Graduate Study in History

Dr. F. Thornton Miller, Director of Graduate Studies
 

Graduate study in history began at Missouri State University  in 1967. Many of our graduates are teaching history in secondary schools around Missouri and the Midwest. Several have gone on to law schools or Ph.D. programs. Some are now teaching on the college level. Others are lawyers or work in historical societies, libraries, or museums. A few have entered the seminary. One graduate served as Missouri's Secretary of State and is presently a U.S. Congressman. Moreover, some of our M.A. graduates have used their research and writing skills to publish scholarly or popular essays.

The M.A. in history is designed for students seeking an advanced degree in history. Some might have doctoral ambitions; others may wish to teach on the secondary level, enter government service, law school, or archival work, or wish to satisfy an interest without definite career objectives.

The department offers a wide array of graduate courses. The offerings are global in scope taught by specialists in African, Asian, European, Middle Eastern, Latin American as well as U.S. history. Our program has a strong social history emphasis with faculty actively involved in interdisciplinary programs such as African-American Studies, Gender Studies, and Native-American Studies. The faculty includes specialists in the ancient near east, Medieval Europe, Early Modern Europe, the Atlantic World, U.S. and Latin American colonial history, and the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. In these areas, the department offers graduate-level lecture courses, proseminars, seminars, and individual readings courses.

There are currently 21 faculty members in the Missouri State University Department of History. Faculty members have earned their doctorates from many state universities including Indiana, Minnesota, Ohio State, and Oregon, from the universities of Chicago, Columbia, Harvard, and Tulane, and, internationally, the universities of Toronto and York in Canada. The faculty members have published dozens of books and articles in professional journals.

The department sponsors a major regional history conference, the Mid-America Conference on History, which is held in Springfield and at the University of Arkansas, the University of Kansas or Washburn University, the University of Memphis, and Oklahoma State University on alternating years. Some of the nation's leading historians have participated.

The department also sponsors a Phi Alpha Theta chapter. The history honorary society provides an opportunity for students and faculty members to share their interest in history. Our graduate students have been active delivering papers at Phi Alpha Theta conferences and at the Missouri Conference on History, the Southwestern Social Science Association convention, the Mid-America Medieval Association Conference, and the Mid-America Conference on History.