The College
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UNC’s College of Humanities and Social Sciences is committed to the liberal arts tradition of advancing human knowledge through serious scholarship, superior instruction, and the freedom of academic inquiry. The faculty employs the latest teaching and learning technology while emphasizing accessibility and the benefits of student-teacher interaction.
The College is home to a wide array of academic disciplines organized into five schools: Communication; English Language and Literature; History, Philosophy, and Political Science; Modern Languages and Cultural Studies; and Social Sciences.
These areas of study teach us about past, present, and future contributions to the shaping of human experience—contributions that are made both by individuals and by societies.
HSS Professors Awarded $10,000 Grant
Nancy Matchett |
Lee Anne Peck |
Congratulations to Nancy Matchett in Philosophy and Lee Anne Peck in Communication Studies on being awarded a $10,000 grant by the Arthur W. Page Center for Integrity in Public Relations.
As Page Legacy Scholars, Profs. Matchett and Peck will develop and test an online ethics training module for public relations professionals. The module will be integrated with the existing Center for Ethical Deliberation, which is hosted by UNC’s Institute of Professional Ethics. More information about the Page Legacy Scholars grant program is available on the Page Center’s own Web site.
History Professor Earns Harrison Award
Joan Clinefelter |
Prof. Joan L. Clinefelter has earned this year’s M. Lucile Harrison Award, UNC’s top faculty honor. The annual award recognizes a faculty member with a distinguished career in teaching, professional activity, and service.
Prof. Clinefelter, who has taught at UNC since 1995, specializes in European history. Among the courses she teaches are those that examine the period leading up to, during, and after Hitler’s regime. Her classes generally fill to capacity, whether they are offered in fall, spring or summer, according to a letter nominating her for the award.
“She has a reputation as one of the most demanding professors in a tough department, but students flock to her anyway,” UNC History Professor Marshall Clough states in the letter. “Joan is talented, energetic, hard-working, popular with students, respected by colleagues—an invaluable asset to UNC.”
Geography Professor Receives Summer Institute Grant
Karen Barton |
Prof. Karen Barton of UNC’s Geography Program has been awarded a National Endowment for the Humanities 2008 Summer Institute grant. She will attend this summer’s NEH “Andean Worlds Institute” (June 29-July 26). The institute will include lectures and classes in Lima and Cusco, Peru, and field tours of several major archaeological sites on the Peruvian coast and in the Andean foothills and mountains.
Prof. Barton’s teaching and research interests focus on the geography of Central and South America and her participation in the Andean institute will contribute to the quality and breadth of her UNC teaching and research. Last year, Prof. Barton received a Fulbright-Hays fellowship for course-development research in Brazil.
Celebration of Student Scholarship
The College’s 2008 Celebration of Student Scholarship featured presentations of six outstanding pieces of undergraduate research and creative writing by students in HSS. Each of the six students received a $100 scholarship. The event was co-sponsored by the College and the College’s College Student Council.
Award Recipients at the Celebration of Student Scholarship
Click here for a larger version.
Pictured above (left to right) are Adam Jones (“In the Hands of Hard Men in an Evil Hour”); Christopher Hajn (“Brian Phillips: Conquering Phantoms Everywhere”); David Caldwell, Dean; Nicole Nelsestuen (“A Place I Never Thought I’d Call Home”); Magdalena Wegrzyn (“Student Voting”); and John Schuman (“The Making of Samurai Armor”). Not pictured: Mark Packard (“An Analysis of the Effect of Illegal Sharing of Copywrited Music on Musicians, Consumers, and Record Labels”)
Communication Studies Professor Wins Award
Thomas Endres |
At this year’s Rocky Mountain Communication Association (RMCA) conference, March 29, 2008, Thomas Endres received the “Award for Communication Excellence.” RMCA is a professional association serving communication scholars and practitioners in New Mexico, Colorado, and Wyoming. The award is given to one individual each year “in recognition of distinguished contributions to the Communication discipline.”
Endres is a past President of the association, continue to serve on its Leadership Council, and represents the association at the States Advisory Council of the National Communication Association. UNC Communication Studies faculty member Dr. Heidi Muller received the award in 2006.
History Professor Awarded NEH Summer Stipend
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Joan Clinefelter |
UNC Professor of History Joan Clinefelter has been awarded a 2008 Summer Stipend by the National Endowment for the Humanities. The $6,000 award will fund Clinefelter’s research, “Radio in the American Sector (RIAS), 1946-1963: A German-American Partnership in the Cold War.” Clinefelter will work on the project over the summer at the George C. Marshall Research Library in Lexington, Va., and at the National Archives in College Park, Md.
