Dr. Pace signing
copies of his book Halls of Honor
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It has been said that good teaching comes down
to this simple proposition: To know your subject well, and to be
turned on by it. There are hundreds of schools in the country with
history programs; why should you come to McMurry? A lot of the
answer to that question is the faculty you’ll
encounter here. When you take history classes at McMurry, you’ll be
taking classes from teachers who are passionate about what they do.
All have doctoral degrees from recognized graduate programs and
have published original research. They have all received teaching
awards of one sort or another. For them, history is not just lists
of dry facts about people who are dead, but a vital key to
understanding the world we live in today and tomorrow.
In addition to its faculty, the McMurry History Department also
offers students the benefits of its association with the Grady McWhiney Research
Foundation, a non-profit organization dedicated to history
education. The Foundation specializes in the history of the Old
South, Civil War, and Texas. It maintains an extensive
collection of books and documents in those fields housed in
the McMurry University library. Through the State House Press and
McWhiney Press, it publishes
several outstanding titles in American history every year. It also
owns the Buffalo Gap
Historic Village, a unique site of historic buildings and
artifacts a few miles south of Abilene. These resources together
offer students educational opportunites for research and direct
hands-on experience simply not available except at
universities far larger than McMurry. The department also offers an
undergraduate certificate in public
history and, through the Buffalo Gap Historic Village,
sponsors a vintage
1880’s base ball (not “baseball”) team.
What does this all mean for you? It means lots of opportunities
for your personal and professional growth, whether you ultimately
envisage history as a vehicle for getting a public school teaching
certificate, for graduate study, for going to law school, or
because you just want to know more about the world around you.
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