History Grad Hired by the United States Naval Academy Library

Mr. Marshall Odell (History ’15) has used his UB undergraduate degree, plus experience working at Langsdale Library, to get hired at the storied Nimitz Library at the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis.  No graduate degree required!

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Archival photo from the USNA Web site: https://www.usna.edu/Library/sca/ve-archives/academics.php

Odell says the combination of his history major and his work experience was “what really made the difference” in his application for the Library Technician position.   Making more than he did in his previous career in banking, Odell now can immerse himself in American military history, saying, “there is a treasure trove” of history at the library that could keep him busy exploring the collections for decades.

Marshall’s UB history professors, Langsdale Library colleagues, and friends wish him the best of luck with his new full-time job with the Navy!

UB Area on Google Maps:

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Click on this link to see what our conference building looks like from Mt. Royal Ave:  William H. Thumel Sr. Business Center

A Selection of Hotels in the Neighborhood:

Hotel Brexton

Biltmore Suites

Hotel Indigo

There are also many large hotels in the Inner Harbor area (south of campus), just a short Uber or bus ride away.  The Charm City Circulator bus travels up Charles St. for free.  Take the Purple route from the Inner Harbor to Biddle St. or Penn Station.

 

 

The 2017 Phi Alpha Theta Mid-Atlantic Conference at the University of Baltimore

Information about the regional conference, taking place at UB on Saturday, April 22, 2017pat-logo

Click to download the Conference Program!

Registration Instructions:

To register for the 2017 Mid-Atlantic conference, please send a check for $30 per individual,  made out to the University of Baltimore (write in memo note: 2017 Phi Alpha Theta Conference) to the following mailing address:

University of Baltimore
Attn: Edward Allen, Finance Manager
1420 N. Charles St.
Baltimore, MD 21201

Please write your institution name in the return address on your envelope.   Once you have mailed your registration payment, email the UB chapter organizer, Dr. Nicole Hudgins, at nhudgins@ubalt.edu, so that she can form an attendee list.

Getting to Campus:

UB is located between the Mt. Vernon and Station North neighborhoods in Baltimore City, between Penn Station (to the north) and the Maryland Institute College of Art (to the west).  The campus is split by Mt. Royal Ave., but the conference will take place in just one building, the Business Center (#9 on the Campus Map).

UB Area Map

UB Campus Map

Parking at UB

Make a Weekend of It!  A Selection of Tourism Web Guides:

Visit Baltimore

BaltimoreEats: Mt. Vernon

Baltimore Collegetown

The dazzling Walters Museum of Art

The breathtaking Peabody Library

The History faculty in the Division of Legal, Ethical and Historical Studies at UB is looking forward to meeting visiting P.A.T. faculty and students!

 

 

 

History Students Learn about Our Low Gas Prices from the Experts

Apologies for the length of time since our last blog post!  The historians in the Division of Legal, Ethical and Historical Studies and their students have been busy, busy, busy with activity.

Most recently, on March 2nd, 2016, students in Prof. Yi’s History of U.S. Foreign Relations class took a field trip to the Capitol Hill to witness a hearing of the U.S. Senate Committee on Foreign Relations on “Economic and Geopolitical Implications of Low Oil and Gas Prices.” It was a rewarding time for students to see how Congress set a foreign policy agenda and worked to accomplish it. The trip was made possible by the generous support of Helen T. Helen P. Denit Honors program which encouraged enhanced learning experience for students.  

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Students in “The History of U.S. Foreign Relations” at the Capitol in Washington, D.C.

 

Nearby History

 

IMG_1399Students in the Introduction to Public History did not have to go far to see an example of best public history practice this week. One floor up from their classroom in the Learning Commons, students got a close look at an exhibit created by UB history professor Nicole Hudgins and Langsdale librarian Ben Blake who combed Langsdale’s Special Collections for materials on the history of Baltimore’s Cultural Arts program. The exhibit shows that you can achieve professional results on a tight budget.

Dr. Nix Sits on the Commission to Review Confederate Monuments

 

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Dr. Nix has been listening intently to public opinion about Baltimore’s four Confederate monuments on city property since she was appointed to a commission made up of members of the Commission of the Arts and the Commission of Historical and Architectural Preservation. The Confederate Soldiers and Sailors Monument, pictured above, is within walking distance of UB on Mt. Royal Avenue.

 

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Roger B. Taney sits on Mt. Vernon Square.

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The Confederate Women of Maryland monument is at the corner of University Parkway and Charles Street.

On the evening of December 15 the commission heard public testimony for three hours at City Hall. Suggestions ranged from keeping them just as they are to throwing them in the Inner Harbor. Some thought they should be supplemented by artwork that provides a different narrative of the Civil War.

 

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Some suggested moving the Lee Jackson statue that now stands across from the Baltimore Museum of Art to Chancellorsville since the statue commemorates the moments just before that battle.

Here’s a news story about the public testimony:

Public Commentary on December 15, 2015

Learn more about the Commission here:

http:/http://baltimoreplanning.wix.com/monumentcommission

Add your ideas about what should happen to the statues.

UB History Grad Now Second Lieutenant in the U.S. Army

UB History faculty heard that Miguel Martinez (History, 2013) made it through the “gold bar” stage of training to attain the rank of Second Lieutenant in the U.S. Army.  Miguel says that he left for his Basic Officer Leadership Course at Fort Lee (VA) just two weeks after graduating with his history degree and that “it’s been a whirlwind since.”  After he graduated from BOLC he headed to Fort Benning (GA) to take his first platoon.  Miguel has also been to the National Training Center at Fort Irwin (CA) as an attachment to another brigade in his division, and is now running a motor pool for the Cavalry squadron.

Miguel was a great History student at UB, and we know he is putting his global knowledge and skills to use as an officer in the Army.

