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:
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.
Information about the regional conference, taking place at UB on Saturday, April 22, 2017
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).
Make a Weekend of It! A Selection of Tourism Web Guides:
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!
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.
Students in “The History of U.S. Foreign Relations” at the Capitol in Washington, D.C.
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.
Fort Lee in Virginia is the site of the U.S. Army Quartermaster Museum. Recruitment poster in the museum’s collection.
“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.
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.
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.
The Main Reading Room
The Muse of Tragedy, Melpomene
“Oral Tradition” by John W. Alexander (East Mosaic Corridor)
Tibetan Head (one of 33 busts on the exterior of the Jefferson Building)
* All images used here are in the public domain or from the Library of Congress Web site.
History major Audrey Hayes is a U.S. Army Specialist who has contributed seven photo-illustrated news stories to the Defense Video & Imagery Distribution System (DVIDS), a Web site for U.S. military and its partners’ news. The DVIDS site “is provided as a public service operated by Third Army/U.S. Army Central (ARCENT) on behalf of the Department of the Army in support of all branches of the U.S. military and its Coalition partners serving with U.S. Forces in the Central Command (CENTCOM) area of responsibility and throughout the world,” explains the Web site.
As part of the 214th Mobile Public Affairs Detachment, Hayes has photographed Army exercises in the U.S. and Europe, where she was stationed in Poland in 2014. She says that studying history at UB has enhanced her love of investigating stories, and when the chance came to join a reporting unit in the Army Reserves, she grabbed it. Hayes hopes to head back to Europe in that capacity some day.
History faculty members agree with Hayes that the research skills and global knowledge cultivated in the major make journalism a natural career choice. In the digital world of social media, we need critical thinkers who can determine the “Who, What, When, and Where” of a story, and analyze the “Why” by tracing the roots of the world’s problems, conflicts, and reconciliations.
A Polish color guard prepares to raise their nation’s flag alongside American Soldiers, as they assemble to pay tribute to the Polish Independence day and American Veterans Day, Nov. 10, 2014, at the parade field on Zlocieniec Army Base. U.S. Soldiers have been in Poland participating in training with the Polish army as part of Operation Atlantic Resolve. OAR is a demonstration of our continued commitment to the collective security of NATO and dedication to the enduring peace and stability in the region, in light of the Russian intervention in Ukraine specifically. (U.S. Army Photo by Spc. Audrey Ann Hayes)
Mr. Luke F. McCusker, UB History grad of 2011, is now Managing Director of the Irish Railroad Workers Museum in Baltimore. The museum is situated within a group of 5 alley houses where the Irish immigrants who worked for the adjoining B&O Railroad lived. Two of the houses, 918 and 920 Lemmon St., are the museum. A significant Irish presence established itself in Southwest Baltimore during and following the Irish Potato Famine of the 1840s.
Under the direction of the museum’s board of directors, McCusker interprets an Irish immigrant home of the 1870s, and develops the family’s story for presentation to visitors. He says that the history major helped him develop critical thinking and “a heart for research and the ability to communicate my findings” clearly and concisely. When asked what advice he has for new history graduates, McCusker says that becoming “as comfortable with technology as you can” will give you an edge. The UB history faculty agrees that public history has become closely linked to digital history.
Emigrants Leave Ireland, engraving by Henry Doyle (1827–1893), from Mary Frances Cusack’s Illustrated History of Ireland, 1868.
On Wednesday, April 15, UB students in HIST 420 “America since 1940” took a day-long field trip to Capitol Hill in D.C. to observe Senate floor discussion, and attend a hearing at the Senate Committee on Armed Services, entitled, “National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) Plans and Programs.” The conversation that Dr. Yi and her students had with a Senate docent and the subject of the hearing itself were intriguing enough, but the trip became even more memorable due to two incidents that happened during their trip.
This happened to be the day that Congress honored the Doolittle Raiders with the Congressional Gold Medal, and the students were able to take part in the ceremony.
Coincidentally, a gyrocopter landed on the Capitol lawn while they were in the building. But despite the unusual incident, the our UB group was able to return to campus safely and on time!
After the trip, students wrote essays for class analyzing the Senate hearing as a primary source, and proposing an appropriate budget for the Armed Services committee. As an Enhanced course at UB (open to both honors and non-honors students), HIST 420 benefited from the support of the Helen P. Denit Honors program, which funded the group’s transportation.
Jessica Swadow (grad. 2011) tells Dr. Hudgins that she will be completing her third year at UB Law School and is clerking full time at SBW (short for Schlachman, Belsky & Weiner, headquartered on Lombard Street). When asked how her history degree helped prepare her, Swadow says, “I have found that my research and writing skills learned at UB have helped to prepare me for law school and work.” If law school and full-time work weren’t enough, she has also been working as a research assistant for one of her law professors.
“My background in historical research has been immensely helpful in this area,” she says. Swadow is helping her professor research a book about the intersection of secular and religious laws as they pertain to kosher frauds and scandals. “I am able to efficiently and quickly find primary and secondary sources due in large part to the extensive research and writing I did at UB as a history major.” The history faculty feel pretty confident that Jessica will be as successful with her budding legal career as she was in our history program.
Are you a History program alum with news about your studies or your career? Please contact Dr. Hudgins at nhudgins@ubalt.edu