Support the History Department
From the Chair: Some Thoughts on Private Giving
The generosity of our alumni and alumnae over the years has quite simply transformed the Department of History. We have been able to provide our History majors with need-based scholarships, as well as academic prizes and awards, which we are proud to recognize every year at the Department of History’s Commencement ceremony in May. These funds are used to support our majors engaged in research, both inside and outside the country, for their honors theses.
We are able to invite guest speakers to campus to speak to our students on a broad range of themes. We run public symposia on themes as diverse as "The World Beyond Slavery,” “How World War I Changed The World,” and “Nuclear World Controversies.” Our symposium this year was: "After Charlottesville: Memorial, Monuments, and Memory." This all helps to build a vibrant intellectual academic community here at William & Mary that is ready to face real-world and often very current and timely issues.
Your generous gifts allow the Department and its students to take advantage of opportunities as they arise – and because we teach History in an area filled with sites of the greatest historical significance, those opportunities arise often. They enable our faculty take their students to Civil War battlefields or to the Jamestown archaeological lab, or to museums as far afield as Charlottesville and DC. When our students put together their undergraduate History journal to gain invaluable experience in bringing their own writing into print, gifts from alumni and friends make that possible.
If you are in a position to do this, I encourage you to contribute online now with your credit card, using our secure web server. On the contribution form you will see "History (0074)," which supports the History Department and its students directly. You may also choose to donate to designated funds. You will perhaps recognize the names of former beloved professors of the Department of History:
- Craig N. Canning and Nancy M. Canning Asian History Award (4470)
- Ed Crapol Award in Modern U.S. History (3925)
- Judith Ewell Award in Comparative and Transnational History (3936)
- James N. McCord European Studies Award (4274)
- John Boswell Memorial Lecture Series Endowment (3329)
As always, we sincerely appreciate everyone's past and future support.
Frederick Corney
Chair, History Department
