Student News
Current student Raven Bland has been selected as Norfolk's first Youth Poet Laureate (http://hamptonroads.com/2015/05/meet-norfolks-first-youth-poet-laureate).
Congratulations to Tiffany R. Desnoyers (B.A., 2015), who received the Academic Achievement Award in History in 2015. She was honored by the College of Arts & Letters at Reception for Outstanding Students on May 8, 2015.
Charles Ross Patterson, current M.A. student, presented his work on "Prodigal Sons: Battleship Division Nine in the Grand Fleet" at the ODU Graduate Research Achievement Day.
Rachael DeLaCruz (M.A., 2014), presented a paper called "No Asylum for the Innocent: Gendering the Discourse on Salvadoran Victims."
Several Department of History students contributed to OUR Journal: Old Dominion University Undergraduate Research Journal. The publication is based on undergraduate and graduate student work tied to the history course, "Paris/Auschwitz" (https://www.odu.edu/research/student/undergradresearch/publications/journal#tab129=1).
Benjamin Ipson won the Diversity Champion Award from Old Dominion University, 2014, and was also the runner-up for the Kaufman Award (2015).
Heather Brown was the runner-up for the Evon Broderick Award, which recognizes community service and engagement (http://www.odu.edu/success/stories/awards/evon-broderick).
Lisa Pennington (M.A., 2012, now at Virginia Tech) and Amanda Williams (M.A., 2008, now at The MacArthur Memorial in Norfolk) presented "Put Yourself in their Shoes: World War I and Interactive Resources" at the November 2014 annual conference of the National Council of Social Studies in Boston.
Robert Moyer (M.A., 2014) recently published "'When that great ship went down': Modern maritime disasters and collective memory," International Journal of Maritime History, vol. 26, no. 4 (2014), 734-751. The article emerged from his completion of the Advanced Graduate Certificate in Maritime History and his work with Professor Ingo Heidbrink.
Paul D. Newcomer (M.A., 1976), attended the summer 2014 conference of the Society for Historians of American Foreign Relations in Lexington, Kentucky. He reports fond memories of seminars led by Department of History professors in the 1970s, and currently lives in Wayne, Pennsylvania.
Carlton Bennett (B.A., 1972) is an attorney at Bennett & Zydron, P.C. in Virginia Beach.
Dr. Hugo Walter, who received his M.A. in the Humanities from ODU in 1989, acknowledges the inspiration of former ODU professors John Kuehl and Doug Greene in his recently published book, Sanctuaries in Washington Irving's The Sketch Book (Peter Lang, 2012).
Samantha Seltzer (B.A., 2011), completed her law degree from Nova Southeastern University Shepard Broad Law Center in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. She recently wrote to her former history department professors at ODU: "To this day I still speak with great fondness of the classes I took with you and all of the things I learned. You were so instrumental in helping me on my journey and I would not be where I am today without you and your efforts. Please know that your enthusiasm and guidance left a lasting impression that I will always reflect upon with endearment and admiration. Thank you again."
Participants in the 2014 "Paris/Auschwitz" Study Abroad course Julius Lacano, Lauran Henderson, Emma Needham, Ciara Clark, and Stephanie Hawthorne at Jagiellonian University in Krak�w, Poland.
Kim Schmidtmann (M.A., 2007) is a Museum Educator for the City of Virginia Beach's Historic Houses.
Dan Kamienski (B.A., 2010) has entered the Ph.D. program in the Department of History at the University of Montana, Missoula.
Sierra Funk (B.A., 2014) is a student in the Ph.D program in history at Ohio University, with a focus on Latin American Studies.
Homer Babbitt (M.A., 2003) is assistant director of development at the Chrysler Museum in Norfolk, Virginia. He previously worked in nonprofit development work for Physicians for Peace, WHRO, and the YMCA of South Hampton Roads.
Bryan Wetterlin and his mother at the Arts and Letters Award Ceremony, May 9, 2014
Bryan Wetterlin won the 2013-14 Academic Achievement Award from the Department of History.
Several ODU M.A. students presented papers at the Southern Humanities Conference in Richmond, Virginia from January 30 to February 2, 2014. The ODU paper contributors to the large conference on "Memory, History, Fantasies" included Clara Van Eck, "Violence in the Home: Federal Domestic Violence Legislation in the 1980s," Rachael DeLaCruz, "Bracero Families: Remembering Mexican Migrant Women and Children in the United States, 1942-64," andChristopher De Matteo, "Drafting for Liberty in a Den of Slavery: Implementing the Union Draft in Maryland." For further information on this conference, see http://www.southernhumanities.org/.
Howard Coe (B.A., 1976) has taught middle school for 20 years in the Santa Rita School District in Salinas, California.
David Kays (M.A., 2002) has served since 2006 as Pastor at Timothy Christian Church in Ayden, North Carolina.
Stacey Evans (B.A., 2008) is a Deputy Sheriff at the Chesapeake Sheriff's Department.
Professor Ervin L. Jordan, Jr. (B.A., 1979) is Research Archivist at the Albert and Shirley Small Special Collections Library at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville. He is the author of Black Confederates and Afro-Yankees in Civil War Virginia (Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 1995), and serves as a senior advisor to the Norfolk State University Board of Visitors and administration.
Charlotte Mahan and Sean Edwards at graduation ceremony, Spring 2013
Cindy A. Jones (M.A., 2001) is an adjunct faculty member in the Department of History at the University of Alabama in Tuscaloosa.
Tonya Kobito (M.A., 2013) is pursuing a Master of Science in Secondary Education at Black Hills State University in Spearfish, South Dakota.
