Hope College Returns to Vietnam

Dr. Fred Johnson, full professor of History, and his students are spending May term in Vietnam. After a two-year absence, it’s great to be back! Preparation: Students met once a week during the spring semester to get a thorough historical foundation of the US-Vietnam relationship. Students taking this course for Senior Seminar also prepared for …

Summer Research Highlight: Autumn Balamucki (’21)

History major Autumn Balamucki (’21) began research with the Joint Archives this summer with Geoffrey Reynolds under abnormal circumstances. Because of the COVID-19 pandemic, she had to do almost all of her work remotely. With some creative solutions and a lot of hard work, Autumn managed to transcribe decades’ worth of meeting minutes of the …

Graduate Insight: A History Degree at Work

Hello to all the current History students, faculty and staff, and alumni. It has been well over a year since I stepped foot into Lubbers to attend a class and a lot has changed since then. I took a well-needed year off from school to figure out what I exactly was going to do with my …

Student Feature: Reed Hanson

Going to Rome felt like a death sentence the first week. I knew nobody else from Hope and didn’t have any other friends from high school in Europe with me, so I was plagued by intense feelings of isolation and loneliness for about a week after I arrived. It reminded me of freshman year all …

Day of Giving

Hope Day of Giving starts this Thursday, April 11. This year it’s all about “Give to What you Love,” and for 36 hours you can give directly to support the Hope History Department as we work to teach historical thinking skills, expand students’ global engagement, and engage students in original research.  You can help us …

It’s Course Registration Time!

Take a look at the upper-level courses being taught by our great professors for Fall 2019! If you have questions about them, please contact Dr. Jeanne Petit (petit@hope.edu). History 141-01 The Historian’s Vocation MWF 12:00 -12:50 PM Jeanne Petit Do you love history, but struggle to answer when people ask you, “What are you going to …

Faculty Feature: Jeanne Petit

We’re excited to start a new semester here in the history department. And as I often do, I began the year by attending the American Historical Association meeting, which was in Chicago this year. This conference brings together scholars from all different geographic regions and all fields of history, from ancient Mesopotamia through the late-20th …

Alumni Feature: Rebecca Fry Debowski ’12

Across the desk my adviser told me, “You will never get a history job if you don’t pursue the social studies composite major.  You won’t be marketable.” I distinctly remember this conversation from my sophomore year and the frustration I felt trying to explain to the adviser that my passion is history.   I saw the …

Student Feature: Sarah Lundy

When many people imagine the French capital, trips to the Eiffel Tower, coffee in outdoor cafés, and strolls along the Seine are what typically come to mind. My Paris story is somewhat different. Though I definitely enjoy these aspects of Parisian life, I was not really a tourist during my two-week return to the city …

Alumni Feature: Mike Douma ’04

When you have a free afternoon sometime, go visit the archives of the Holland Museum, and ask for an old account book of the Boone Lumber Company (collection T00-1600.5). Set the account book in front of you on a table, open it somewhere in the middle, lean forward and breathe. Suddenly, the smells of a …