Prof. Thrush’s work, however, has argued that the two kinds of history are in fact mutually constitutive. In this presentation, Prof. Thrush will present material from his current book project, a history of London framed through the experiences of Indigenous people who travelled there, willingly or otherwise, from territories that became the US, Canada, New Zealand, and Australia. Stories of Inuit captives in the 1570s, Cherokee delegations in the 1760s, Hawaiian royals in the 1820s, and more—as well as the memory of these travellers in present-day communities—show the ways in which London is the ground of Indigenous history and settler colonialism.

Prof. Thrush is the author of Native Seattle: Histories from the Crossing-Over Place (2007), which won the Washington State Book Award for History/Biography, and co-editor of Phantom Past, Indigenous Presence: Native Ghosts in North American History & Culture (2011).

Chairman Michael O. Finley – ”Contemporary Pathways in Indian Country”

February 01, 2012

Michael O. Finley, chairman of the Confederated Tribes of the Colville Reservation and co-author of Finding Chief Kamiakin: A Life and Legacy of a Northwest Patriot (Pullman: Washington State University Press, 2008), will be speaking on issues confronting Native Americans in the United States, in particular from the perspective of Native Americans whose ancestral homes are in eastern Washington state.

Professor Kathleen Brosnan – ”Old Vines, Global Wines: ”

November 09, 2011

Kathleen Brosnan is an environmental historian whose first book is Uniting Mountain and Plain: Cities, Law, and Environmental Change along the Front Range (2002). She will be speaking at WSU on her projected three-book series that deals with the history of the wine industry. The first projected book focuses on how industry and consumerism shaped the environment of the Napa Valley. The second examines European viticulture as a form of ecological imperialism around the world. The third investigates how U.S. land grant institutions’ roles in the development of food products, including wine, have shaped environments.

Professor Andrew Kirk – ”Doom Towns of the West”

September 21,  2011

Andy Kirk’s research and teaching focus on the intersections of cultural and environmental history in the modern U.S. with a special interest in the American West and public history. His recent publications include Counterculture Green: The Whole Earth Catalog and American Environmentalism (rev. ed., 2011) and “From Wilderness Prophets to Tool Freaks: Post WWII Environmentalism” in The Blackwell Companion to American Environmental History. His current work includes “The Art of Testing and the Culture of Secrecy at the Nevada Test Site.” His talk at WSU, “Doom Towns of the West,” concerns the nuclear industry and western places.

Professor Kate Brown – ”A Tale of Two Nuclear Cities,”

November 04, 2010

Kate Brown earned her Ph.D at the University of Washington. An expert in Russian and Eastern European history, Professor Brown’s publications have included Biography of No Place: From Ethnic Border to Soviet Heartland (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2005). It won the George Louis Beer Prize from the American Historical Society given in recognition of outstanding contributions to modern European international history. Her current project is “A Tale of Two Nuclear Cities,” which explores and compares the histories of Chernobyl in the former U.S.S.R. and Hanford in Washington state.

Professor Andrew H. Fisher

October 11, 2010

Andrew Fisher received his Ph.D. from Arizona State University. His research and teaching interests focus on modern Native American history, environmental history, and the American West. His recently completed book is Shadow Tribe: The Making of Columbia River Indian Identity (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2010). It examines off-reservation communities and processes of tribal ethnogenesis in the Columbia River Basin of the Pacific Northwest. You can find more on this important work at www.washington.edu/uwpress/search/books/FISSHA.html.

Heartsong of Charging Elk, Spring 2010

March 27, 2010  

World-renowned Seattle composer Wayne Horvitz presented his oratorio “Heartsong of Charging Elk” at Pullman.

Horvitz’s oratorio for four voices and ten chamber instruments is based on James Welch’s novel The Heartsong of Charging Elk (New York: Doubleday, 2000). Welch (1940–2003) was one of the best-known Native American writers of his time. Of Blackfeet and Gros Ventre ancestry, Welch studied writing under Richard Hugo at the University of Montana. His early works include Winter in the Blood (1974) and Fools Crow (1986).