Clinefelter, who has been at UNC since 1995, specializes in modern Germany, teaches German history and has published a book about Nazi Germany, "Artists for the Reich: Culture and Race from Weimar to Nazi Germany."
Two Archaeology Professors Receive $46,914 Grant
Frederic Sellet and Bob Brunswig |
The Colorado State Historic Fund has awarded UNC archaeology professors Bob Brunswig and Frederic Sellet a $46,914 grant for archaeological and supporting geological and environmental research related to their North Park Cultural Landscapes Project.
The grant will support excavation of two important North Park sites on Bureau of Land Management property in Jackson County, Colorado. Both sites have buried occupations, including rare physical evidence of buffalo and pronghorn antelope, dating from the Paleoindian period, nearly ten thousand years ago, to early historic Native American times.
Congratulations, Bob and Fred!
Faculty Team Receives $160,000 Grant
Matthew Downey |
A team of faculty led by Social Science Professor Matthew Downey received $160,000 in funding from the Colorado Department of Higher Education. The 2007-08 No Child Left Behind Grant will support the first year of the group’s project, “Reading in the Social Studies Project: Teaching Reading in Civics, Economics, Geography and History.”
The project was one of seven across the state selected for funding by CDHE. It creates a partnership with elementary schools in Denver Public Schools to teach reading in the core social studies disciplines in grades 3-5. DPS and UNC content specialists will collaborate to review DPS social studies curriculum for how adequately it includes civics, economics, geography and history. The group will also identify and select grade appropriate reading material for the subjects. Instruction on content-area reading will be provided for teachers from 13 DPS pilot schools.
Prof. Downey coordinates the Social Science major at UNC, directs the Interdisciplinary Studies Liberal Arts major and is also director of the William E. Hewit Institute for History and Social Science Education. Downey, the lead principal investigator, is joined on the project by co-principal investigators Robert Brunswig, director of the School of Social Sciences, and Alexander Sidorkin, director of the School for Teacher Education. Other UNC faculty involved include Christiane Olivo, assistant professor of Political Science and director of the Center for Civic Education; David Aske, associate professor of Economics and director of the Center for Economics Education; Phil Klein, associate professor of Geography and co-coordinator of the Colorado Geographic Alliance; and Susan Thompson, coordinator, Early Childhood Education.
Faculty Member Recognized for Literature Course
Ester Gonzalez |
Prof. Ester González’s course, Introduccion a la Literatura Hispanica, has recently been named one of the top ten Spanish Literature Courses in the nation by the College Board Advanced Placement Course Study conducted by the Educational Policy Improvement Center (EPIC).
In EPIC’s national study of Spanish Literature courses, reviewers used a list of key features expected of exemplary courses in the subject to identify the best practices in college teaching as they evaluated the documents describing each course. As one of the selected courses, Prof. González’s course was designated a best practice course in Spanish Literature. It will serve as a model for the redsign of the National Advanced Placement high school course in Spanish Literature, both for content and for teaching practices.
Prof. González is a Professor of Hispanic Studies in the School of Modern Languages and Cultural Studies.
Faculty Member Receives $103,000 Grant
David Musick |
David Musick, professor of Sociology, has received a $103,000 grant to evaluate programs targeted to youth for the Weld County Interagency Oversight Group. This group, an offshoot of the state Interagency Oversight Group (developed through legislation), serves as an umbrella organization and coordinates services among different social service agencies in the county.
Prof. Musick is assisted by Kelly Mason, lead graduate research assistant and Liz Osborn, graduate assistant. Both students are in the Social Science: Clinical Sociology master’s degree program.
Faculty Member Receives NSF Grant
Phil Klein |
HSS faculty member Phil Klein is one of three geographers in the country awarded a total of $495,481 by the National Science Foundation to continue developing the Online Center for Global Geography Education.
Prof. Klein, who is an Associate Professor of Geography, will collaborate on the grant with colleagues from the Association of American Geographers and Texas State University. The grant promotes internationalization of geography curriculum for undergraduates and expands the framework of the Online Center for Global Geography Education. Instructors can currently use modules covering Population, Global Economy and Nationalism to teach undergraduate courses worldwide. The grant will provide funding to develop new modules in Migration, Climate Change, and Natural Hazards, to mount workshops at international conferences, and to expand the network of faculty using the modules. The curriculum is available in English and Spanish, and grant funding will allow for the modules to be translated into a third language.
Last summer, Prof. Klein co-directed with colleague James Dunn the country’s first online graduate certificate for K-12 teachers in Geography Education at UNC. Prof. Klein holds a B.A. in Environmental Planning from the University of California, Santa Cruz; an M.A. in Geography from the University of California, Los Angeles; and a Ph.D. in Geography from the University of Colorado at Boulder.
