History Department Alumni Newsletter - Fall 2019 & Spring 2020

This has been a proud year for the History Department as its students, staff, and faculty have all shown great care for one another in a time of crisis. Campus closed on March 16 due to COVID-19, and we have not seen one another face-to-face ever since. Nevertheless, the students...

At the end of the 2019-2020 school year, the History Department will be saying goodbye to one of its longtime faculty members, Professor Thomas Jacob Noel. Noel has been teaching at CU Denver since 1977. Before he was a professor, he was a student here as well. Noel has earned...

At the end of the 2019-2020 school year, the History Department will be saying goodbye to one of its long-time faculty members, Clinical-Teaching Track Associate Professor Rebecca Hunt. Hunt taught her first class at CU Denver in 1999 as a lecturer, and in 2005 she became a Senior Instructor for...

The History Department would like to welcome Professor Rachel Gross to the faculty! Professor Gross is an environmental, cultural, and public historian specializing in the history of the modern U.S. Her research and teaching interests center on business, consumer culture, and gender, and she is especially interested in what seemingly...

The History Department would like to welcome Professor Peter Kopp to the faculty! Joining us from New Mexico State University where he was the Director of Public history for seven years, Kopp shared that he was looking for a new challenge in his career. He says, “I was drawn to...

As an update to last year’s newsletter, Dr. Pamela Laird’s book, Advertising Progress: American Business and the Rise of Consumer Marketing (1998) is now available online as a digital edition. Johns Hopkins University Press, in partnership with Johns Hopkins Sheridan Libraries, received a grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation...

Dr. Chris Agee Prof. Agee was invited to submit the first chapter of his book—“That Neighborly Spirit of Mutual Care”: Neighborhood Anticrime Organizing in Philadelphia, 1970-1977—to a “Race and Policing" to a workshop organized by the Harvard Law School. This chapter narrates the rise of Philadelphia’s Mayor Frank Rizzo—a proto-Trump...

For many students and faculty, schoolwork has changed in ways many could have never imagined. With the spread of COVID-19, the university made the decision to close campus and transition to remote learning on March 16, 2020. Through this all, both students and faculty have shown an amazing amount of...

In the Fall 2019 semester, Kaylyn Mercuri won the CLAS Outstanding Graduate Student Award. Mercuri graduated from the History Department’s M.A. program in December 2019 with a 4.0 GPA. She was involved in Phi Alpha Theta, and she was the History Department’s Graduate Assistant. During her graduate career, Mercuri was...

Last semester students in CTT Prof. Hunt’s Interpretation of History in Museums: Exhibits and Education class partnered with the Brighton City Museum to create the exhibit, "Brighton: A New Look at the Past." The course is designed to introduce students to the rudiments of historical interpretation through exhibits and education...

In May of 2020 the CU Denver Phi Alpha Theta president, Zolaykha Hussainy, will be graduating with her Bachelor’s degree in History and minor in Biology. Hussainy has been the president of Phi Alpha Theta for over two years. She originally took the position in the Fall of 2018. Each...

Each semester the History Department is proud to support students as they work on diverse projects, both in and outside the university classroom. Harrison Sokol, a History major, is currently working toward earning his Secondary Social Science License. This semester Sokol worked with North High School, a public school in...

Each year the History Department is proud to support its students and their research through the Historical Studies Journal . Our faculty review assignment submissions each semester and choose outstanding papers based on the papers’ arguments and content. Th journal is published at the end of each term. The History...

Every semester the History Department is proud to support its students in their academic pursuits and celebrate with them when they reach the end of the BA program. In the Fall 2019 several students graduated with honors and exemplified the traits of professional historians with their Senior Seminar papers. The...

Before Shay Gonzales graduated from CU Denver in 2014 with a Bachelor of Arts degree in History and a minor in Communications, he had attended Community College of Denver where he earned his Associate’s degree in Art. Over the years Gonzales’ academic career has continued to progress. The research Gonzales...