Heartsong, which is inspired by actual historical events, tells the story of Oglala Sioux Charging Elk who, while touring with Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show, was hospitalized for broken ribs and influenza in 1889 Marseilles, France. The Wild West Show moved on, leaving Charging Elk, now recovered from his illness and injuries, stranded and speaking neither French nor English.

“Using that historical predicament for his springboard,” Horvitz has written, “James Welch conjures a poetic narrative of Charging Elk’s displaced existence following his abandonment in The Heartsong of Charging Elk.”

Wayne Horvitz is a native of New York and now resides in Seattle. He is an internationally known keyboardist, composer, and producer. Perhaps best known as a jazz musician, nevertheless, Horvitz works in many musical genres. He has had commissioning grants from Meet the Composer, the National Endowment for the Arts, the New York State Arts Council, the Mary Flagler Carey Trust, the Seattle Arts Commission, the Lila Wallace-Reader’s Digest Fund, the Fund for U.S. Artists, and a Rockefeller MAP grant. He has composed and produced music for PBS programming and even for film director Gus Van Sant.

In addition to this performance and Horvitz’s discussion of his music, the event will also bring to campus two speakers, Professors Kathryn Shanley and Raymond J. Demallie, who are experts on James Welch and on Black Elk, a real Sioux man who did travel with the Wild West Show and actually was stranded in France, eventually making his way to England and then back to his home on the Great Plains.

Professor Kathryn Shanley earned her Ph.D. in English and Native American literature at the University of Michigan. A member of the Assiniboine Tribe, Shanley is now a professor of Native American studies and assistant to the president and provost of the University of Montana. She has edited Native American Literature: Boundaries and Sovereignties (2001) and is working on a book on James Welch.

Professor Raymond J. Demaille is chancellor’s professor of anthropology and adjunct professor of folklore, director of the American Indian Studies Research Institute, and curator of North American ethnology at the Mathers Museum at Indiana University. Demaille has researched and written extensively on Great Plains tribes. In 2008 he annotated a new edition of John G. Neihardt’s famous Black Elk Speaks: Being the Life Story of a Holy Man of the Oglala Sioux, first published in 1932.

 

AWPN Faculty


AWPNW Faculty MemberE-mail
Robert Bauman rbauman@tricity.wsu.edu
Peter Boagboag@wsu.edu
Luz Maria Gordillogordillo@wsu.edu
Lawrence B. A. Hatterlawrence.hatter@wsu.edu
L Heidenreichlheidenr@wsu.edu
Robert McCoyrmccoy@wsu.edu
Laurie Mercierlmercier@wsu.edu
Jeffrey Sandersjcsanders@wsu.edu
Matthew A. Suttonsutton@wsu.edu
Jennifer Thigpenjthigpen@wsu.edu

Pullman Chinese family, c. 1897. Courtesy of WSU Libraries, MASC.
Pullman Chinese family, c. 1897. Courtesy of WSU Libraries, MASC. Learn more about this image
Palouse Falls, 1932. Courtesy of WSU Libraries, MASC.
Palouse Falls, 1932. Courtesy of WSU Libraries, MASC. Learn more about this image

American West, Pacific Northwest History & Borderlands


American West

Washington State University’s Department of History has long been recognized for its premiere graduate program in the American West—a region rich in cultural, social, and environmental diversity.

The number, quality, and range of our faculty who teach courses and who research and publish on the region are unparalleled in the Northern West. Over the years they have trained and mentored students who have gone on to earn faculty positions at institutions across the country and others who work as public historians at places ranging from the National Park Service to local historical societies and agencies.

The vitality of our program is further supported by faculty in allied departments and centers across our campuses, including in American studies, English, Ethnic Studies, Anthropology, and the Plateau Center for American Indian Studies.

Departmentally-sponsored seminars, field courses, and annual programs on the West, as well as our students’ participation in regional history conferences, not only enhance our students’ intellectual experiences, but further prepare them for a challenging and rapidly changing employment market.

Pacific Northwest

WSU’s Department of History is also home to the country’s most vital graduate program in Pacific Northwest history.

Several of our faculty focus their work specifically on this significant sub-region of the United States and Canada. Any number of our graduate students past and present have written dissertations on the region, dissertations that they have subsequently transformed into prize-winning articles and books.