Faculty Member Receives Development Grant
Bob Brunswig |
Bob Brunswig, Professor of Anthropology and Director of the School of Social Sciences, has received a $7,750 Development grant from SPARC to purchase equipment and software for a second tree-ring analysis work station for the Paleoenvironment Lab in Candelaria 0220. The upgrade will allow the Geography program to add tree-ring analysis (climate and dating) to its Physical Geography class and provide further infrastructure support for an NSF undergraduate research proposal it is working on this next year. The upgrade will also help support M.A. thesis projects in Earth Sciences related to the Lab’s paleoclimate research (instrumentation) capabilities in sediment, pollen, tree-ring, and magnetic susceptibility. Finally, the upgrade increases laboratory capability for archaeology projects and external lab analysis contracting, all of which is consistent with long-range goals for collaborative laboratory research at UNC. Congratulations, Bob!
New Projects in History
Four Corners Paraprofessional Educational Project
Michael Welsh |
UNC is one of six universities and colleges nationwide to receive an Indian Education Demonstration Grant for Indian Children from the U.S. Department of Education, which will amount to approximately $1.2 million over four years. The title of the award is “Four Corners Paraprofessional Education Project,” and it will provide support for training teacher aides in secondary schools. The grant is being administered by Michael Welsh of UNC’s History Program.
The Middle Ground Project
Photo by Greg Hobbs Window Rock |
One of two national programs funded in 2005 by the U.S. Department of Education under the Presidential Academy in American History and Civics Education program, the Middle Ground Project offers an intensive program for new and veteran middle- and high-school teachers of U.S. history and civics from the Navajo Nation. The goal of the project is to develop a national model for the integration of U.S. history and civics education. Moreover, the project incorporates local stories into the larger narrative of American history by including the Navajo Nation’s history, and materials on its government and legal system in its curriculum.
Teachers participating in this summer’s program will have a variety of opportunities to gain a deeper understanding of and appreciation for U.S. history and civics. Presenters from the National Archives, the American Historical Association, the University of Northern Colorado, the Colorado State Supreme Court, and Colorado History Day will offer workshops on best practices for history and civics education. Teachers also have hands-on opportunities to conduct research and historical inquiry, build their historical frame of reference, deepen their interest in civic life, and generate ideas for classroom application. Participating teachers work with historians, political scientists, legal and constitutional scholars, legal practitioners, and master teachers. For more information, contact Jennifer Newman.
The Colorado Academy of History
Colorado’s Capitol Building |
A collaborative partnership between UNC, Weld County School District 6, and other distinguished partners, the Colorado Academy of History is designed to promote the increased understanding of historical content and essential learning in history for teachers and students at all grade levels.
Activities in the CAH will consist of four workshops for teachers during the school year and a week-long institute during the summer. Two workshops will be in the form of “book clubs” focused on integrating ideas from books in American History into the classroom. The other two workshops will center on integrating primary sources into the classroom. This last year’s summer institute (June 24-29, 2007) featured prominent guest speakers and master teachers all working to increase teacher content knowledge and improve the delivery of American History content in the classroom. For more information, contact Fritz Fischer.
New Social Science Institutes
The Heritage Resource Management and Education Institute
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The Heritage Institute is charged with the facilitation and coordination of grant and contract-funded research and professional service projects related to cultural and natural heritage issues, mainly centered on publicly-administered (federal, state, and local) lands in Colorado and the western United States. The Heritage Institute capitalizes on long-standing collaborative research relationships with federal agencies and public land units, such as Rocky Mountain National Park, the State of Colorado, and local cities and towns, in developing new, or expanding existing, heritage theme projects.
Faculty research fellows in the institute are drawn from across the university and include archaeologists, cultural anthropologists, geographers, library specialists, geologists, historians, biologists, sociologists, and economists. Both faculty and students collaboratively engage in projects associated with natural and cultural resources on public lands. For more information, contact Robert Brunswig.
The Community Development and Outreach Institute
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The Community Development and Outreach Institute coordinates and facilitates projects associated with issues of urban and rural development and growth. Its primary goal is to develop collaborative community-based projects that utilize skills and knowledge of the applied Social Sciences in resolving problems related to growth and development in partnership with community government and private citizens’ groups.
Along with promoting academic research, strong civic engagement, and societal problem solving, the School of Social Sciences and its institutes work to incorporate research and applied, experiential learning into the university teaching process by infusing research concepts, methods, and student participation into courses and degree programs whenever and wherever appropriate. For more information, contact Robert Brunswig.
