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University of Arkansas, Fayetteville ScholarWorks@UARK History Newsletter History 2015 History Newsletter, 2014-2015 University of Arkansas, Fayetteville. Department of History Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarworks.uark.edu/history-newsletter Citation University of Arkansas, Fayetteville. Department of History. (2015). History Newsletter, 2014-2015. History Newsletter. (43) Retrieved from https://scholarworks.uark.edu/history-newsletter/10 This Periodical is brought to you for free and open access by the History at ScholarWorks@UARK. It has been accepted for inclusion in History Newsletter by an authorized administrator of ScholarWorks@UARK. For more information, please contact [email protected]. The NEWSLETTERHistory For Alumni and Friends, Department of History, University of Arkansas, Fayetteville ISSUE NO. XXXXIII, 2014-2015 Have you seen us? LOS DESAPARECIDOS he Department of History has asked to believe that she has “voluntarily” appointed to such an esteemed position. been badly shaken by the sudden stepped down so that she might become This is a unique opportunity to work and mysterious disappearances of a Fulbright College’s associate dean for fine closely with innovative and dedicated Tnumber of key faculty members. In June, arts and humanities. She will appear to faculty members, staff and students across four simply vanished from their offices serve as administrative liaison between the Fulbright College, and I look forward to in Old Main, and there seems to be little Dean’s Office and assorted departments, promoting Senator Fulbright’s legacy prospect of their quick return. programs and research centers, promote of peace through education.” But look The disappearances of Kathryn Sloan, research and interdisciplinary programs, for unusual blinking or hand gestures Linda Coon, Tricia Starks, and Benjamin oversee faculty awards and fellowships, that might signal their attempts to Grob-Fitzgibbon have been “explained” in and supervise the academic integrity communicate with the outside world. various manners, none entirely plausible. process. So far, Coon and Sloan’s captors are We assume our chair, la jefa maxima, You can bet when Coon and Sloan keeping their stories straight. Departing Kathy Sloan, and her predecessor, reappear they will be exhibiting bad provost Sharon Gabor stated upon Abbess emerita Lynda Coon, are political cases of the Stockholm Syndrome. Coon Coon’s “appointment”: “I am confident prisoners. But a “friendly” administration will recite woodenly: “I am honored to be that Lynda Coon will be an excellent insists that it instead spirited them selected as the second dean of the Honors dean. She is more than qualified as a away so that they might be “trained” to College. There are many reasons for my teacher, researcher and administrator assume “higher” responsibilities. Coon, enthusiasm: the team, both internal and to lead the Honors College. More, she the official version goes, is replacing external to the college, the extraordinary has a strong vision of what the Honors History’s Bob McMath as dean of the U students, the solid foundation that College can and should become.” The of A’s sparkling Honors College. Sloan has has already been built, and the new Honors College’s associate dean, Carol served as History’s chair since 2013, and directions ahead.” Sloan will chime in, Gattis, displayed similar “enthusiasm”: was routinely described by colleagues as but in an oddly detached monotone: “I “She is U of A-centric, and cares about “the nice Claire Underwood.” But we are am honored and excited to have been students and the college. She is going PAGE 1 to take us to the next level.” For his part, The four disappearances raise the Winthrop Rockefeller Foundation and Fulbright College dean Todd Shields deftly question most immediately of who has been active in college and university spinned Sloan’s deposal: “We’re happy to will teach our exploding numbers of committees. White has been repeatedly have Dr. Sloan join the Fulbright College undergraduates. Adjuncts and graduate honored for his work with students and administrative team. The associate dean students? With our tradition of faculty colleagues, having won Fulbright College’s of fine arts and humanities is crucial to commitment to the classroom? No way. Outstanding Advisor Award and John E. the work we do every day. Her experience Free the hostages. King Award for Outstanding Service and, with interdisciplinary studies programs most recently, one of the U of A’s most will be invaluable to our students and prestigious distinctions, the Dr. John and faculty.” The media has played along Mrs. Lois Imhoff Award for Teaching and with the official explanations of the Student Mentoring. disappearances. The Arkansas Traveler In short, a department no longer celebrated Coon’s “elevation” to Honors The Reformation famous for its fashion sense will be College dean in