About the Program

What makes this program distinctive

Courses Offered Only in the Summer

The courses in this program are offered during the summer as intensive week-long courses, making it convenient for social studies teachers nationwide to participate in the program. This Master's program is the only summer Master's program for history and social studies teachers in the nation.

Quality of the Faculty

One advantage of offering courses only in the summer is that full-time faculty from other universities not junior faculty, but noted scholars from colleges and universities nationwide will be able to teach in this graduate program. Almost all of the courses in the program are taught by two faculty, and both instructors are present during the entire course.

Combined History and Government Curriculum

The curriculum combines history and government courses because history teachers often teach American government. More important than this practical consideration is the fact that the study of history and government belong together. By establishing our public memory, American history as a discipline establishes the identity of our body politic. In telling us whence we have come, it inevitably helps us decide whither we should go. Thus, it affects the political decisions Americans make and have made through our political institutions, while these decisions are themselves the stuff of which history is made.

The program's emphasis on political history and government does not mean that it will ignore the kinds of history that have come to prominence over the past several decades. Indeed, to do so would make little sense. One cannot fully understand the achievement of someone like Lincoln or even the changing content of his language without understanding the social character and structure of mid-nineteenth-century Illinois and America. Our curriculum aims, therefore, to integrate what we have come to know of "the daily routines of ordinary people trying to make ends meet" into a comprehensive study of American history and government.

• Please see the Graduate Catalog for the character of the program.

Focus on Original Historical Documents.

The courses in this program emphasize a specific instructional strategy: the use of original documents. In every class, students read and study these documents, including diaries, state papers, speeches, and letters, as well as autobiographies and works of literature and philosophy. These are the materials from which we build historical understanding. Confronting them directly is the best way to improve our understanding.

• Further information is available in the Principles of the Program.