History Department Mission Statement

Graduation Requirements

History Minor

The Mission of the History Program

The department believes that the history major should produce the following educational results for students:

Skills

·    Enhance students’ ability to critically read and evaluate historical scholarship.

·    Develop students’ ability to understand the main lines of historiographic debate concerning a topic and frame new questions.

·   Develop students’ ability to engage in historical research focused on primary sources.

·   Develop students’ ability to express their ideas clearly in written form.

·   Develop students’ ability to express their ideas in oral presentations.

·   Develop students’ capacity for independent, critical thought.

·   Develop in students the understanding that history is actually an ongoing   interpretive debate and not a series of short answers.

·   Provide training that is sufficiently rigorous to permit qualified and motivated students to succeed in graduate programs in history.

Knowledge

·    Develop students’ understanding of both long-term trends and discrete events in the history of the United States, Europe, and at least two other cultural groups.

·    Develop students’ ability to consider the past in terms of both change and continuity.

·    Develop students’ ability to identify and explain change over time.

·    Develop students’ understanding of the ways in which change affects different groups in different ways.

Values

·    Enhance students’ ability to use the skills promoted by the history program in their life and career plans.

·    Enhance students’ toleration of diverse peoples and cultures.

·    Enhance students’ ability to act as responsible citizens who make informed, reasoned judgments.

·    Develop students’ commitment to a life-long search for learning.

·    Promote among students a collaborative work and learning ethic.

Last Modified: Wednesday, April 19, 2006 14:38 by Wickstrom Paul