By: Jason Klaiber
Staff Writer
St. Bonaventure history professors Dr. Maddalena Marinari and Dr. Phillip Payne have been selected for the American Historical Association’s (AHA) Tuning Project for the History Major, a nationwide, faculty-led initiative devoted to reimagining the history degree program.
The AHA, which is the United States’ largest professional organization dedicated to the study and promotion of both history and historical thinking, has gathered accomplished faculty members from over 60 of the country’s academic institutions for this project. These participants are set to convene in New York City in January 2015 for an annual meeting, which includes a series of sessions and a workshop on undergraduate teaching.
“I’m honored that we have been selected,” Payne said. “In our department, we’ve been working to maintain high standards and best current practices, and our selection validates that work.”
Marinari is excited to be a part of the Tuning Project because she believes it will be important in affecting how universities across the country will teach history.
“The idea behind the project is to decide what history majors and students who take history courses should be able to do at the end of their time in college,” Marinari said. “It’s an effort to discuss courses and teaching strategies that prepare students for the job market of the 21st century. Finally, the project aims at showing why the study of history is relevant for students who live in a globalized world.”
Marinari asserts that students with history degrees are “uniquely situated” to pursue a wide variety of careers in their futures.
“While everyone immediately thinks of prospective teachers when they think history majors, in reality, history majors have successful careers as researchers, communicators, advocates and business people,” Marinari said.
“(A history degree) opens doors for a variety of graduate programs and careers,” said Payne. “History majors learn how to organize information, identify patterns, synthesize data, and articulate it. Fundamentally, however, history is invaluable in understanding how the world works.”
The Tuning Project, which began in fall 2011 on a three-year grant awarded by the Lumina Foundation, seeks to be effective in improving the current history curriculum.
“This project will help history majors at Bonaventure be well-positioned on the job market and provide them with skills and knowledge that will make them stand out, especially for their work in public history and in digital publishing and research,” Marinari said.
Each faculty member’s involvement with the endeavor centers around a semester-long process during which they will decide on an aspect of the history program to concentrate on. At the conclusion of the spring semester, each participant will write a report about the improvements they made toward their area of focus.
“(Dr. Payne and I) are thinking about ways to integrate digital fluency into the curriculum and create courses that allow students to put in practice their research, analytical and critical skills,” Marinari said.