a front-page article that, wearing White after Labor Day. among other things, reported, “Her career began in administration where she ran a After seven years of abbess infallibility, disciplinary program.” Spank us, Kitten! the veneration of saints, the favoring of Trish Starks, our associate chair certain monastic orders and the stern and chair of graduate studies, is a third suppression of others, and the selling candidate for the milk carton. The U of A of indulgences, the Department is The having become a “tobacco free” campus, experiencing a bracing dose of Calvinism. she has been driven from among us for On August 1, Associate Professor Calvin Reinforcements the next two and a half years. Starks White, Jr., succeeded the vanished Kathryn will join the little knots of smokers who Sloan [see related story] as History’s chair. congregate on nearby sidestreets, so that He doesn’t promise salvation (that has Arrive she might complete her book Cigarettes already been decided). But we expect our and Soviets: The Culture of Tobacco parties to be just as fun, only with less Use in Modern Russia. That she won an incense and brocade. You would think, with all the faculty incredibly huge $121,250 grant from the When la jefa maxima disappeared disappearances and most of our graduate National Institutes of Health to prove in July, a grassroots consensus quickly students enduring the Duncan captivity, that nicotine slaves are all the same (at emerged to bring Evan Bukey out of that we’d have office space to spare in Old a petting party or a poker game), might retirement. “He’s tanned, rested, and Main. Nope. We’re still stuffed to the gills. fool some into imagining that this is not ready to chair!” we chorused in unison. The department has hired a trio of tenure- another straightforward case of political When it became clear that no precedent track professors—two to replace verifiably exile. But not us, puppetmasters. existed for drafting anemeritus to lead the departed colleagues and one to fill a new The explanation for Benjamin Grob- Department, the faculty quickly settled on position in colonial Latin America. Fitzgibbon’s “departure” is perhaps the its predestined alternative. The creation of this new position least persuasive of all. They say he has Calvin White came to the department is particularly fortunate, considering joined the U.S. Department of State as in 2007, having earned a doctorate at the our sole Latin Americanist heretofore, a Foreign Service officer. Yeah, right— University of Mississippi and already Kathy Sloan, has vanished, a casualty of somebody with that accent representing established himself as an authority Fulbright College’s “dirty wars” [see related this nation. That would confuse the on the Church of God in Christ, the story]. Dr. Shawn Austin, who has been folks in Mogadishu something awful. large and influential black Pentecostal teaching at Saint Mary’s College in Notre Surely, his captors can’t expect it to have denomination. The University of Arkansas Dame, Indiana, promises to take our escaped our notice that the English Press published White’s first book, The Latin American curriculum way south of born and bred BGF is a dyed in the Rise to Respectability: Race, Religion, and the border, as he is a specialist in colonial Northumbrian wool monarchist. And, the Church of God in Christ, in 2012. Paraguay. He has two books on the surely, the Foreign Service has developed It will issue a paperback edition this subject in the offing, a monograph titled means of assuring that the republic is autumn. White is now embarked on a Beyond the Missions: The Guaraní and not “represented” abroad by adherents of badly needed study of Oscar DePriest. By the Encomienda Community in Colonial subversive doctrines. And, besides, why 1928, the Great Migration had brought Paraguay and an edited volume, Native would Ben chose to leave? He’s only been enough African Americans to Chicago’s Peoples of the Colonial Rio de Plata. Now here since 2007, was quickly promoted South Side to make DePriest America’s that we’ve lost our jefa maxima, maybe to associate professor and director of the first black congressman elected from a Dr. Austin will be our Colonel Trunk. International Studies programs, and has northern state. He holds a B.A. in history from Brigham been lavished with such honors as the White teaches like a preacher and Young University-Idaho. He earned his Alumni Association’s “Rising Star Award,” writes like an angel but also has all the master’s and a doctorate with distinction Fulbright College’s master teacher award, seasoning required to chair a boisterous from the University of New Mexico. This and election to the Teaching Academy. department. Since 2011, White has autumn, he will be teaching a survey of We knew Ben Grob-Fitzgibbon when he been overseeing the U of A’s burgeoning colonial Latin America and World Civ. I. didn’t have no shoes.

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