|
|
 |
|
From the Editor
Michael J. Galgano This combined issue for October and December includes a range of timely essays for departments of history. Professor Arthur Haberman of York University opens with a rich discussion of teaching dossiers and their value to departments and faculty. Such dossiers have become the norm at his institution and he offers sound arguments for expanding the practice here. Professor Margaret Strobel of the University of Illinois at Chicago examines a new program to encourage academic and community cooperation in creating archives for research and documentation. Though not directly discussed, this essay presents an important model for departments seeking ways to establish service-learning components for history majors. The internship experiences outlined near the end of Professor Strobel's article could be readily adapted in that way. Dr. Joseph P. Harahan of the On-Site Inspection Agency suggests a range of career possibilities in the public sector for historians and also proposes a new way for departments to view the curriculum by integrating public history short courses and workshops for majors. In times of shrinking resources, the idea merits close consideration. Professor Eric Johnson of Dakota State University further develops the concept of meeting instructional needs within increasing economic constraints with an overview of his summer distance-learning course in the humanities. As more and more departments are being asked to explore or implement this technology, his essay indicates some possible approaches and techniques. Finally, Professor Christopher Lovett reminds those fortunate departments engaged in searches for new positions of the law regarding affirmative action and Vietnam veterans. Michael J. Galgano is Chair, Department of History, James Madison University, Harrisonburg, VA 22807 <galganmj@jmu.edu> On Teaching Dossiers Arthur Haberman If we all know that the unexamined life is not worth living, then it is remarkable to think about how the role of teaching in the university setting had been handled so casually by many departments and institutions until only recently. Left to individuals, institutions often assumed that the teaching function of the university would look after itself, some kind of invisible hand intervening in those few horribly awkward public moments that caused us to cringe. While many great teachers developed -- I certainly had my share -- and many groups of faculty worked together to foster the learning environment and the development of teaching models and innovations, it was left to the subcultures of departments to work at these matters. My own experience some decades ago, being hired out of graduate school to teach at a major university without ever having taught a single class, may not be representative, yet it certainly was not thought to be odd. Roughly a decade ago in Canada, and in the early 1990's in many places in the United States, support for the development of teaching began to be institutionalized. At York University in Toronto, a Centre for the Support of Teaching was formally established in 1989. Its activities include running over thirty workshops a year, publishing a newsletter in teaching and pedagogy, coordinating a University Teaching Practicum for graduate students, organizing conferences, managing consulting networks on teaching, conducting retreats and seminars for faculties, departments and cohorts of instructors, organizing mentoring, and, simply, being available to individual instructors for counsel, advice and support. Other institutional practices have occurred. These include the introduction of teaching awards, funding research to improve teaching, and the publication of analyses of student experiences at York by its Institute of Social Research. Still, it is certain that one of the practices of which is doing most to enhance and develop teaching at York is the encouragement and use of teaching dossiers by all instructors as a means of self-reflection and a way of documenting major strengths and accomplishments. The purposes of a teaching dossier are many, some institutional, some personal. At its most pragmatic level, it enables an instructor to document teaching for use in promotion and tenure exercises, grant submissions, merit competitions, job applications, and awards. Given the common notion that teaching cannot be well documented, unlike research which somehow is seen to be measured easily and objectively, this is no small accomplishment. An instrument which permits others to make a fair evaluation of your teaching accomplishments over the years is good for both the individual and the institution. However, there are other purposes: to stimulate self-reflection on teaching; to develop modes of analysis which foster growth and development; to provide opportunities and strategies for change. Teaching dossiers, then, can be summative, formative, or blend elements of both. The summative evaluation is the one best known and the one usually most desired by the department or the institution. It highlights achievements, serves as an official record, usually includes the results of evaluations done at the end of a course which are recorded as statistics, and summarizes strengths. Like one's CV it says, sometimes shouts, "Look what I have done." Macho stuff. Indeed, in the context of many settings in higher education, the summative evaluation is most often conducted at the end of a course as a way of assessing performance. Some summative instruments might serve other purposes, for example, an assessment form at the end of a course which encourages student responses on how a course might be changed, or asking which materials and techniques were most effective, to be used by an instructor in redesigning the course the next time it is taught. For some, just putting together an expansive summative record can be a spur to self-reflection and self-evaluation. The formative dossier, or even a formative exercise which becomes part of a larger dossier, has some different initial purposes. It charts development rather than accomplishment, is originated as a way of improving teaching and learning, is highly self-reflective and developmental, encourages experimentation and taking risks as part of the teaching process, and usually involves the active participation of colleagues. Formative evaluations are initiated by the instructor to discover what changes might be made in teaching style or methods. Often, the most interesting and valuable summative dossiers are those which include materials which began as formative exercises. At York, pains are taken to distinguish between summative and formative evaluation. It is the individual instructor who uses the information gathered in formative evaluations, and that information is not used in summative assessments unless provided by the instructor. We even caution that individuals who are involved