In such a profoundly stressful climate, our graduate students in History remained productive and energetic, and inspired me throughout the year, both in the classroom and beyond. And when they also struggled as humans in that stressful context, they helped preserve each other’s spirit. It is a pleasure serving as Director of Graduate Studies for this strong and impressive cast of current graduate students.

In 2020, seven new graduate students joined our program and contributed new ideas and voices to an already vibrant graduate student body. The incoming group is working on research projects in the fields of Native American, religious, military, gender/sexuality, public, and cultural sports history. They are an impressive group with diverse and dynamic interests. In 2020, we celebrated three successful graduate degree defenses, for Kaitlyn Weldon (M.A.), Elizabeth Bass (Ph.D.), and David Justice (Ph.D.). Weldon conducted summer internships in Colorado and is applying to doctoral programs. Bass serves as publications editor for the Oklahoma Historical Society. Justice landed a Visiting Assistant Professorship at the University of North Florida. So far 2021 has also seen the successful graduate degree defenses of Emily Duncan (M.A.), Josh Hanna (M.A.), and Connor Marshall (M.A.).

The past year and half has been an active one for our graduate students. Sam Jennings earned a Gilcrease Museum Short-Term Fellowship which supports four weeks of research in the museum’s rich archival collections. Doctoral student Julie Hufstetler landed a “Past and Present” Grant from the United Kingdom’s Royal Historical Society. Doctoral candidate Amanda Johnson was a finalist for the Women of OSU Philanthropy Award, won an OSU Graduate College Travel Award, contributed to a graduate recruitment program in the Humanities, and was recently award the Roberson Dissertation Fellowship through the Graduate College. MA Public History student Jorge Chavez joined the Stillwater History Museum Advisory Board. Oklahoma Humanities selected doctoral candidate Jason Harris for the position of State Historian for the Crossroads: Change in Rural America traveling museum program. Doctoral student Mark Bolin accepted an invitation to present his research at an American Indian Studies symposium in Tahlequah. Finally, doctoral student Savannah Waters served as an expert consultant for a New York Public Television and New York City Department of Education project to educate people about We’Wha and Two-Spirit people in Native American histories and contemporary societies.

Several of our students hit the conference circuit in 2020 and 2021, including the statewide Phi Alpha Theta Conference and Chicago’s Newberry Library Consortium in American Indian Studies Graduate Student Conference. Several students wrote book reviews for various academic journals. Students on the Public History track conducted internships at critical historical sites within Oklahoma, including the Vernon AME Church in Tulsa, the Stillwater History Museum, and the Red Oak Store. Finally, while the accompanying annual awards banquet was cancelled in 2020, our 2020 and 2021 honorees who received departmental scholarships, fellowships, awards, and grants were all recognized at our virtual awards banquet this past April.

Across the spectrum, our graduate students are presenting their work at regional and national conferences, earning fellowships, winning awards, serving internships, gaining teaching experience, and developing exciting and important research projects. They play a central role in expanding our program’s profile and drawing greater attention to the excellent graduate work being done in our History Department.