The rich archival resources of WSU and the location of its several campuses, each with access to a multiplicity of federal, state, and local archives and historical societies, sustain the research of our faculty and students. Our programming, our students’ scholarly interests, and WSU’s library resources all serve to support the study of the Pacific Northwest in our department.

Borderlands

WSU’s Department of History also boasts a robust number of scholars working in Southwestern borderlands history and studies. Necessarily interdisciplinary in nature, borderlands studies has roots in various fields of scholarship. One of the earliest, the Bolton school, mapped conflict in the borderlands of the U.S. and Mexico from a Euro-centric perspective. Chicanx Studies, a field with ties to the liberation movements of the mid-twentieth century, provides other roots, for example in the work of Gloria Anzaldúa that emphasized borders as places of conflict and alienation, but also of survival and knowledge production. In the 21st century, borderlands studies has expanded to embrace multiple spaces as borderlands, where people, ideologies, and nations come into conflict and cooperation with each other, producing violence as well as unique and thriving cultures and histories.

 

 

Past Programming

The Greater Columbia Plateau Initiative

 

Admissions


Please note that MA and PhD applicants wishing to be considered for a teaching assistantship must submit applications prior to January 10. The application file must be complete by that time. Those simply wishing admission into our graduate program must submit their materials by March 1.

The department admits students separately to the MA and PhD programs. It is understood that some students may choose not to continue beyond the MA, and that others may not be permitted to do so. MA candidates who do not intend to continue on to the doctoral program may want to consider the department’s non-thesis option at the MA level. The aim of the thesis option at the MA level is to provide students with research training leading to degree candidacy in the doctoral program.

Applicants to the graduate program in history are expected to show high potential for engaging in advanced historical research and analysis. Applicants must meet general university requirements for admission to graduate standing and are advised to have completed an undergraduate major in history. The department strongly recommends that applicants to the MA program have a minimum of 12 upper-division credits of undergraduate history. Applicants to the PhD program must have at least 15 graduate credits in history. Both MA and PhD applicants are strongly urged to have at least 2 years of foreign language study or equivalent competence.

As of Fall 2020 the department of history has decided that GRE scores are no longer required for consideration of admission into the program. Students may submit scores if they have scores to submit. Applications with and without scores will be reviewed equally.

Applicants must submit the following to the Graduate School:

    • A copy of the Graduate School Application form.
    • Official transcripts from all universities attended.
    • Test of English as a Foreign Language (TOEFL) scores, if applicable.
    • Three (3) letters of recommendation addressing the applicant’s academic qualifications for graduate work in history.
    • A statement of purpose (see Writing Your Statement of Purpose).
    • A writing sample, preferably in the field of history.

To ensure prompt processing of your admissions application, please send an email to Claudia Mickas, Graduate Program Coordinator, at Claudia.Mickas@wsu.edu to tell her that you have submitted your application.

(Field of Study and Language Background forms can be submitted directly to the Department of History at Claudia.Mickas@wsu.edu)

Forms

Please see Guide to Fields of Study and Major Professors and fill out the following forms when applying to the graduate program in history. These must be included in your application packet.

Admission Requirements: Master of Arts in History

Applicants admitted to the Graduate School as either regular or provisional students may be admitted to the program for the master of arts in history if they meet the following qualifications:

  1. Application materials must be received by January 10 for those seeking eligibility for financial assistance. Materials must be received by March 1 for admission to commence the following academic year.
  2. A baccalaureate degree.
  3. A minimum undergraduate cumulative GPA of 3.3 in the applicant’s undergraduate major.
  4. A complete application file (see above).

Applicants to the MA program must be accepted by a major professor with whom they wish to work in their primary field of study. Please contact the appropriate faculty member before the application deadline (see Guide to Fields of Study and Major Professors).