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Fort Lee in Virginia is the site of the U.S. Army Quartermaster Museum.  Recruitment poster in the museum’s collection.

Freshmen in HIST 290 Get to Know Their Bay

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In the past few decades Baltimoreans have viewed their harbor as a playground — a backdrop for urban festival spaces, seafood restaurants and multi-million dollar penthouses. But for most of Baltimore’s history, the harbor was primarily a vital working port, the economic engine of the entire region.

This semester freshmen in the Learning Community “Know Your Bay” are tracing the history of Baltimore as a port city and its role in the Chesapeake region. On the first day of class they made the trip down Charles Street to the Inner Harbor to survey the harbor from the top of the World Trade Center. In September, thanks to a generous grant from UB alumna Marie van Deusen, the class spent the day on the water aboard the Lady Maryland, a replica of a pungy schooner.  The crew showed us the work that would have been done on this type of cargo boat during the 19th century.

Students in the learning community continue their hands-on experiences in internships throughout the city. Some are working with Blue Water Baltimore on environmental projects; others are training to become eco-tour guides in the Inner Harbor. By the end of the semester they will produce public service campaigns to highlight a solution to an urban problem they have encountered in their studies.

 

“Knowledge @ Work,” the fourth annual alumni event presented by the Division of Legal, Ethical, and Historical Studies at UB, was a wonderful evening this past Thursday.  Every October, UB’s History, Jurisprudence, Legal and Ethical Studies majors, and pre-majors, are invited to visit with program alumni who have parleyed their degrees into exciting careers here in the region.

This year, we had a panelist from each of LEHS’s programs:  Luke McCusker (History ’11) is the director of the Irish Railroad Workers Museum in Baltimore.  David C. Butler, Jr. (LEST ’09) manages an office in the U.S. Social Security Administration in Woodlawn, MD.  And Hannah Dawson (Jurisprudence ’12) is an attorney who works in the Office of Disability Adjudication and Review, also part of the Social Security Administration.

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Alumni David Butler, Luke McCusker, and Hannah Dawson turned legal, ethical, and historical skills into great jobs.

 

These outstanding alumni talked about how their reading, writing, research, and communication skills, honed at UB, helped them find fulfilling positions, and helped them get promoted once on the job.  UB students who attended the event took the opportunity to network and pose their own school and career questions.  They also got to meet and chat with CAS dean Chris Spencer, a history major herself who went on to have a career in public health and higher education administration.

Knowledge I

History, Jurisprudence, and LEST students socialize with Dean Spencer over nachos and buffalo wings at the “Knowledge @ Work” event.

 

Many thanks to Dr. Yi for taking photos at the event, and Lyndsay Bates for helping make the event this year a success.

 

A Palace for Readers

Baltimore students have the reputation of showing no interest in visiting D.C., though our experience with students in the Division of Legal, Ethical and Historical Studies contradicts that rumor.  Historians and philosophers in the division have accompanied eager students to the Capitol building, the White House, and other spots along the National Mall over the years.
In this post I want to talk about my very favorite building in D.C., the beautiful Library of Congress — specifically, the Jefferson Building, which is the original library.*

LOCa

Not being a poet, it’s difficult for me to put into words the love, craftsmanship, and vision of beauty that went into the Jefferson Building’s adornment during the 1890s and early 20th century.  The painted murals, ceilings, ornamental sculpture, and Neo-Renaissance architectural flourishes give evidence of a time in American history when nothing could be more glamorous, more patriotic, than a people’s library packed with centuries of accumulated knowledge from around the world.

LOCb

The Main Reading Room

 

LOCc

The Muse of Tragedy, Melpomene

I want to bring your attention to a couple of visuals in the Library, which might surprise you.  When visiting the Main Reading Room, crane your neck back to look at the paintings on the ceiling of the central dome.  The paintings make up a collar mural entitled Evolution of Civilization.

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It’s difficult to see in a pixelated reproduction, but what the painter, Edwin Blashfield, did was to paint twelve allegorical figures representing the cultures to which the United States was heir.  These figures include Egypt, Greece, Rome, France, England, Germany, and Italy — the ancient and modern powers that you might expect as “predecessors” to the United States.  What might cause more surprise for readers staring up from their books, though, is the figure between Rome and the Middle Ages, namely Islam.
The figure — centrally located in the Library — reminds us that the “othering” of Islam from Western Civilization is of recent vintage.   Here the artist deliberately included Islam in the cultural “family” of great contributors to human culture, here identified as bearing the gift of “Physics.” (France has the label “Emancipation” and Judea “Religion”).
Lest the visitor think the collar mural figure a fluke, careful study will reveal several spots throughout the Library that pay tribute to Arab, African, Asian, and even Native American learning.

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“Oral Tradition” by John W. Alexander (East Mosaic Corridor)

 

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Tibetan Head (one of 33 busts on the exterior of the Jefferson Building)

Something else unavoidable about the Library’s decoration is the fact that the natural sciences and the arts are worshipped equally with loving treatment from the painters and sculptors of the period.  Compare here “The Light of Astronomy” with “The Light of Poetry” by Carl Gutherz (b. 1844, d. 1907):

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We are reminded of a time in the past when poetry, literature, and drama were exalted no less than the sciences.  The industrial techniques of the workplace were placed below those classical liberal arts, at their proper level as means rather than ends.  Imagine that.
This reader’s palace belongs to every citizen of the United States.  The art is accessible for viewing Monday through Saturday from 8:30am-4:30pm (5pm for researchers), excluding holidays.  You must get a free reader’s card in the Madison Building in order to use the Library’s books and materials.  The mind-boggling wealth of materials (digital and printed) at the Library of Congress is a topic for another time.

* All images used here are in the public domain or from the Library of Congress Web site.