History department faculty has success on national and international stage

Walter Buenger, history department head, encouraged his faculty to apply for research awards. The result? Success.

When History Professor Walter Buenger took over as interim head of the department in 2002, he wanted to facilitate and encourage the faculty to compete for national and international research awards.

That year he implemented a program to encourage faculty to apply for awards, grants, and fellowships. Selected faculty received one-half month’s summer salary to work on a grant or fellowship application. Another group of faculty earned one-half month’s salary to read and critique grant applications. Once a faculty member won an award, the department and the College of Liberal Arts provided funding to make sure that individual received his or her full salary.

Five years and 32 awards later, Buenger thinks the program has caught on.

“This program was a way to change how faculty thought about grant applications,” he said. “Most history faculty now apply for a grant or fellowship as a matter of course. After seeing their neighbors down the hall win a grant or fellowship they believe that they can do the same thing.”

After faculty receive awards, grants or fellowships Buenger congratulates them with an email to the department. He also advertises the program’s success in Perspectives, the monthly magazine of the American Historical Association.

“In this case success really does breed success,” said Buenger.

article by Erin Wood

Below is a list of history faculty and the awards they received.

2003

Daniel E. Bornstein: Fellow of the National Humanities Center, 2003-04

Leor Halevi: American Council of Learned Societies, Library of Congress Fellowship in International Studies, 2003-2004

Pekka Hämäläinen: Helsinki Collegium for Advanced Study, 2003-2005 April L. Hatfield: Newberry Library Fellowship for Individual Research; American Historical Association, Michael Kraus Research Award, 2003

April L. Hatfield: Newberry Library Fellowship for Individual Research; American Historical Association, Michael Kraus Research Award, 2003

Walter D. Kamphoefner: American Philosophical Society, Sabbatical Fellowship for the Humanities and Social Sciences, 2003-2004

Brian M. Linn: Fellow of the John Simon Guggenheim Foundation, 2003-2004

Di Wang: American Council of Learned Societies, National Program for Advanced Study and Research in China, 2003

2004

Armando Alonzo: O’Connor Visiting Chair of Spanish Colonial History of Texas, St. Mary’s University

Dale Baum: Fulbright Award to Korea

Troy Bickham: Bernadotte E. Schmitt Grant from the American Historical Association; Franklin Grant from the American Philosophical Society

Albert S. Broussard: Langston Hughes Visiting Professor, University of Kansas

Leor Halevi: Malcolm H. Kerr Award from the Middle East Studies Association

Brian M. Linn: Fellow of the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars

Di Wang: Fellow of the Johns Hopkins-Nanjing Center for Chinese and American Studies

2005

Carlos Blanton: Coral H. Tullis Award by the Texas State Historical Association

Lauren Clay: National Endowment for the Humanities Summer Stipend

Leah DeVun: Huntington Library, Francis Bacon Foundation Visiting Fellow; UCLA Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies, Summer Fellow

Leor Halevi: John W. Kluge Fellowship at the Library of Congress; Franklin Research Grant from the American Philosophical Society

April Hatfield: McNeil Center for Early American Studies, Barra Postdoctoral Fellowship

David Vaught: National Endowment for the Humanities Summer Stipend

Di Wang: Grant of the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science

2006

Troy Bickham: W.M. Keck Foundation Fellowship for Young Scholars, Huntington Library

Leah DeVun: Friedrich Solmsen Fellow, Institute for Research in the Humanities, University of Wisconsin, Madison

Thomas R. Dunlap: National Science Foundation Scholar’s Grant

Anthony Mora: Visiting Scholar, American Academy of Arts and Sciences

Jason C. Parker: Mershon Center Postdoctoral Fellow, Ohio State University

David Vaught: Webb-Smith Essay Prize, University of Texas, Arlington

Di Wang: Fellow of the National Humanities Center; 2005 Best Book in Non-North American Urban History, Urban History Association

2007

James C. Bradford: K. Jack Bauer Award, North American Society for Oceanic History

Benjamin C. Brower: Member, School of Science at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, New Jersey

Lauren R. Clay: James L. Clifford Prize, American Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies

Di Wang: Top Ten Best Books Published in China in 2006, Zhonghua Dushu Bao

2008

Lauren R. Clay: National Endowment for the Humanities Fellowship for University Teachers

Thomas R. Dunlap: Fellow, Forest History Society

Leor Halevi: National Endowment for the Humanities Fellowship for University Teachers; Albert Hourani Book Award, Middle East Studies Association