Admission Requirements: Doctor of Philosophy in History

Applicants admitted to the Graduate School as regular students may be admitted to the Ph.D. program in history if they meet the following requirements:

  1. Application materials must be received by January 10 for those seeking eligibility for financial assistance. Materials must be received by March 1 for admission to commence the following academic year.
  2. Admission is contingent upon the completion of a master of arts degree by the beginning of the semester in which graduate studies begin. A master of arts degree in history is preferred. Applicants who hold a master’s degree in fields other than history and who have been admitted to the Graduate School as regular students must have completed at least 15 graduate credits in history.
  3. A minimum graduate GPA of 3.5.
  4. Evidence of competence in at least one (1) foreign language demonstrated either through the completion of at least 2 years of university course work, appropriate non-academic experience, or passage of a 2-hour examination in which the applicant will translate into smooth idiomatic English approximately 600 words (or the lexical equivalent) from a foreign language.
  5. A complete application file (see above).

Applicants to the Ph.D. program must be accepted by a major professor with whom they wish to work in their primary field of study. Please contact the appropriate faculty member before the application deadline (see Guide to Fields of Study and Major Professors).

PhD Admission Requirements for WSU Master’s Students

Students completing a master’s degree in history at WSU and requesting admission to the PhD program must meet the admission requirements for all applicants to the PhD program and must submit the following:

Students seeking eligibility for financial support must submit all materials by the January 10 deadline. Financial support as a teaching or research assistant will be determined on a competitive basis in conjunction with all students entering the graduate program.

It should be stressed that admission to the MA and PhD programs is competitive. Satisfying these minimum requirements does not, by itself, guarantee admission. At the same time, the decision to admit is based on consideration of the entire file, and promising applicants in unusual circumstances whose records fall below the minimum requirements should not be discouraged from applying.

Careers


What to expect from a history degree AFTER graduation

Click here to see “Careers For History Majors,” presented by the American Historical Association.

Click here to visit Candid Career’s Major Explorer to watch interviews from specialists offering insight on 17 different career opportunities for History Majors

To find out more about the attributes employers are seeking among recent college graduates, visit Job Outlook 2016: Attributes Employers Want to See on New College Graduates’ Resumes.

In addition to being a core major for a liberal arts degree, an undergraduate degree in history can lead to work as a teacher, historian, archivist, librarian, information specialist, writer, researcher, or work in government service.

With further study, you can go into college teaching, business, medicine, law, politics, or ministry. Double majors—combining history with one or more such fields—are easily accommodated.

The study of history is an excellent way to develop skills in critical reading and the ability to come to draw conclusions by analyzing and interpreting materials. These skills can serve as a foundation for success in a variety of disciplines.

For example, you can combine your program in history with selected classes in political science, English, speech, and business to prepare for law school. Students have also combined a pre-med program with a history major; in fact, the percentage of those with history majors admitted to medical schools has sometimes been higher than applicants with biology majors.

Because history is one of the best fields in which to receive a broad and liberal education, job opportunities for historians are not limited to teaching and writing history. Training in historical methodology fits persons for many types of historical and non-historical careers outside of teaching. Governmental service offers careers as historians, archivists, information specialists, immigration officers, and social security officials. The Interior and State Departments, Smithsonian Institution, Agriculture Department, Central Intelligence Agency, and the National Security Agency also fill positions with persons with historical training. Our students usually do well in the competitive examinations given by the United States Civil Service Commission and by the State Department.

WSU History Alumni Testimonials

See what WSU History alumni are doing with their degrees.

Mr. Bradley Richardson is the Executive Director of the Clark County Historical Museum in Vancouver, WA

Resources & Guidance

The American Historical Association wants you know that “History is Not a Useless Major.” Read about what your opportunities after college look like if you choose to graduate with a degree in HISTORY.

USA Today encourages liberal arts majors to pair their history degree with specific skills in fields such as “marketing, sales, business, social media, graphic design, data analysis and management, and information technology or support.” See what you can do with a combined skill set HERE!

See what the New York Times refers to as the “6 Myths About Choosing a College Major.” Review pay out statistics for STEM majors, see what areas of the workforce women choose to go in to more frequently than others, and whether or not it might help to double major! Read Jeffrey J. Selingo’s article in the NYT HERE.

WSU’s own CougLink offers students and alumni access to job and internship listings nationwide. The site also provides up to date information on career fairs, workshops and other events taking place on campus.