in formative assessments for purposes of assisting colleagues ought not to be asked to provide that sort of information for summative purposes. The importance of providing a safe and trusting environment for formative evaluations cannot be over-emphasized. Some of the most successful team-taught courses at York are those in which the instructors have developed an open, collegial, trusting environment. Not only instructors have benefited. Students in the course quickly pick up and emulate the respect for open dialogue and the willingness to take risks in front of one's colleagues. A typical summative dossier includes sections on one's approach to teaching, a summary of teaching contributions, and evaluation. The approach to teaching section usually begins with a statement on one's teaching philosophy. This should be general and ought to deal with the values one brings to teaching and the classroom. In our discipline, one might discuss the importance of historical study, the development of critical skills, the establishment of a climate of active learning, the creation of a learning environment which is both challenging and supportive, the relationship of the discipline to larger issues in the community and in the development of personal and civic goals, and the importance of having students become autonomous learners, even become colleagues over time. Teaching practices follow. These include: teaching methods (e.g., lectures, small group/discussion, collaborative inquiry, special forms of pedagogy, exercises in critical skill development); procedures used in evaluation of students (e.g., participation, assignments, examination methods); lists of course materials, especially unusual materials designed to support teaching goals (e.g., exercises in critical skills such as strategy sheets, document based analyses, pre-writing guides); and teaching developments undertaken, including courses designed and taught, their rationale and pedagogical innovations, special assignments, course objectives and means of assessment, and curricular changes and innovations, including those which incorporate recent methodologies and innovations in the classroom. In this last part some colleagues include appendices as illustrations of course goals, styles and practices. Indeed, there is much to be learned from reading several carefully constructed teaching dossiers -- not simply about one's colleagues, but from one's colleagues. My own teaching, unabashedly, though with permission and acknowledgment, includes variations on assignments and learning practices developed by my colleagues. No longer can we take seriously the answer given by one colleague at a meeting which raised the issue of the dossier: "Why bother. I have students read books and then we talk about them." This from a serious teacher who in his next sentence lamented the lack of consciousness of his students. The first section concludes with professional development, those activities undertaken to improve one's effectiveness as a teacher. It could be as direct as having attended various seminars, workshops and conferences, to a discussion of provisions made by an individual to improve the classroom, such as using the one-minute paper or serial evaluation techniques. Working with colleagues is also highly encouraged. Some of us at York have developed skills in team-teaching, especially in inter-disciplinary studies (or, in History, in new areas which demand the expertise of several specialists). Some colleagues enter into peer-pairing partnerships as ways of getting open formative feedback aimed at improving teaching. In the second section of the dossier, some colleagues list courses taught, with specific information relevant to a consideration of the dossier by individuals who may have little knowledge of the discipline. Others develop a special part on teaching goals and pedagogical practices, inserting material I would include in the first section of the dossier. Still, in this section one includes parts on classroom teaching, undergraduate and graduate supervision, student achievement, and teaching awards and nominations. Teaching related activities are discussed, including departmental committee work, professional development provided for colleagues, and any role in developing departmental resources. It is here that one includes a part on publications and professional contributions in developing theory and practice of teaching, including workshop presentations and curriculum development. The last section is on evaluation. Included are summaries of teaching evaluations initiated by the faculty or department. If possible, it is useful to include "objective" statistical information, including mean scores of the representative group for comparative purposes. It is also very useful to include letters from students or comments taken from evaluation forms at random, as well as peer evaluations. When this information is collected by the department, as it often is for tenure and promotion purposes, it carries some real status. At York the teaching dossier has a special meaning and status for young faculty and graduate students, and it is certain the dossier will be used in greater numbers and with greater weight in the future. The culture of teaching among our graduate students is very different than it was, say, a decade ago. In 1989 a graduate credit course titled "University Teaching and Learning" was begun, whose objectives are to engage students in pedagogical issues and workshop situations, preparing them for university teaching. And in January 1994 the graduate program at York began the University Teaching Practicum, whose goal is to provide opportunities for candidates to develop the knowledge and engage in the practices required for effective university teaching. The practicum, coordinated with each department's interests, resources, and needs, takes place over a lengthy period of time, a minimum of two years. One of its elements, an "unexpected" one according to those who supervise the practicum, was the centrality of the teaching dossier. All students -- by now some 300, including over a score who completed the practicum -- generate formative dossiers throughout the experience as evidence of their development and considerations. These dossiers, revised and turned into summative documents, are important for job applicants, and provide significant evidence of teaching ability, experience, development and potential. So for this generation of graduate students, the teaching dossier is a normal part of their graduate experience, part of the ordinary baggage of every Ph.D. candidate in the Arts, as natural as the CV, the summary statement of research interests and goals, or the ability to work in WordPerfect or Microsoft Word. Their pedagogical training is far more extensive and serious than that of any previous group, and their expectations about the importance of self-reflection