WELCOME TO THE DEPARTMENT OF HISTORY AT LOUISIANA TECH UNIVERSITY

In the established tradition of liberal arts education, the Department of History provides students with personal cultural enrichment, while preparing them for employment in fields in which historical knowledge, habits of mind, and skills (such as research, analysis, and communication) are valued, and/or for further study leading to careers in teaching, the law, the ministry, government service,
and many others.

DEPARTMENTAL NEWS:

Professor and Department head Stephen Webre published an article entitled “Defense, Economy, and Politics in Seventeenth-Century Nicaragua: Don Fernando Francisco de Escobedo and the Fortification of the San Juan River, 1672-1673,” in the most recent number of the German academic journal Jahrbuch für Geschichte Lateinamerikas (“Latin American History Yearbook”).

Graduate student Emily Buck, of Leesville, took first place in the graduate division of the association’s annual W. Darrell Overdyke competition for the best research paper on the history of North Louisiana. Buck’s paper was entitled “Desegregation Discussions in Lincoln Parish During the Crucial Summer of 1969.”

Gradute student James Ronnie Smith, of Bossier City, took second place in the Overdyke competition for his paper “Shreveport, the Heart and Transportation Hub of the Confederate Trans-Mississippi Department.”

Both papers were researched and written in Dr. Philip C. Cook’s graduate seminar on Louisiana history. Besides a cash prize, winning papers are published in North Louisiana History, the journal of the association.

Also receiving recognition was another student of Dr. Cook’s, Brian Sherman, who competed his master’s degree in history in 2005. Mr. Sherman is currently employed as head of library collection management at McNeese State University in Lake Charles.

Graduate student Brandy Blanchard won first prize in the Phi Alpha Theta graduate paper competition for her paper entitled, “Slavery and Architecture: A Tool for Rebellion and a Tool for Repression.”

Graduate student Jason C. Fossella took second prize for his paper, “Ahead of Their Time: Anastasius I and Economic Thought in Late Antiquity.”

Outgoing chapter president Lou-Anne Williams received the Phi Alpha Theta Lambda-Rho chapter’s annual Outstanding Member award, while Brandy Blanchard and John Ortis of Shreveport were presented with Most Active Member citations.