05/06/08 - Vaught honored with University Professorship for Undergraduate Teaching Excellence

David Vaught, associate professor of history, has been awarded a Melbern G. Glasscock University Professorship for Undergraduate Teaching Excellence.

The award is conferred only upon the university’s most distinguished teachers of undergraduates who have exhibited uncommon excellence and devotion to the education of undergraduate students of Texas A&M University. Six faculty members received UPUTE awards this year.

Vaught was nominated by Dean Charles Johnson and recommended by an ad hoc committee and the Dean of Faculties for selection.

Vaught’s letters of recommendation often mentioned his dedication to each individual student, his effective organization and management of a class, and the captivating way he holds the attention and interest of students.

Vaught won an Association of Former Students Distinguished Achievement Award in Teaching in 2006. That same year, his HIST 105, “History of the United States to 1877,” was identified as a “best practices” course and labeled “exemplary” by the College Board Advanced Placement Best Practices Study.

The appointment is for a period of three years and carries an annual salary supplement of $5,000, as well as an annual discretionary income to support the recipient's teaching program and related professional development.

Vaught received his Ph.D. in history from the University of California, Davis, in 1997 and joined Texas A&M that same year. He specializes in American agriculture, labor, and the Gilded Age and Progressive Era. He is the author of Cultivating California: Growers, Specialty Crops, and Labor, 1875-1920 (1999) and After the Gold Rush: Tarnished Dreams In the Sacramento Valley (2007). Vaught’s current book project has the working title, Country Hardball: America’s Rural Pastime since 1839.


Contact: Holly Lambert, hollyalyselambert@libarts.tamu.edu, 979.862.4879