and collegiality in teaching will do much in the near future to transform the teaching culture of departments and faculty. Teaching dossiers cut many ways. The summative dossier, used in tenure and promotion matters, in job applications, and for submissions for teaching recognition can sometimes be viewed as a tasteless exercise in hyperbole, especially if compiled solely by the applicant. Often, summative documents are put together by a unit, with some controls over content and organization. A good dossier is much more than a list. Like a CV or a grant application, it reveals commitment and intelligence, and can tell a great deal about the applicant. The dossier should be well thought out in its reflective section, and show evidence of concern about university teaching. It should be specific in its section in strategies and techniques to enhance teaching and learning, and show command of conceptual content and interesting materials. The good dossier reveals a commitment to critical skills development: setting goals for students, strategies used in the classroom and in assignments, even an elaboration of the kinds of skills to be learned, from simply writing better essays to modes of investigation, analysis and synthesis. Higher order of pedagogy should at least be implicit. Used well and honestly, the summative dossier has an institutional role for the university, the department and the individual. Finally an instrument is available, by now refined and respected, to present the teaching component of the life of a professional academic, in a way which combines all elements of teaching, uses the "voice" of the subject, and goes far beyond impressionistic moments, corridor wisdom and just plain gossip. It is impossible seriously to revert ever again to the argument that teaching can never be evaluated well, or that we all do the same thing so why bother. The formative dossier is, among other things, an exercise in life-writing. Used well, it is an example of self-development, a willingness to test assumptions, a kind of experimentation, occasionally on the edge, a dialogue with the self -- and even with some of one's colleagues and students -- about where we might want to go and how to get there. Its charm and its danger lie in its admission of vulnerability and a sense that things can be made better. Its victories are to be celebrated. Colleagues who are willing to share their formative dossiers help others to become better teachers: from simply opening up the fact that one has some fear and self-doubt, to clarifying how a pedagogical problem might be solved, how a goal might be reached. York's history department mandates that its undergraduate majors take a first year history course which has at its core questions central to the discipline: how do we do history, what skills do we use, how are these skills learned and applied, how do we construct and transmit the past. Indeed, the several choices of courses offered to our students vary widely in content, but all new first year courses are scrutinized for this methodological requirement, and ongoing courses are gently reminded about it every so often. We are thus asking our students to become self-reflective about the enterprise and the discipline, and as a result they will grow, with enough nurturing and desire, into people who can do history. This self-reflection is at the core of the teaching dossier. The teaching that we do is, of course, not only about some fixed past. It is about skills, values, ways of assessment and judgment, communicating ideas, excellence in our profession and social justice in our civic lives. In a university we do history and we teach history. The dossier is an exercise which makes us better scholars and transmitters of the past. My own guess is that as our younger colleagues use the dossier as part of any legitimate apprenticeship in graduate school, it will in the next generation be a professional given, ordinary, and that too will enhance the teaching culture. No longer will it be possible to suggest that university teaching is something that needs little reflection virtually no serious institutional support or recognition. We have an obligation to ask of ourselves that which we ask of our students. Arthur Haberman is Associate Professor of History at Founders College, York University, North York, Ontario, Canada M3J 1P3;arthurh@yorku.ca Don't Throw it Away! Documenting and Preserving Organizational History Margaret Strobel "Don't Throw It Away! Documenting and Preserving Organizational History" is an initiative at the University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC) designed to encourage community-based organizations to think about establishing an archives and act accordingly. It represents the collaborative efforts of Professors Gretchen Lagana and Mary Ann Bamberger, Special Collections Department, UIC Main University Library, and Margaret Strobel, Women's Studies Program and Department of History. "Don't Throw It Away!" seeks to alert grassroots, community-based organizations to preserve the materials that document their activities; for, the history of the issues and movements they are involved in will be written without their input and, most likely, from a perspective other than their own. Grassroots activists typically work under conditions that are not conducive to an orderly, ongoing process of accumulating and filing documents of historical importance. Activist organizations are often poorly funded, which means that scarce money goes to purchase paper for next week's leaflet rather than acid-free folders and boxes. Overworked staffers operate on a triage principle, so that sorting through old papers is subordinated to putting out the most recent grass fire. Meeting the urgent needs of people in crisis -- finding shelter for a homeless family, counseling a pregnant teenager -- is so much more compelling than designing an archives system for identifying what sorts of documents should be routinely archived as they are created. And, relying upon sporadic volunteer workers increases the likelihood that any such system, once created, may be forgotten or ignored. Smaller, "flat" organizations with little division of labor or task specialization may find it hard to maintain adherence to an archives system in the face of frequent rotation of tasks among members. Despite these factors that militate against setting up an archives program, there are good reasons why grassroots organizations should do so. Funders often ask for a history of past activity in the area for which a grant is being sought. Once the activity is funded, the agency wants an accurate assessment of the activity, and having in place an archives system for ongoing preservation of key documents makes it easier to produce a proposal, report, or evaluation. In addition, as organizations mature, the founders often move on to other endeavors. The absence of