 

Career opportunities in HISTORY

 

Account representativeHuman resources professional
Administrative assistantInstitutional researcher
Admissions officerIntelligence specialist
ArchaeologistInterpretive guide
ArchivistJournalist
Art conservatorLabor organizer
Artifacts conservatorLawyer
BibliographerLegislative research assistant
BiographerLibrarian
Career counselorLoan officer
CaseworkerManagement consultant
Claims adjudicatorManufacturer’s representative
Collections managerMarket analyst/researcher
Communications assistantMedia specialist
Conference coordinatorMuseum technician
ConsultantNature education interpreter
Corporate historianNetwork coordinator
CounselorOutdoor education instructor
CuratorParalegal
Database/records managerPark ranger
DetectivePersonnel officer
Development associate for researchPharmaceutical representative
Director of visitor servicesProject archivist
EditorProject planner/coordinator
Education programs coordinatorPublic relations
Educational equipment and supplies salespersonRadio/TV announcer
EducatorReference librarian
Executive directorRegistrar
Financial aid counselorResearcher (national TV news)
Golf CoachSecurities information researcher
Government relationsSite manager/administrator
HistorianSoftware specialist
Historic preservation plannerTour director
Travel agent

History Honor Society


International History Honor Society – Gamma Psi Chapter

phi-alpha-thetaIntroduction

Phi Alpha Theta is composed of chapters in properly accredited colleges and universities. All students in these institutions who have completed the required number of history courses while maintaining high standards in their college or university studies are eligible for membership (see below).

Phi Alpha Theta is a professional society whose purpose is to promote the study of history through the encouragement of research, good teaching, publication, and the exchange of learning and ideas among historians. It seeks to bring students, teachers, and writers of history together both intellectually and socially, and it encourages and assists historical research and publication by its members in a variety of ways.

Membership

The Gamma Psi chapter of Phi Alpha Theta at Washington State University, established December 7, 1950, is open to undergraduate and graduate students on the Pullman campus who meet the following criteria.

The requirements for undergraduates include:

  • Completion of at least two semesters at WSU.
  • Completion of 12 semester credits of history (6 of which must be from WSU).
  • WSU overall grade point average of at least 3.0.
  • History grade point average of at least 3.1.
  • Payment of a lifetime membership fee (currently $65; $55 for Phi Alpha Theta National and $10 for the WSU Gamma Psi Chapter).

The requirements for graduate students include:

  • Completion of 12 semester hours towards a graduate degree in history.
  • GPA of 3.5 or higher.
  • Completion of approximately 30% of the residence requirements for their degree.
  • Payment of a lifetime membership fee (currently $65; $55 for Phi Alpha Theta National and $10 for the WSU Gamma Psi Chapter).

Membership entitles you to:

  • Wear Phi Alpha Theta honor cords at commencement (purchased separately)
  • Participate in chapter activities
  • Apply to participate in Phi Alpha Theta regional and national conferences

Based on the eligibility requirements of the national organization, those students enrolled on campuses other than Pullman are not eligible for membership in the Gamma Psi (Pullman) chapter. Membership is not limited to history majors, and Global Campus students are eligible to join.

Those who are already members of Phi Alpha Theta are warmly welcomed to participate in Gamma Psi chapter activities. Membership in Phi Alpha Theta is for life, so you need not join (or pay) a second time.

Applications for membership are solicited near the beginning of fall and spring semesters, and announcements will be made in various history classes by instructors.

More Information

If you want to know more about Phi Alpha Theta, contact faculty advisor Nikolaus Overtoom at nikolaus.overtoom@wsu.edu

 

 

 

Phi Alpha Theta Initiates for 2024-2025:

  • Victoria Tompkins
  • Cole Harbour
  • Naomi Slavish

Phi Alpha Theta Initiates for 2023-2024:

  • Andersen Barry
  • Sarah Barraclough
  • Vance Martin

Phi Alpha Theta Initiates for 2022-2023:

  • Natalie Tuck
  • Kysa Jausoro
  • Austin Barnes
  • Asia Larocque
  • Christine Smith
  • Anna Turner
  • Jim Harvey

Phi Alpha Theta Initiates for 2021-2022:

