Supporting Community Colleges
Historians based at community colleges participate in AHA work in all areas, informing our strategy regarding professional issues, teaching and learning, and research. The AHA strives to support two-year college history faculty and students through relevant online and in-person programming, publications, advocacy, and member benefits. Two-year college faculty are integral to AHA events and governance.
AHA efforts that have built substantially on insights from and the needs of community college historians include initiatives to define core learning objectives in the discipline, to articulate the workforce skills learned in history, to redesign introductory college courses for more student success, to better understand students’ transition from high school to college learning, to connect US history curricula with global developments, and to improve publications access for researchers who are not affiliated with a major institutional library.
What do students learn in history courses? The culmination of years of collaboration and research, this statement summarizes key skills, knowledge, and habits of mind at the core of our discipline.
The AHA’s History Gateways initiative explores strategies for improving introductory college-level history courses to better prepare students from all backgrounds for success in a complex society.
Resources & Programs
Report of the Two-Year College Faculty Task Force (2016)
The AHA’s Two-Year College Faculty Task Force was established by Council in 2009 to determine and better serve the professional needs of historians who teach at those colleges—and, through them, the substantial percentage of American students whose primary contact with college-level history will take place there.
The AHA hosted a professional development program in 2012-2016 to promote a global perspective on US history at the country's increasingly diverse two-year institutions. "American History, Atlantic and Pacific" drew on a generation of innovative scholarship that reframed the origins of the United States within a broad geographical and chronological context.
The AHA leads or participates in several initiatives to support history educators facing intensifying controversies about what we teach and how we teach it. Historians play a crucial role in public deliberations about how to engage students in truthful and rigorous inquiry in history classrooms.
Are you interested in the latest conversations about teaching and learning? Join us for our regular series of online programs that are free and open to the public.
Regional Conferences on Introductory History Courses
Our regional conferences endeavor to strengthen the community of practice focused on introductory history courses, both in secondary and higher education.
New Booklet on Introductory History Courses
The AHA's new booklet, Designing Introductory History Courses for Student Success, collects data and perspectives on what instructional faculty and other higher education decision-makers can do to put the history discipline to work for today's students.
Online Teacher Institutes
The AHA hosts online professional development programs for educators, including middle and high school teachers and 2- and 4-year college faculty.
Requirements for history degrees at two-year and four-year colleges and universities.