archival files that explicate the changing mission and structure of an organization makes such leadership transitions even more problematic, as the newcomer struggles to understand the culture and dynamics of the group she or he is setting out to lead. As the social movement organizations of the 1960s and 1970s mature, they might use anniversaries to revitalize their membership or raise funds for ongoing and new projects. Such events are much easier to carry out if old membership lists are filed systematically and leaflets are dated and filed topically. Finally, archival records can be useful for legal purposes should the group become involved in litigation. These are some of the reasons why, representatives of several dozen organizations have participated in "Don't Throw It Away!" workshops. Three elements comprise the initiative: a workshop, a pamphlet, and a course. Four workshops have been held. Two of these were generic workshops for groups that share the desire the learn about archives but have no other necessary similarities. The other two workshops were tailored to the specific constituencies that requested them: the shelters and programs that are members of the Illinois Coalition Against Domestic Violence (ICADV) and the member centers of the National Council for Research on Women (NCRW). In these cases, the homogeneity of the audience allowed extra time on certain issues, for example how to deal with records that are of historical interest but raise concerns to preserve the privacy of individuals, in the case of the ICADV. The format of the typical four-hour workshop is as follows. Organizational representatives were asked to provide brief descriptions of their group's work and history, indicating whether the group at present has any archives system and what particular concerns they have about an archives. The workshop leaders direct different portions of the workshop, based upon their areas of expertise. Margaret Strobel discusses how historians use documents to draw conclusions and how the absence of documents limits and biases the kind of conclusions one can draw. She encourages organizations to augment their written records with interviews and videos of key persons, acquainting them briefly with the practical and legal aspects of donating such materials to a repository. Then, Gretchen Lagana (Associate Professor, Special Collections Librarian, and Curator of Jane Addams Hull-House) discusses the advantages and disadvantages of maintaining in-house archives compared with donating records to a repository. The benefits and drawbacks mirror one another. An organization that chooses to maintain its own archives has maximum control over who sees and uses those records and easy access to no longer current files. On the other hand, the organization has to absorb the costs in supplies and time of providing a secure environment: unauthorized persons should be prevented from using the records; those to whom the organization wishes to give access must be able to use them without damaging them or destroying their integrity (introducing new material or removing existing material); preservation must be assured by the purchase of appropriate acid-free supplies and storage away from the ravages of heat and water. Conversely, an organization that donates its records assumes that researchers will have access to the documents, according to whatever agreement is established in the deed of gift agreement between the repository and the organization. Also, repositories have staff trained to control access and monitor use of the materials in ways that assure the records' integrity and preservation. Professor Lagana concludes by explaining how to evaluate potential repositories -- what to look for and ask about in seeking the best place for a particular group's records. Next, Mary Ann Bamberger (Associate Professor and Assistant Special Collections Librarian) delves into the nuts and bolts of organizing organizational papers. Topics include: what kinds of documents should be kept and which kinds discarded and what principles should be used to group documents. Organizational representatives learn that records should be retained that have lasting historical value, that is, those which elucidate the group's origin, mission, priorities, structure, leadership, role within the community, and impact. Professor Bamberger also describes basic principles of preservation: how to minimize deterioration by storing records in acid-free folders and avoiding the use of tape. Some workshops conclude with a tour of UIC's Special Collections Department. The final component of the Don't Throw It Away! initiative is an experimental course first offered during the fall semester 1996. In this course, Professor Melvin Holli, who administers a unique teaching archive in the Department of History, and Margaret Strobel supervise eight students who are working as interns in a broad range of Chicago-area organizations. Professors Lagana and Bamberger conduct an onsite overview of the UIC Special Collections Department and its community-based archival and manuscript holdings. They also discuss a wide variety of reference works used with these collections. Additionally, they are serving as archive resource persons for the duration of the course. The students are given basic archival training based upon the Don't Throw It Away! pamphlet. There are sessions on understanding the process by which historians draw conclusions from documents, organizational dynamics (as they pertain both to the documentary record and to the people with whom the student intern is interacting), conducting oral history, and the planning of museum exhibits. In these sessions the instructors introduce subjects that we believe will prepare the students for encounters with a dark, dank room of 200+ boxes and no work space! Students are expected to do appropriate background reading on the organization and/or the issues or social movement related to the organization's work. They are expected to turn in a skeletal history of the organization and an archives management scheme, the length and depth of which will vary depending upon the group and the level of order or chaos in which the student finds the records. In addition to providing the organizations with assistance in developing their archives, the students will gain some practical experience as they devise a work plan and interact with the instructors and organization's leaders. Moreover, these students will be much more savvy when they become organizational leaders responsible for the records of a group or scholars conducting research in archives, if they should choose to do so. Don't Throw It Away! activities have received funding from UIC's Great Cities Initiative, which supports, in various ways, directing the university's researching, teaching, and service mission to the tasks of addressing urban problems and issues. The pamphlet Don't Throw