Welcome
The History Department is one of the largest at Dickinson College, in terms of faculty, student majors, and course offerings. History courses and History faculty are also integral parts of most interdisciplinary majors and certificate programs. The department makes particularly important contributions to International Studies, American Studies, East Asian Studies, Latin American Studies, Judaic Studies, Film Studies, and Russian Area Studies.
But numbers do not tell the real story. The department's courses cover virtually the entire globe. Studies of Africa, Asia, Latin America, and the Middle East join diverse approaches to the peoples and cultures of Europe and the United States from the Middle Ages to the present. Students may also take courses in the history of science and the environment, gender history, intellectual history, cultural history, and oral history. History majors have great flexibility to construct programs that reflect their interests and plans for the future. And majors in any field are welcome in a wide range of exciting courses.
Dickinson's History curriculum is best defined by its variety and flexibility, its opportunities for hands-on research in original documents and local archives, and its efforts to build research and writing skills that will last a lifetime. In choosing among the many options the curriculum allows, History majors work closely with faculty advisors who are deeply committed to undergraduate teaching and who are productive scholars in their fields. Our students then apply those skills in a wide range of professions—education, law, archival and museum work, real estate, military command, business, advocacy, and numerous government positions.
Collaboration is a key component of the major. Students in oral history, for example, recently worked with the Army Heritage Education Center in Carlisle recording interviews with US Army veterans. Other students might contribute to the Dickinson Chronicles project, the annals of the college. Many students have participated in field studies projects in Argentina, Mexico, and right here in central Pennsylvania. Still other student interns work for the House Divided Project, which is a wide-ranging initiative about the Civil War era that offers students a chance to work on archival research, web presentation, and K-12 teacher training workshops. And this is in addition to the classroom research and writing that is a regular part of our ambitious and challenging curriculum.
We hope that current and prospective students, parents, alumni, and the merely curious will find the information on our site helpful.
Contact Information
Denny Hall 219B
Telephone (717) 245-1521
FAX (717) 245-1479
Chair: Karl Qualls
quallsk@dickinson.edu
Sr. Academic Department Coordinator: Elaine Mellen
mellen@dickinson.edu