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  • Degrees Available:
    • M.A.
  • Locations:
    • Macomb
  • Required GPA:
    • Cumulative: 2.75
    • Last 2 years: 3.0
  • Admission Requirements:
    • Transcripts
  • Interesting Facts: Fall 2009
    • Currently enrolled: 37
    • International: 1
    • Minority: 2
    • Male: 30
    • Female: 7
    • Students with Assistantships: 13

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Graduate Programs of Study

Academic College: Arts and Sciences

Program: History

Program Overview

History is the study of all human behavior at different times and in different places. The student of history seeks to evaluate, understand, and analyze the record of human experience. In this endeavor, diverse sources and methods are employed to reconstruct and interpret various aspects of the past.

History

Why History at WIU?

The History department offers graduate courses at the University’s Macomb campus and is a recognized regional leader in quality and alue.

Students in the graduate program have presented their research at regional academic conferences such as the Missouri Valley Conference and the Illinois History Symposium.

Graduate students in the program have also completed one-semester internships at the Rock Island Arsenal, the Putnam Museum in Davenport, and the Des Moines County Historical Society in Burlington.

The program supports international study through its Bilkent Exchange program, which allows students to spend one semester in Ankara, Turkey, at Bilkent University, the highest ranked educational institution in that country. Courses are taught in English and provide graduate students with unique international experiences and educational opportunities.

Western Illinois University is home to the Omicron Omicron chapter of Phi Alpha Theta. The society is made up of both undergraduate and graduate students in History. Each year, our local chapter sponsors a number of activities for its members and the community at large. Starting in the Fall of 2008, Western’s Phi Alpha Theta chapter is sponsoring a new online journal of student research, the Western Illinois Historical Review. The new journal will publish selected outstanding student papers nominated by members of the History faculty and selected by the journal’s Editorial Board.

Graduate students have the opportunity to learn while they travel through Western’s History department travel-study courses. Past trips include travels to Greece and Rome. Future trips include a travel-study course through the American South to study the history of the Southern Civil Rights Movement and an overseas trip to Japan.

Our Faculty

All department faculty members possess doctoral degrees in history earned at a variety of distinguished North American and European universities. Faculty members have considerable teaching and research expertise in their geographic and thematic areas of specialization and are nationally and internationally recognized for their scholarly research and publications. Faculty areas of geographical expertise include the United States, Russia/the Soviet Union, Germany, Britain, France, Japan, the Middle East, and Latin America. The topics of expertise include foreign policy, diplomacy, the Cold War, Ancient Greece and Rome, the Renaissance and Reformation, the Enlightenment, the French Revolution, the Progressive Era, labor history, American Indian history, British Colonial America, the Early Republic, Civil War and Reconstruction, African-American history, the American Revolution, military history, and women’s history.

Extracurricular Opportunities

Six History Grad Students Make Regional Conference Presentations in October 2009 - wiu.edu/history/news

Eleven History Graduate Students Make Conference Presentations in Spring 2009 - wiu.edu/history/news