It Away! Documenting and Preserving Organizational History, written by Sandra Florand Young, covers in twenty pages including appendices, many of the same points highlighted in the workshop. It is available for $3.00. Checks should be made out to the University of Illinois, and posted to Lisa Gomez, c/o Great Cities Institute, 108 GB, 322 S. Green Street, University of Illinois at Chicago, Chicago, IL 60607-3505, phone inquiries at 312/996-8700. Margaret Strobel is Professor of Women's Studies and History, University of Illinois at Chicago, Chicago, IL 60607-7137 u43611@uicvm.uic.edu Applied History in the Information Age Joseph P. Harahan "History is a central form of knowledge, it is the basis for describing and understanding contemporary reality." So wrote Stuart Hampshire a few years ago in The Future of Knowledge. When I first read this sentence, I knew from my work as a public historian that it held special meaning. What I did not know was how my research and writing in documenting contemporary arms control treaties would be seen in precisely this way. Recently in Washington I met and interviewed Colonel A. A. Mendygaliev, Deputy Director of Kazakstan's Arms Control Implementation Center. After introductions, he told me that a book I had written, On-Site Inspections Under the INF Treaty (1993) sat on the corner of his desk in Almaty, Kazakstan. Now, Kazakstan is more than 11,000 miles from my office in Washington; it is a new nation (1992), with a different language (Kazak), religion (Islam), and economy (agriculture and minerals). Yet, Colonel Mendygaliev insisted that the book was useful to him and his officers. It explained, he said, why and how the United States and the Soviet Union/Russia had negotiated, ratified, and implemented the Intermediate Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty. Kazakstan had many intermediate-range nuclear missile sites. Under the INF Treaty, Mendygaliev had escorted hundreds of American Inspectors monitoring the destruction of missiles and sites. He told all of his officers to read and study the American historian's book on the INF Treaty. The longer we talked, the more I came to understand that for this Kazakstani colonel my book was not about the past at all; it was, instead, "the basis for understanding contemporary reality." Not long ago, another reader, an American military officer, commented on a draft chapter in a more recent treaty history: "That is not history; that's my job." Public historians experience this intense reaction in some measure because they research, analyze, and write about contemporary issues. But many others, journalists, political scientists, international relations specialists, analysts, and all manner of staff experts, assert their professionalism as they research and publish in the contemporary arena. What makes history different is its methodology and the force of its descriptive narrative. In my experience, American public historians have had excellent university training in the value of documentary research, structured narratives, comprehensive bibliography, and the benefit of their colleagues reading and commenting on their manuscripts. So when the history is well done, it has a forceful immediacy. I speak and lecture at many international meetings; American historians present cogent, coherent historical analysis on a level with any other historians in the world. Unlike professors, graduate, or seminar students, my readers rarely, if ever, have the breadth of scholarship and knowledge of the numerous books, articles, and documentary sources needed to judge a book's place in the literature. Instead, they have practical experience from having served as arms control inspectors in Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, Kazakstan, or one of the many other nations that are signatories to the treaties. They have been "there," often traveling in harsh weather to extremely remote missile sites located deep in the forest. They relate intensely to narrative histories that provide perspective and meaning to their work. "It's not history; it's my job!" I am a public historian working at a small, but interesting, government agency, the On-Site Inspection Agency. We are responsible for the conduct of the on-site inspection provisions of seven arms control treaties: Intermediate Nuclear Forces (INF), Conventional Armed Forces in Europe (CFE), Strategic Arms Reduction (START I), Threshold Test Ban Treaty, Open Skies, Chemical Weapons Convention, and Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty II. These contemporary treaties mandate reductions in nuclear, conventional, and chemical weapons. They are bilateral (U.S.-Russia), and multilateral (U.S. and as many as 164 nations). I am responsible, along with a small staff, for documenting, recording, and disseminating the agency's history. Today, history in the public arena is diverse and interesting. Public historians are working in national historical parks, in local and state historical societies, in private and government museums, in non-profit, private, and government organizations developing and managing historic preservation projects. Public historians are working in very large institutions, like the 585,000 person U. S. Army, or the U.S. Navy. They are working in senior-level policy organizations, such as the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the National Science Foundation, and the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency. They are also doing public history in some of the nation's most important democratic institutions, the United States Senate, the Office of the Secretary of Defense, and the National Archives. Not only is public history carried out in quite different "institutional" settings, unlike in colleges and universities which have certain similarities regardless of the size, but the products of public historians are very, very diverse. This diversity has developed because these historians are essentially doing applied history. By that I mean, history that is put to use for a client or institution which assists them in documenting, understanding, and resolving a specific problem or issue. Recently, I had a personal experience which illustrates the applied nature of being a public historian. A senior agency official sent me a note which read: "Write an article or something, based on your research, on the other national arms control verification agencies. I think our inspectors would benefit from this information when they go to other nations." I decided to begin this brief venture into journalism with an essay on the Belarus National Agency for Control and Inspection. In 1994 I had been in the Belarus capital, Minsk, where I had interviewed the agency's senior officers. Then in 1995 in Washington, I had met and interviewed General-Major E. I. Nikulin, Director of the Belarus agency. As a new nation, Belarus had experienced several