Liberty Hall at Kean University. Liberty Hall was the home of William Livingston, the first governor of the state of New Jersey. As I posted earlier this week, I spent the day on Tuesday with the History Department at Kean University in Union, New Jersey. I am working with Kean as a “public humanities consultant” for their National Endowment for the Humanities program “William Livingston’s World.
First, was very impressed with the Kean History Department and the hospitality I received during my visit. Special thanks to Jonathan Mercantini (Acting Dean of the College of Liberty Arts) and Elizabeth Hyde (Department Chair).
In the morning, I talked about public engagement with the faculty and campus archives staff. We had a spirited discussion about whether or not our public engagement as historians should be more political and activist-oriented than our classroom teaching. I think it is fair to say that we were divided on this question.
In the afternoon, I met with four honors students who wrote papers and created websites on William Livingston. During this session we watched the “director’s cut” of the Liberty Hall 360 re-enactment of the Susannah Livingston-John Jay wedding. Several of the students worked on the script. It was fun chatting with undergraduates who have traveled to archives with Livingston collections, read Livingston’s letters, and tried to make sense of the political, intellectual, and religious life of this New Jersey founding father.
One of these students approached me after the session with a signed copy of Why Study History? My inscription read: “Caleb, keep studying history and I hope you do so at Messiah College.” It was dated 2014. Needless to say, we did not land Caleb at Messiah, but he certainly had a wonderful undergraduate career at Kean. Caleb asked me to sign the book again with an inscription that began “four years later….” It was a great encounter with a big undergraduate fish I was unable to land! 🙂
Finally, I met with five adjunct faculty members who teach the department’s general education course: “HIST 1062: Modern World Civilizations: Crises of the Contemporary World.” We had a great discussion about how to teach historical thinking skills to non-history majors.
Needless to say, I thoroughly enjoyed my visit and hope to return soon to continue consulting on the William Livingston project. As I noted in my previous post, I think this is a model grant for any history department interested in merging public history, public humanities, career preparation, and the undergraduate history curriculum.