  • Jesse Brazil
  • Jessica Edwards
  • Alec Bowder
  • Lydia Miller
  • Jack Maloy
  • Desaree Brower

Phi Alpha Theta Initiates for 2020-2021:

  • Timothy Treffery
  • Mark Calentino
  • Natalie Guinasso
  • Katie Hosking

Phi Alpha Theta Initiates for 2019-2020:

  • Shannon Hanson
  • Hunter Orcutt
  • Allyson Butzke

Phi Alpha Theta Initiates for 2018-2019:

  • Laurie Kay Heustis
  • Peter D. North
  • Gavin R. Pielow
  • Eleanor S. Albrecht
  • Lucy L. Wavra
  • Madison Marie Levesque
  • Olivia Simone Daiss-Scheibe
  • Henry J. Miller

Advising Assignments


History and Social Studies Advising

Lauri Sue Torkelson (Wilson-Short 301C) and Frank Hill (Wilson-Short 301B) conduct all advising for the Department of History. They are normally available 8:00–11:30 a.m. and 1:00–4:00 p.m. Monday–Friday to assist with educational concerns and gladly accept walk-in students during those times. No appointment is necessary, except during pre-registration, which starts about the 8th week of each semester. If pre-registration advising is in session, students will need to sign up for an appointment online. Lauri Sue Torkelson can be reached at torkelson@wsu.edu or 509-335-4475 and Frank Hill can be reached at fhill002@wsu.edu or 509-335-5670 for assistance.

Academic Advising

Each semester students are required to meet with their advisor to plan for the next semester. Typically, advising is done in October for the following spring and in March for the following fall and summer.

Be sure to sign up for an appointment prior to your registration date and come to your advising appointment with a tentative schedule.

 

Senior Exit Survey

WSU’s History Department is collecting feedback from graduating seniors who majored in history about your experience in the program. Please take a few minutes to complete the History Department’s Senior Exit Survey using the link below.

You should complete the survey if you are one semester away from graduating (i.e., scheduling your last advising appointment with your academic advisor). The survey is expected to take only 10-15 minutes to complete.

Your thoughtful and honest answers will be considered carefully to help improve the undergraduate program and services offered by the History Department at WSU. Please note that your responses will not be associated with your personal identity. Rather, the data collected will be used to assess how well the History Department is achieving its program learning goals and outcomes.

Thank you for supporting the department’s goals and responsibilities.

Go to the Survey — https://wsu.co1.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_0vMipuYT7UvqUOV

 

Categories of Courses 2023

Categories of Courses

Various University Services

Academic Success and Career Center
Lighty 160
509-335-6000

Access Center
217 Washington Building
509-335-3417

Center for Community Standards
French Administration, Room 130
509-335-4532

Counseling Services
Cougar Health Services, Washington Building
509-335-4511
after hours 509-335-2159

College of Education
316 Education Addition
509-335-4853

Financial Aid
380 Lighty
509-335-9711

Junior Writing Portfolio
Smith CUE 305
509-335-7959

Multicultural Student Services
CUB 409
509-335-7852

Student Affairs
Lighty 360
509-335-4531

Student Health and Wellness Services
1125 NE Washington Street
509-335-3575

 

Minor Options


An undergraduate minor is a supplemental academic award that is awarded at the same time that a student’s primary major is completed and the undergraduate degree is conferred.  Once requirements for the minor are met and the student’s undergraduate degree has been conferred and posted to the transcript, the transcript will be updated to show these additional academic awards.

An undergraduate student who has completed 60 semester hours and is certified in a primary major may certify in a minor with the approval of the offering department.

A minor in history requires 18 hours, 9 of which must be in 300-400-level courses taken in residence at WSU or through WSU-approved education abroad or educational exchange courses.  A grade of C or better is required in all course work for the minor.

 

Students certified in ANY MAJOR, EXCEPT HISTORY, may certify a GENERAL HISTORY MINOR.

Students certified in ANY MAJOR, INCLUDING HISTORY, may certify a WAR AND SOCIETY MINOR.

Students certified in ANY MAJOR, INCLUDING HISTORY, may certify a MODERN ASIA MINOR.