Faculty

History at McMurry is taught by a full-time faculty of four who bring a high level of professionalism and personal commitment to the enterprise of being historians. No less than half of the members of the department have won the Gordon R. and Lola J. Bennett Award, McMurry’s most prestigious (and financially rewarding) recognition of academic achievement.

Dr. Donald Frazier      [webpage]
Professor of History
Phone: (325) 793-3861
Office: Texas Frontier Heritage and Cultural Center
410 Appleton
Buffalo Gap, TX 79508
Email: dfrazier@mcm.edu
Dr. Frazier discusses national security on the radio show “The Professors”

M.A., Ph.D., Texas Christian University
B.A., University of Texas at Arlington

Don Frazier is the author of numerous books on the Civil War. In addition to Blood and Treasure: Confederate Empire in the Southwest and Cottonclads! The Battle of Galveston and the Defense of the Texas Coast, he is now working on a trilogy examining the Civil War in Louisiana. Fire in the Cane Field, the first in the series, has just appeared. He has also edited The United States and Mexico at War and recently co-authored Frontier Texas: History of a Borderland to 1880 with Robert Pace. His documentary script and directorial debut, “‘Our Homes — Our Rights,’ Texas in the Civil War,” which he created for the Texas Civil War Museum in Fort Worth, recently won the Mitchell A. Wilder Award of Merit for museum media from the Texas Association of Museums. Frazier is also the President and C.E.O. of the McWhiney History Education Group. Bennett Award, 2000.

Dr. Stephen L. Hardin
Professor of History
Phone: (325) 793-3865
Office: Hunt 2 in the Library
Email: hardin.stephen@mcm.edu

Ph.D., Texas Christian University
M.A., Southwest Texas State University
B.A., Southwest Texas State University

Dr. Stephen L. Hardin is a specialist in Texas, military, and social history. His numerous publications range from the award-winning Texian Illiad: A Military History of the Texas Revolution to, most recently, Texian Macabre: The Melancholy Tale of a Hanging in Early Houston, a fascinating study of early Houston society. In addition to his writing and teaching activities, Hardin has also provided specialist commentary on the A&E Network, the History Channel, the Discovery Network, and NBC’s TODAY show.

Dr. Robert Maberry
Assistant Professor of History
Phone: (325) 793-4698
Hunt 2 in the Library
Email: maberry.robert@mcm.edu

M.A., Ph.D., Texas Christian University
D.D.S., U.T. Health Science Center, Houston
B.A., University of Texas

Dr. Bob Maberry has literally written the book on the historical flags of Texas, namely Texas Flags, a beautifully-illustrated volume published by Texas A&M Press, which has won numerous awards. Maberry combines his expertise in U.S. history with a deep interest in ancient and medieval studies. He is currently engaged in writing a history of the San Jacinto battle flag and in ongoing research for a biography of the nineteenth-century artist James H. Beard.

Dr. Gary W. Shanafelt      [webpage]
Professor of History and Chair of the Department
Phone: (325) 793-3863
Office: McWhiney Collection in the Library
Email: shanafeg@mcmurryadm.mcm.edu
Listen to Dr. Shanafelt’s description of his recent trip to Vilnius, Lithuania, on the radio show “The Professors”
Dr. Shanafelt discusses American immigration on “The Professors”

M.A., Ph.D., University of California, Berkeley
B.A., University of California, Irvine

The chief Europeanist of the department is Gary W. Shanafelt. Shanafelt’s expertise is modern Germany and Central Europe. He is the author of The Secret Enemy: Austria-Hungary and the German Alliance, 1914-1918, as well as scholarly articles dealing with the Habsburg Monarchy and the Balkans. Most recently, he was one of twenty-five scholars nationwide chosen to participate in the July 2009 N.E.H. Summer Institute in Washington, D.C., on American immigration.  Bennett Award, 2004.