Welcome to 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 Department 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.