Welcome to the Department of History
The Department of History at NAU aims to “educate students to study
the past in order to understand the present and to shape the future.” We hold that students of history should possess
intellectual presence, whatever their future career goals. Their subject knowledge should be broad and
deep, and they should possess the critical skills and theoretical sophistication
that goes beyond rote historical narrative and memorization. They should be able to articulate and defend
how historical knowledge is created, contested, and changed in relationship to
the present. In short, we want our
students to possess a passion for the knowledge, practice, and/or the teaching
of history that can make a difference in the world.
The Department of History serves the larger university’s core values
of sustainability, diversity, and global engagement. In particular, we emphasize the
inseparability of the regional and the global, in the process teaching our
students to value the diversity of the human experience over time and in an
ever-changing environment. These values
are at the core of a liberal arts model of critical thinking, tolerance,
diversity, and life-long learning.
History faculty members impart these values through learner-centered
education and by personal example. We
ascribe to the teacher-scholar model, in which our research informs our
teaching, and our teaching informs the questions we ask as scholars and as
citizens of the world. Our goal is to
promote an intellectually engaging climate that enhances student success at NAU
and beyond.
Meet the Faculty
The History faculty have generated numerous publications in their research specialties and garnered awards for their efforts. Please see the Faculty and Staff page for further information about each faculty member.