hundred inspections, and had destroyed thousands of conventional and nuclear weapons under the INF, CFE, and START treaties. Consequently, in the article, I set all of these post-Cold War arms control activities -- the inspections, weapons destruction, data reporting, and military force reductions, into the context of a small, impoverished, nation struggling to be and be seen as legitimate in the new European-dominated international system. Once published in the July 1995 edition of the agency's newsletter (1,200 copies), another request followed quickly. Over the past year, I have researched and written 10 other monthly articles on the national treaty verification agencies of Germany, Russia, France, Ukraine, Belgium, Netherlands, Kazakstan, Poland, Great Britain and Romania. I had traveled to most of these national verification agencies, either as a historian conducting research, or as an arms control inspector with inspection teams carrying out one of the specific types of treaty inspections. All were new government organizations; they had been specifically entrusted by their governments with monitoring the post-Cold War arms control treaties mandating the destruction and elimination of large quantities of military weapons. Based on interviews with the national verification directors I had the "documentary" materials for these articles. In fact, I had much more, since they provided me with an important comparative dimension in judging American treaty inspection preparations and operations for a new book, On-Site Inspections Under the CFE Treaty (1996). I have since learned that these articles are begin used in treaty training classes, and that commanders had asked that they be included in the inspectors' "information kit" prior to the inspections. In this age of information, knowledge of new, relatively obscure government agencies were deemed to be useful. Here was an example of "applied history." It was researched, published, and then distributed FOR the people who were carrying out the international treaties. Now, no historian researches and writes contemporary history without thinking again and again how his/her work fits into larger patterns of human history. I began by thinking that my research might be adding some small light to the United States' efforts in constructing a post-Cold War relationship with the Soviet Union and Russia. Then, I saw it in larger terms. These treaties seemed to me to be one aspect of recent developments in international history that were focused on the large scale, historic changes sweeping across the length and breadth of the European continent, from the Atlantic to the Urals. Creating the European Union was only one part of these historic changes; negotiating, signing, ratifying, and carrying out these arms reduction treaties was another. Through my research I came to see that new state-to-state relationships were developing in this post-Cold War era within the context of these contemporary arms control treaties and agreements. They were providing structure to new relations between states of Eurasia that had been deeply separated in the recent past. I asked myself, Had the European system changed this radically before? Paul Schroeder's history, The Transformation of European Politics, 1763-1848 (1994) provided some answers. Schroeder examined changes in the state-to-state relations in Europe over nearly a century of revolutions, wars, and treaties. He found that in 1763 there existed a balance of power system dominated by dynastic politics that was aggressive, transitory, and vicious in its practice. Then, following the American and French Revolutions and the Napoleonic Wars, European nations after 1815 altered their diplomacy towards one another. They developed more reliance on all-European congresses, concerts, and international treaties. The incidence of deaths through wars fell from 1815 onward to the end of the century. In statistical terms, this death rate was 7 times less after 1815 than before (1763-1815). Does this scholar's work, or the work of other university-based historians, have application for me as a public historian? I think it does. However, the current semester structure does not easily accommodate the exchange of new research with developed syntheses. In other fields -- medicine, science, business, architecture, and law -- clinical or contemporaneous data is discussed, analyzed, and fitted into a larger scheme in 1-2 day sessions in university departments or institutes. Practitioners are invited to lecture or present research findings which are then discussed in seminars and special classes. Such sessions are rare in history departments. I know; over the past 4-5 years I have spoken at several colleges and universities. Usually, I presented a lecture on the contemporary treaties and their status. Since it was describing a contemporary era, the post-Cold War, it usually came at the end of the semester term. Rarely, however, did the subject or the topic elicit any real intellectual interest by the department-based historians. Frankly, scholars in other departments were often more interested and informed on contemporary issues than were the historians. Yet the explosion of knowledge in this realm need not be the domain of other disciplines. If academic historians could think across department lines and consider multi-dimensional issues; then they might see the benefits in establishing short 1-2 day topical sessions with public historians. Such sessions could work on two levels. One might explore jointly, faculty and public historians, the historical roots and interpretations of contemporary issues of mutual interest. The other level could be with the public historian meeting in seminars with history majors to discuss the diversity and differences in doing history in the public arena. I recognize that this suggestion holds benefits for me as a practicing public historian. Yet, I think the academic departments, faculty and students, could benefit from an exchange of current research and working interpretations as well. For in the end, we could initiate a dialogue among ourselves if we believed, as the philosopher Stuart Hampshire wrote in The Future of Knowledge, that "History is a central form of knowledge; it is the basis for describing and understanding contemporary reality." Joseph P. Harahan is a Public Historian in the Office of History, On-Site Inspection Agency, 201 W. Service Road, Dulles International Airport, P.O. Box 17498, Washington, DC 20041-0498 Computing for the Humanities via Internet Eric Johnson During the summer of 1996, I taught a three-semester-hour graduate course, CHUM 650: Computing for the Humanities, via Internet. The fourteen students who enrolled in the Dakota State University class completed the assignments using computers in their offices or in their homes: in Germany, Thailand, Japan, Australia, New Zealand, and throughout the United