History is a core discipline in the modern research university, so
much so that no top-ranked university is without a stellar department
of history. Historical research on economic, political, social, and
intellectual developments over time and in all parts of the world can
introduce us to other disciplines and alternative ways of life. While
those who forget the past may not be doomed to repeat it, the study of
history can aid our understanding of how change occurs, help us to
appreciate the modern condition, and guide our search for a better
future. The General Education Curriculum at Ohio State, which requires
10 credit hours of history, testifies both to the discipline’s
core value in a liberal education and to the general conviction that
historical study is essential to intelligent citizenship in a
democratic nation. Indeed, one indication of history’s central
significance is to be found in its essential interdisciplinarity.
Historians use quantitative methods, literary theory, social science
theory, and even scientific theory and methods. They teach and write
on diplomacy and military affairs and on intellectual history,
economic history, social history, cultural history, the history of
medicine, the history of science, and the history of women, to name
only a few of the subjects that link historians to other disciplines
in the university.
Over the last decade the Department of History at Ohio State has
built on long-standing strength by appointing eminent senior scholars
and recruiting the most promising junior faculty. In the fields of
diplomatic/international history, military history, and medieval and
early modern European history, the department has recently hired
world-renowned scholars, several of whom hold named chairs. In
conjunction with the department’s success in hiring top young
scholars from the best departments in the country and aggressively
retaining extremely productive researchers and outstanding teachers,
these hires have attracted international attention. As a result, the
department ranked in the top 20 public universities in the last
National Research Council survey of Ph.D. programs, and in the 1998
U.S. News and World Report ratings, the department ranked 16th
among the publics, suggesting a strong upward trajectory that should
move the department into the top 10 by 2010, in line with the
university’s goals.
The Department of History values, and excels at, teaching as well
as scholarship. With an undergraduate enrollment of almost 16,000
students a year, over 500 majors, a rapidly expanding Honors program,
and over 200 graduate students specializing in 17 fields with 56
faculty members, the department has a well-deserved reputation as an
extraordinary teaching unit with broad impact on the university. One
of the first four departments to win the University’s
Distinguished Departmental Teaching Award, the department is also home
to five winners of the Alumni Distinguished Teaching Award, two
winners of the College of Humanities Ben Jones Award (renamed the
Rodica Botoman Award) for Excellence in Teaching, and two winners of
the Ohio Academy of History Distinguished Teaching Award. Funds from
the Departmental Teaching Award, in conjunction with donations to the
Goldberg Fund, have made possible the creation of the Harvey Goldberg
Program for Excellence in Teaching, which supports the teaching of
history through technology-enhanced learning. The program manages the
department’s innovative on-demand electronic database U.S.
history reader, Retrieving the American Past, now used at more
than 40 institutions around the country as well as at Ohio State.
The department’s graduate program attracts top students from
around the country and the world. A selective program whose students
are extremely competitive for both university and national
fellowships, the department is committed to producing promising
scholar-teachers who will publish and find jobs at top research
universities and liberal arts colleges. The department is extremely
proud of the diversity of incoming cohorts of graduate students.
Despite the fact that history remains a discipline in which only
one-third of Ph.D.s are awarded to women and a very small proportion
to people of color, the entering class for 1999-2000 is over 60
percent women, almost 30 percent minorities, and 14 percent
international students.
In the area of scholarship, the department is proud to include six
winners of the University’s Distinguished Scholar Award. Faculty
members regularly publish books (14 scholars in the department have
won 23 book prizes), journal articles, and book chapters. They also
routinely win prestigious national fellowships, including two
Guggenheim Fellowships for 1999-2000. In addition, the department
houses four leading specialty journals edited by faculty members.
