The faculty members of the History Department welcome you to Western. Students who study history gain a well-rounded liberal-arts education and vital job skills including researching, critical thinking, and communicating that translate into many employment settings. We engage with students across a diverse curriculum to build knowledge and skills. We are proud that history students build significate undergraduate research that prepares them for a variety of graduate studies programs and jobs and proud of our alumni who are working indiverse fields across the state and region.
Our mission is to promote a community of scholars dedicated to excellence in teaching, research, professional and community service. This community connects students with the past through a global and comparative perspective and provides them with the tools for critical thinking and analysis that are the foundation of the liberal arts education.
We encourage you to explore our website to learn about our History Major and Minor and our Public History Minor. You can also discover more about Phi Alpha Theta, the history honor society, and the History Club and the scholarships and awards available for history undergraduates. Please contact us to learn more.
Jen Hight, WOU History Major and Alum
Learning to think, research, and write about history is useful in a number of careers. Unlike some fields of study, history does not limit students to one job or technology. Foreign service officers, business executives, journalists, lawyers, librarians, archivists, and museum curators have majored in history as undergraduates. History also makes an exciting teaching career. In our society of dramatic change, most people change careers numerous times during their lifetime. Historical imagination and research skills provide students with a variety of options as jobs and technology change.
The problem-solving skills developed from close readings of texts and documents are valuable for any career. The ability to define, research, and interpret a subject are skills needed in education, business, and government. Students learn to weigh the choices of their own profession through historical speculation of “what might have been.” Those who learn to understand the clockwork of the past, can use this knowledge in planning for the future.
503-838-8288
503-838-8288 | or e-mail: ryalss@wou.edu | Location: BELL 231