Letter from the Chair
For the History Department, as for most of the units on campus, the past academic year has been one of waiting, assessing, and reassessing, as the dark clouds of recession passed over Wall Street, then Olympia, then the Montlake Cut. Our most important priority throughout the process has been continuing to offer high quality instruction in History to as many University of Washington undergraduates as possible. Fortunately, although some other elements of the Department’s functioning have had to be cut, next year we will be offering as many courses, and as many seats in courses, as we have in the past. The Department has begun a multi-year study of our curriculum to see how we can maximize our teaching resources in a time of constrained budgets, and we will be holding workshops and faculty meetings on this question next year. I look forward to the outcome.
We are, as always, very grateful to friends of History who have stepped in this past year and in earlier years to support us. Such support will make it possible for us to offer several interesting public programs this year. Throughout next year, the Department will be sponsoring a series of films, lectures, and exhibits to commemorate the seventieth anniversary of the conclusion of the Spanish Civil War. We will also be sponsoring a series of lectures on the development of the social sciences in the twentieth century. In the Winter, Professor Carol Thomas will deliver the History Alumni lectures, tentatively entitled “The Pleasures of Greece: Myth Becomes History,” and in the Spring, Professor Brian Linn of Texas A & M University will deliver the Annual Military Lecture. As soon as times and places are available, we shall publicize them. All will be open to the public; in fact it is only through the generous support of the community that we have been able to offer such rich fare in lean times. We will also offer our traditional reading groups for Access students led by Department faculty members.
I must report with great sadness the death this July of Howard Keller. Howard and Frances have been for many years the angels of the Department. Several cohorts of new professors have been able to finish their books and establish their new courses with support from the Keller Research Fund. Some of our very best teachers have been honored with the Howard and Frances Keller Endowed Professorship, and in this capacity created new courses and developed research emphases. We shall miss Howard very much and work hard to sustain the excellence that his donations have made possible.
A recent report on the History major done for the American Historical Association stressed that History is above all the study of contingency, of unplanned events. No one could have planned on a budget crisis this year, and no one has a crystal ball showing what opportunities and crises the future will bring. Perhaps the only certainty is that History continues, and at the University of Washington it will remain strong.
R. Kent Guy
Professor and Chair