Assessment
In this issue of Perspectives on History, historians reflect on assessment—how they determine whether they and their students met their goals for a course or program. Al-Khidr, depicted on the cover, appears as a teacher in a Qur’anic parable. His student, Moses, fails all three of his teacher’s tests. Iconography portraying Al-Khidr often shows him traveling on the river of life on the back of a fish. See this month’s Endnote for more about Khidr iconography. The image is from the album Miniatures, portraits et modèles d’écriture des Indes, published in 1760 and held by Bibliothèque nationale de France, département des Estampes et de la Photographie, Réserve OD-60 PET FOL, f. 19. {{PD-US}}
Staff
On “Retirement as a Stage in the Academic Life Cycle”
To the Editor: By law in Israel everyone employed in the public sector must retire at age 67. Of course,…
Ex(-)Libris ex Oriente: New Database to Track the Transmission of Middle Eastern Books
Élise Franssen, a Belgian postdoctoral researcher, and Frédéric Bauden, a professor at the University of Liège, are creating an online…
Jami’s Haft Awrang Undergoes Conservation at the Smithsonian
Amanda Malkin, a Hagop Kevorkian Fund fellow at the Smithsonian’s Freer Gallery of Art and Arthur M. Sackler Galleries, is…
The Face of the Nation: George Washington, Art, and America
As I entered the busy Smith Auditorium at Mount Vernon for the first evening of the George Washington Symposium, I…
SLO Curve Ball: What I Really Want for My Students
At this point in the history of higher education in America, it is probably too late to argue against student…
Creating and Administering a Primary Source Analysis
Hundreds of students pass through the introductory history courses of the University of Nebraska–Lincoln each semester with various backgrounds and…
The Benefits of Self-Assessment: Measuring Historical Thinking Skills at UMass Boston
When the history department at the University of Massachusetts Boston became aware of accreditation agencies’ growing pressure for documenting teaching…
Confessions from the Field: Building Assessments with the History Discipline Core
As the faculty chair of the AHA Tuning project, I feel somewhat obligated to figure out ways to use the…
A Quest for Balance
For many of us, the quest for balance in our professional and personal lives seems as elusive as the Holy…
Records Bills Move Forward as Congress Wraps Up for the Year
As Congress wraps up for the year, one bill favorable to the history community has been passed, and another has…
Ghosts and Monsters: Human-Scale Digital History at #RRCHNM20
Several years ago I was small cog in a large digital humanities project distributed across three continents. The project had…
Frank T. Reuter: 1926–2014
Historian of US Foreign Policy Frank T. Reuter, professor emeritus of history at Texas Christian University, died on September 6,…
Victor R. Greene: 1931–2014
Historian of American Immigration and AHA Life Member Victor R. Greene, emeritus professor of history at the University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee,…
The Man Who Floats on a Fish
Illustrating a magazine—its covers, articles, and empty spaces—involves hours and hours of searching through images. Since I joined the AHA…
A Tribute for Capitol Hill’s Steve Cymrot
The pages of the Hill Rag, Capitol Hill’s monthly newspaper, were filled with remembrances of Steve Cymrot last month. Steve,…
AHA Member Spotlight: Claire Bond Potter
AHA members are involved in all fields of history, with wide-ranging specializations, interests, and areas of employment. To recognize our…
Reflections on Ferguson and the Value of Historical Context
This guest post on Ferguson is one of a series of posts on subjects discussed at the 2015 AHA annual…
More Than Just Cut and Paste: The Conference Poster and Its Contribution to the Annual Meeting
Stepping onto the Hilton’s second floor on Sunday at the annual meeting, one couldn’t help but notice a sort of formal…
National History Center Holds Congressional Briefing on the Ukraine Crisis
Established by the AHA in 2002, the National History Center brings historians into conversation with policy makers to stress the importance…
Historians and Material Culture
This is one of a series of AHA Today posts on subjects of importance to the history profession that were…
Getting it Right on Work and Workers
This guest post on labor history, journalism, and historians was authored by David Huyssen; it is one of a series…
AHA Member Spotlight: Katherine Parker
AHA members are involved in all fields of history, with wide-ranging specializations, interests, and areas of employment. To recognize our…
Letter to The Honorable Terry McAuliffe, Governor of the Commonwealth of Virginia, Regarding New Financial Disclosure Requirements
In December 2014, AHA president, Jan Goldstein, and vice-president (Professional Division) Philippa Levine sent a letter to Terry McAuliffe, governor…
Accepting Applications for the 2015 AHA Research Grants
Applications are now being accepted for the 2015 AHA Research Grants: the Albert J. Beveridge Grant to support research in the history of…
AHA 2015 “Understanding Ferguson” Airs on C-SPAN, Monday 8:00 p.m. ET
This Monday, January 19, at 8:00 p.m., C-SPAN’s American History TV will broadcast the panel “Understanding Ferguson: Race, Power, Protest, and the Past,” which…
Women in Public History
The roundtable “Interpreting and Representing Women’s History to the Public” from the recent AHA annual meeting will be broadcast on…
Finding New Space in Space: Reflections on Environmental and Outer Space History at AHA 2015
There is an outer-space themed punk band, The Phenomenauts, who wrote a song asking a question, “It is an infinite…
Actions by the AHA Council, June 2014 – January 2015
Conducted via e-mail from June 25, 2014, to December 19, 2014, and at the Council Meeting on January 2 and…
AHA Member Spotlight: John Phillip Lomax
AHA members are involved in all fields of history, with wide-ranging specializations, interests, and areas of employment. To recognize our…
The Future of the Book Review
The attendee at last Sunday’s “The Future of the Book Review” who said with happy surprise, “I really thought that…
UT-Austin Clements Center Summer Seminar in History and Statecraft
The AHA is pleased to pass along an exciting opportunity that recently came to our attention: a summer seminar hosted…
2015 Annual Meeting Presidential Address
Thanks to all who were able to attend our 2015 annual meeting, January 2-5, in New York. For those who missed…
Carl N. Degler, Past AHA President, Dies at 93
Historian Carl N. Degler, president of the AHA in 1986 and Margaret Byrne Professor of American History, Emeritus, at Stanford…
The Past, Present, and Future of the Voting Rights Act
Perhaps the most surprising sentiment to emerge from AHA Session 146, “The Past, Present, and Future of the Voting Rights…
History and Historians in the Ukraine Crisis
Studying Ukraine is not for the faint of heart, nor for those seeking comfort about the current state of geopolitics.…
Historians Writing Fiction outside the Academy
Historians can take a wide variety of career paths, from policy to public history and beyond. The 129th annual meeting…
Interviewing in the Job Market in the 21st Century: Reflections after the Workshop
At 8:30 on Saturday morning, the Mercury Ballroom room was buzzing, and there wasn’t even any coffee. The energy was…
The Practice of Book History: Between and Beyond Disciplines
It has been about eight months since I finished my master’s thesis—a book history and critical edition of James Fenimore Cooper’s…
Connect on Social Media at AHA 2015!
We will be convening in New York starting January 2 for four days of intellectual enlightenment and discussion on the…