When I applied for a teaching position here many years ago, I had never heard of the college. I knew I wanted to teach at a small school, but I had no idea how much I would fall in love with this campus, its students, and its emphasis on academics. This place is more than a job for me. There is something special here that makes you feel at home. We’re able to do so much more in class because of the college’s small size.

My classes give me the opportunity to help students understand their world and the importance of history. I teach courses on general modern European history, German history, and Russian history as well as seminars such as The Holocaust, Genocide, Propaganda, Women and the Two World Wars, Disasters, and the History of Christmas. I also teach a course entitled Paris and Berlin in the 1920s: A Cultural History. This class, inspired by my own scholarly research on the evolution of a consumer culture in Germany during the 1920s, explores the unprecedented explosion of artistic creativity that emerged from the cafes, cabarets, and studios of Paris and Berlin.

I also teach classes that are cross listed with the museum and heritage studies major. Those classes include Introduction to Public History, which explores, among other issues, the evolution of memorials, monuments, museums, historic sites, and national parks as well as the field of historic preservation. More than any other of my courses, this one is explicitly designed for those who imagine themselves working in the field of history but not necessarily as teachers in a standard classroom. Along with this course, I teach seminars on Race and Memory in American Life and World War II and Memory that delve deeper into specific issues of public history.

Like other professors here, I try to bring my classroom alive for students. You can’t learn everything from just one textbook. Since I love movies, I integrate films into all my classes. I also assign novels, memoirs, and biographies and utilize images to provide a visual context for many of the topics discussed in my courses. I also take full advantage of the historic sites that surround the college, from Thomas Jefferson’s two homes, Monticello and Poplar Forest, to the National D-Day Memorial, the Robert Russa Moton Museum (one of the schools that was part of the Brown vs. Board of Education case that resulted in the desegregation of public schools), and the Monacan Indian Nation Museum.

I also take students further afield to sites including the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum and the National Gallery in D.C. and the Virginia Museum History and Culture in Richmond. Nothing can take the place of visiting places where history happened or is presented, and I’m fortunate to be able to take students on many field trips over the course of an academic year.

As the years have passed, I have also brought more and more of my former students into my classes to share their expertise but also to share the stories about their careers and to provide advice to current students about how they too can pursue a career as a park ranger, historic preservationist, professional tour guide, or museum expert, among other careers.

Through our small classes, discussions, and trips, I have gotten to know students better than many of my colleagues at bigger institutions. Over the years my wife and I have attended many alumni weddings (nearly twenty) from Massachusetts to Washington state, from Bath, England to Houston, Texas, to those held on campus. I also enjoy visits from alums who have passed through town, keeping up via Zoom, and even planning our road trips around seeing former students.

Community involvement is important to me. I joined the board of the Holocaust Education Foundation of Central Virginia soon after I arrived in Lynchburg. As a member of the board, I have been able to help bring several guest speakers to Lynchburg to discuss issues surrounding the impact of the Holocaust. I’m also a board member of the Pierce Street Gateway (dedicated to the preservation and promotion of Lynchburg’s Pierce Street, an African American neighborhood with the largest concentration of state historic markers in Virginia) and the Jones Memorial Library (our region’s preeminent archive and genealogy library). I often get to use these commitments to provide opportunities for my students through internships and other experiences.

Besides my interest in history, I have a passion for historic preservation. Inspired by an architectural boat tour of Chicago back in the 1990s, I became involved in historic preservation efforts while a graduate student in Indiana. Starting in 2010, I participated in the College’s Summer Research Program to conduct research on the individual buildings within the Rivermont Avenue Historic District (including Randolph College). Working with six history majors over the years, we gathered information and took photos of the buildings within the Rivermont Avenue Historic District for the FORHS website, www.friendsofrivermont.org I have worked on other Summer Research Projects while at Randolph, including most recently on Virginia’s changing monument (particularly Confederate) landscape.  I hope to continue working with students on Summer Research Program projects, including on the history of our college.

When I’m not teaching, you are most likely to find me traveling. My wife, Carolyn, and I love to visit art museums, buildings designed by Frank Lloyd Wright, presidential sites, movie palaces, lighthouses, and classic diners. We also like to check out weird attractions such as the World’s Largest Bull or the World’s Largest Badger or the two competing World’s Largest Balls of Twine. We’ve even seen the World’s Largest Talking Cow, which rests beside the World’s Largest Replica Cheese in Neillsville, Wisconsin. As always, we hope to hit a few more presidential sites and unique roadside attractions (including the Boll Weevil Monument in Enterprise, Alabama) this year.