States. The closest student to me was about one thousand miles away. My students in CHUM 650 and I used the World Wide Web and Internet email to communicate. The Web served to distribute the 19 computer programs for the course that I had written and to provide information about the programs. By entering a name and a password, students accessed a special Web site that I created for CHUM 650. The site consisted of about 25 primary HTML files with links to more than 50 additional program or data files. Students progressed through the course by reading articles that I had written; they could read them on the Web site online, download them and read them from their own computers, or print them. They then downloaded binary files of programs, and they executed the programs on their own hardware using data files that were provided on the course Web site or using data files that they had at hand. Students used email to send me descriptions of how the programs worked and what they learned. The focus of the course was on analysis of texts. Students completed the following kinds of assignments: Computing the number of words in texts, noting the frequency of specific words and types of words; Computing the number and percent of sentences of various lengths in a file with a graph of results; Generating key-word-in-context concordances for all words or for selected works in a text; Computing the percent of words on multiple lists that are found in multiple texts (such as lists of words denoting colors, food, travel, and so on); Indexing and recording the relative location of words in texts and graphing positions; Processing texts with SGML markup. My central goal in teaching CHUM 650 was to convince students that they could use computers to gain new kinds of insights into texts that would be impossible to acquire without computer analysis. In fact, they could not only do research using computers that they could not hope to perform without them, but they could answer questions that would not even occur to them to ask if they were not using computers. In this short article, it is impossible to describe all of the 19 computer programs provided to students in CHUM 650. The operation of a program named SENT will be related as an example. SENT is a modest program, and it is not typical of the programs for the course, but its limited processing ability may add force in demonstrating how my central goal for CHUM 650 could be attained. SENT counts the number of words in each sentence of a text, and it produces a list of the number and percentage of one-word sentences, two-word sentences, and so on, along with a simple graph of the percentages. Figures 1, 2, and 3 show output from SENT (although SENT computes the number and percentage of sentences up to 101 words, the figures reproduced here display only the first twenty lengths). The 5223 sentences in SENSE.ASC have the following lengths. Suppose that a literary historian were interested in studying the writing of novelists in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries and noting linguistic preferences based on the date of publication. Computer analysis provided by SENT could be helpful. Based on information in Figures 1, 2, and 3, three observations could be made. First, as the graphs clearly show, a greater percentage of short sentences is found in more recent literature (note that the scale of the graph in Figure 3 is one half of that of Figures 1 and 2). Second, the most common sentence length shifted from six-word sentences in 1811 (Sense and Sensibility) to five-word sentences in 1899-1900 (Lord Jim), and then to four-word sentences in 1980 (Jeremiah Bacon). Third, the greatest differences in percentages among the sentence lengths of novels published since 1811 is in three-word sentences, and there is a progression from 1.90 (Sense and Sensibility) to 5.09 (Lord Jim) to 6.49 (Jeremiah Bacon). Now, I hasten to acknowledge that these three observations are based on laughably little data (only three novels) and that the novels analyzed may be atypical of the period in which they were published. My point is not that I have discovered characteristics of novels published during the last two centuries, but that using computer programs such as SENT, it is possible to do research about characteristics of novels of various periods that would otherwise be impossible. Moreover, current technology allows students worldwide to engage in such research. It was obvious as my students in CHUM 650 progressed through the course assignments that they were expanding their ideas about how computers can be used for research in the humanities. They found answers to questions about texts by Austen, Carroll, Collins, Conrad, Crane, Darwin, Doyle, Hardy, and Shakespeare that they would not even have thought to ask at the start of the course. I plan to offer CHUM 650 again in the future. It may or may not include different computer programs. Those who are interested in the course, or who have questions about it, should contact me by email. Eric Johnson is Professor of English and Dean of the College of Liberal Arts at Dakota State University, Madison, SD 57042 JohnsonE@jupiter.dsu.edu A Few Good Women and Men: Affirmative Action, Vietnam Era Veterans, and Academe Christopher C. Lovett In the spring of 1995, an interesting discussion took place on the H-TEACH bulletin board. The topic that elicited so many diverse responses by academics from all parts of the country concerned affirmative action for Vietnam era veterans. One respondent actually called affirmative action for Vietnam veterans "one of the best kept secrets on American college campuses for more than twenty years." But is it really a secret? Nearly every position listed in either the Chronicle of Higher Education or Perspectives lists the standard equal opportunity statement that is familiar to all in the profession. When applicants apply for a listing, they often receive an affirmative action demographic survey form. Affirmative action officers often assign ascension numbers to those surveys in order to identify applicants who are women, minorities, and veterans. Thus, affirmative action for Vietnam era veterans is not a secret for those who are knowledgeable concerning the law and the system. More important, each academic institution must submit a Veterans 100 Report yearly to the Department of Labor concerning the composition of their university. So, what's the problem? Many search committees and affirmative action officers are not familiar with the law. One affirmative action officer confided to the author that during a meeting of regional affirmative action officers, a colleague at another institution did not know that Vietnam veterans are a protected group. That is not surprising, and a review of most job listings rarely, if ever, proclaim that Vietnam era veterans are encouraged to apply, as often occurs with women and other racial