User:FaithGorrell1/sandbox/FaithGorrell1/Ball State University Undergraduate Public History Program

Ball State University Undergraduate Public History Program

History The public history program at Ball State University began in 1987-88 as a concentration in the History department. The first proposals to create the coursework which constitutes the core of the program came about in 1980 due to the efforts of Dr. John Weakland. Dr. Weakland researched many graduate level public history programs from around the United States before setting up the coursework for Ball State University's undergraduate program. One scholar and public historian whose work and research into public history programs at both the graduate and undergraduate levels was Dr. Glenda Riley, a professor at both the University of Northern Iowa and Ball State University. Dr. Riley published many articles about her experiences working to found undergraduate public history courses, such as the public history program at the University of Northern Iowa. In her article, Organizing a Public History Course: An Alternative Approach, Dr. Riley discusses how prior to the 1980s, coursework and studies regarding public history instruction did not exist at the undergraduate level, therefore she was neither inspired by nor constrained to prior methodologies in formulating a course which would expose her students to the different skills used by public historians in the many different fields of public history. Myron Marty also proved a source of inspiration for the Ball State University undergraduate program with his article, Training Tomorrow's Historians: A Forum on Standards and Guidelines for Programs in Applied and Public History, written in 1982 for the Network News Exchange. In his article, Marty wrote that successful public history programs must include internships for the students, be partnered with accredited historical agencies, and have the students work with experienced professionals in the field. Dr. Weakland used these articles and many other sources regarding public history education to create the Public History program at Ball State University which saw its first student interns in 1991.

Modern Program By 1998 Dr. Michael Doyle was hired by the Ball State History Department to take over the public history program as the new program director. Dr. Doyle has since gone on to continue growing the program, writing an article about Ball State's undergraduate public history program for Public History News, the official newsletter for the National Council on Public History. In his article he details the current requirements of the program, including an internship capstone for which each student works closely with a site supervisor to create a special project of enduring quality for the internship site. He also points out that Ball State's undergraduate program is based off of the careerist model termed by John Schlotterbeck and developed by Dr. Glenda Riley, who brought the program to Ball State from the University of Northern Iowa. In 2017 the program celebrated its 30th anniversary and continues to send students to internships across the country, including the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum and the International Women's Air and Space Museum.