Y�cel Yanikdag (B.A., 1991; M.A., 1994), Assistant Professor in the Department of History at the University of Richmond, is the author of Healing the Nation: Prisoners of War, Medicine and Nationalism in Turkey, 1914-1939 (Edinburgh University Press, 2013). In 2013-14 he was a visiting scholar at the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton University, working on a cultural history of World War One in the Ottoman Empire.
Dale Rielage (M.A., 1998) is a Captain in the U.S. Navy assigned to the Chief of Naval Operations. He recently accompanied the Vice Chief of Naval Operations on an official visit to the Chinese Navy.
Nichelle Mack (B.A., 2005) received a M.S. in Library Science from Clarion University of Pennsylvania in 2008. Recently, she accepted a faculty position at LeMoyne-Owen College, a private HBCU in Memphis, Tennessee, as the Circulation and Reference Librarian.
Anthony R. Williams (B.A., 1967), a longtime Senior Intelligence Officer at the Central Intelligence Agency, has most recently served as a Visiting Professor of Security Studies at Dickinson College, a Distinguished Fellow of the US Army War College, and the Francis De Serio Chair for Strategic Intelligence at the US Army War College.
Kennis Austin (M.A., 1993) is a Student Services Specialist in Education for the Worcester County Board of Education in Newark, Maryland.
Amanda Williams (M.A., 2008), Education Manager at the MacArthur Memorial in Norfolk, Virginia, and Jim Zobel (M.A., 2001), Archivist at the MacArthur Memorial, both contributed to the production of an educational video on WWI.
Scott Moore (M.A., 2005) studied in Vienna in 2012-13 as a Fulbright Scholar. He is completing a Ph.D. dissertation at the University of Maryland, College Park, on the efforts of the Habsburg Empire to use compulsory education to build and develop loyalty among its citizens.
Gregory Eatroff (B.A., 2004) teaches history at Churchland Middle School in Portsmouth.
Taryn Darling (B.A., 2012) teaches geography at John Yeates Middle School in Suffolk.
Lisa Pennington (M.A. 2012) began the History and Social Science Curriculum and Instruction Ph.D. program at Virginia Tech in the fall semester of 2013.
Nicole Dressler (M.A. 2011) began the History Ph.D. program at Northern Illinois University in the fall semester of 2013.
Michael Shackelford (History B.A. 2004, GPIS M.A. 2010) is the Grants Manager for the Judeo-Christian Outreach Center in Virginia Beach. He works closely with city officials and other non-profit groups to eliminate homelessness in Virginia Beach.
Jaclyn Spainhour recently published an article, "Symbols of Slumber: Children's Funerary Sculpture in Norfolk's Elmwood Cemetery," in 19th Century, a publication of the Victorian Society of America. On 23 July 2013, she presented a lecture at the Pretlow Library in Norfolk on "Historic Newport: Victorian Architecture, Art, and Leisure."
Colleen Parker is presenting a paper, "A Passionate Path: Women's Place in the Christian Cultural Revolution and the Fall of Rome," at the 16th Annual Brian Bertoti Innovative Perspectives in History Graduate Conference at Virginia Tech in Blacksburg.
Robert Moyer presented his research at the annual conference of the North American Society for Oceanic History (NASOH), held in Alpena, Michigan on 15-18 May 2013. The conference was dedicated to "Maritime Borderlands and Cultural Landscapes," and was hosted by the Thunder Bay National Marine Sanctuary.
Janet Hakki has been invited to present her work at the Colonial Academic Alliance Undergraduate Research Conference at the University of Delaware in April 2013.
Josh Wilson, Jackie Spainhour, and Gregory Eatroff contributed to the panel, "Students in the Archives: Seeing 'Greater Virginia' in the papers of chronicler Alf J. Mapp, Jr.," Virginia Forum, James Madison University, Harrisonburg, VA, 30 March 2012.
Josh Wilson participated in a panel on "Creating and Using School Desegregation Resources at Old Dominion University Libraries" at the "Emancipation & Human Rights in History" Conference in Richmond, Virginia, 21-23 March 2013.
ODU students Ben Ipson, Diona White, Alyssa Santuk, Julie Davis, Susan White, Sean Edwards, Michael Barnes, Jordyn Armstrong, Charlotte Mahan, Stephanie Hawthorne, and Rachel Chasinshared their thoughts and experiences at a Kornblau Alumni Center event dedicated to the "Paris/Auschwitz" Study Abroad Trip led by Professor Annette Finley-Croswhite. The moving event took place on 21 March 2013, and was sponsored by the Alumni Association, the Institute for Jewish Studies & Interfaith Understanding, and the Study Abroad Program. To read more about the event, click here.
Charles Davison (M.A. 2012) published an article, "The Army of Discontent: the Effect of a Thoroughly Antagonized George Washington upon Maj. Gen. Charles Lee," in Northern Neck of Virginia Historical Magazine (December 2012).
Amanda Williams and Lisa Pennington contributed to a panel on "The Other Nuremberg: Teachers, Museums, and Engaging Students in History" at the National Council for the Social Studies Conference in Seattle, Washington, 16-17 November 2012.
Adam Rosenbaum (M.A. 2004) completed his Ph.D. at Emory University in 2011. His dissertation, "Timeless, Modern and German? The Re-Mapping of Bavaria through the Marketing of Tourism, 1800-1939," has won two major prizes: the Parker-Schmitt Dissertation Prize awarded by the Southern Historical Association, and the Fritz Stern Dissertation Prize awarded by the Friends of the German Historical Institute in Washington, D.C. He currently works as an assistant professor of history at Colorado Mesa University.