and ethnic groups. The number of Vietnam veterans in all disciplines is well below 1 percent of the teaching faculties in major research institutions, and well below the number of Vietnam veterans in the workforce nationally. Still, Vietnam era veterans are well represented in both administrative and custodial fields on most college and university campuses. With Executive Order 11246, Vietnam veterans and disabled veterans were granted affirmative action status comparable to women and other minorities. The Executive Order was further strengthened by the Vietnam Veterans Readjustment Acts of 1972 and 1974. In the revision of the act, affirmative action was included and has remained an integral component of the law and can be found in 38 USC 4212. The statute asserts, "Any contract in the amount of $10,000 or more entered into by any department or agency for the procurement of personal property and non-personal services for the United States, shall contain a provision requiring that the party contracting with the United States shall take affirmative action to employ and advance in employment qualified special veterans and veterans of the Vietnam era." [italics mine](1) A fundamental error by colleges and universities involves the inaccurate assumption that the law does not apply to the teaching faculty. The law's intent is explicit, and according to Title 41, Code of Federal Regulations, 60-250.6(a), that affirmative action provisions shall pertain to "all levels of employment including the executive level." Likewise, the law involves the "hiring, upgrading, demotion or transfer, recruitment or recruitment advertising, layoff or termination, rates of pay or other forms of compensation, and selection for training." Those provisions are the same for women and other minorities as outlined in the revised Executive Order 11246 in 1972.(2) The Vietnam Veterans Readjustment Act clearly remains applicable to most academic institutions that receive federal grants and accept federal guaranteed student loans. If a disabled veteran or Vietnam era veteran assumes that an institution of higher education has violated the provisions of the law, they "may file a complaint with the Secretary of Labor, who shall promptly investigate such complaint and take appropriate action in accordance. . ."(3) The weakness of the law can be attributed to the failure of the U.S. Department of Labor's Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs (OFCCP) to monitor academic compliance. Unfortunately, according to evidence collected by the GAO, the law's intent has been curtailed by inadequate oversight by the agency responsible to enforce them. After repeated calls by the author to the OFCCP to gather data on Vietnam era veterans employed in the academic community for this essay, the agency has failed repeatedly to supply the data requested. Officials at the agency told the author that complaints must originate from either aggrieved individuals or groups of veterans. Recently, successful lawsuits were filed against Ohio State University and the University of Hawaii. But the driving force in both cases came from a concerned faculty and politically active veterans' organizations. Can history departments do a better job in the hiring and recruitment of disabled and Vietnam era veterans? Yes they can. They can become familiar with the law's provision, become sensitive to the problem as they apply to age and frequency of temporary academic employment, and realize that Vietnam era veterans can make a valuable contribution to the profession as colleagues and teachers. 1. 38 US Code. Sec. 4212a. 1992. 2. Quoted in R.W. Trewyn, "Discrimination Against Vietnam Veterans by the Federal Agency Charged with Protecting Veterans' Rights," Journal of the Vietnam Veterans Institute, 3 (1994), 23. 3. 38 US Code. Sec. 4212b. 1992. Christopher C. Lovett is Assistant Professor of History at Emporia State University, 1200 Commercial Street, Emporia KS 66801-5087 hicl@fhsuvm.fhsu.edu Communications/Announcements Professor David Fahey of Miami University, who reported on history graduate education in the June issue, wrote the following in September: A couple of days ago I received copies of the Council of Chairs Newsletter with my report on the Ohio Board of Regents and history graduate education at Ohio's public universities. A short update for Miami. The bad job market is why Miami no longer admits new Ph.D. students in history. Ironically, 1996 has been a good year for Miami-trained historians. Two recent Ph.D.s who had remained at Miami in temporary jobs now have tenure-track appointments: Morehead State University in Kentucky and the Community College of Southern Nevada. Of the three people awarded Ph.D.s at the December 1995 through August 1996 commencements, one already had a tenure-track job (Virginia Tech) and a second got a one-year job at Miami's Hamilton campus. Most surprisingly, three ABDs got jobs: one a tenure-track job at Hillsdale College in Michigan and the others one-year jobs at the University of Akron and the University of Idaho. The University of Virginia Continuing Education Global Studies Program announces two summer sessions of interest to department. Rethinking Recent United States History will take place June 27 - July 1, 1997 at the University of Virginia. Historians Edward L. Ayers and Herbert Braun will facilitate discussions about how the major events and processes in recent U.S. history are being interpreted in light of new evidence. Presenters and topics are: Melvyn P. Leffler on New Information on U.S. Foreign Policy, Julian Bond on the Civil Rights Movement, Barbara Clark Smith on the Enola Gay Controversy, Nelson Lichtenstein on the New American Labor Movement, Joseph Kett on What Knowledge is Worth Knowing, Eric Lott on New American Literatures, Mark Barrow on the Rise of Environmentalism, Jeffrey Hadden on the Resurgence of the Religious Right, Bernard Mayes on We The People: American Popular Culture. Web site: http://minerva.acc.virginia.edu/~contined/uhis.htm Contact Marilyn Roselius, University of Virginia Division of Continuing Education, P.O. Box 3697, Charlottesville, VA 22903; (804) 982-5276; email mjm6h@virginia.edu FAX (804) 982-5270. Jefferson in England, August 17-23, 1997 University of Virginia Seminars at Oxford, England. This seminar will be given at Trinity College, Oxford and will investigate Thomas Jefferson's 1786 visit to England. Sponsored by the University of Virginia's Division of Continuing Education and the Thomas Jefferson Memorial Foundation (Monticello). Web site: http://minerva.acc.virginia.edu/~contined/oxford97.htm Contact Tom Dowd at (800) 346-3882; email tsd3r@virginia.edu H-NET is currently planning 2-day faculty workshops: "Humanists Using the Internet". Interested departments should contact Richard Jensen, Director of H-Net, voice: (615) 552-9923; FAX (615) 552-9394; email richard.jensen@uic.edu |
||