History and Philosophy Department Competencies Developed

Graduates of the history program demonstrate competency in objective 1 through successful completion of the required introductory core courses in the major. Graduates will:

1. Have broad content knowledge of a variety of historical time periods and geographic regions, including:

   1. Pre-modern societies 

   2. European societies  

   3. Societies in Asia, Africa, the Middle East, and Latin America 

   4. United States history from the colonial period to the present 

2. Have acquired a basic knowledge of the U.S. Constitution and Bill of Rights, and how the meaning of democracy has changed over time;

   1. Can think critically about the United States’ place in the world;    

   2. Can explain historical change over time in important institutions, social movements, and socioeconomic conditions;  

   3. Can analyze the role of political, economic, social and cultural factors within larger historical processes; and  

   4. Can consider historical continuities and discontinuities and see how the past relates to the present. 

Graduates of the history program demonstrate competency in objective 2 through successful completion of the required research and writing courses of the major. Graduates will be able to:

1. Formulate and frame researchable historical questions; utilize historical inquiry skills in order to generate their own meaningful, relevant, and significant questions, assertions, and conclusions.  
2. Identify an author’s thesis and develop their own  
3. Access electronic databases for primary and secondary sources.  
4. Evaluate primary sources for their utility in research and can analyze, critique and interpret a variety of types of primary sources: written, visual, oral, artifact, etc.  
5. Identify gaps in the available records, use contextual knowledge, and construct a sound historical interpretation.  
6. Utilize correct methods of citation for historical sources (e.g., Chicago and Turabian)  
7. Construct an in-depth, well-argued research paper that utilizes both primary and secondary source material  
8. Analyze and situate a historian or a historical interpretation of an event within a specific historiographical tradition  
9. Write a historiographical review paper or section of a research paper  
10. Write effectively, including the ability to summarize, articulate, and define their assertions in a coherent, rational manner. 

Graduates of the history program demonstrate competency in objective 3 through successful completion of the required core courses and certain elective offerings of the major. Graduates will:

1. Possess a working knowledge of intercommunal relations across time and place. 
2. Have engaged in extracurricular and curricular activities that enhance their understanding of peoples around the globe, as well as a range of populations locally, including the arts, religious/spiritual traditions, forms of social economic, political organization, activist movements, and the impact of geopolitical developments.
3. Have a detailed and contextual understanding of the range of perspectives, positionalities, practices, constructions of gender, race, class, religion, within and between geographic regions.
4. Have a working knowledge of the literature on discrimination and oppression and on conflict resolution movements within particular geographic regions. 
5. Have an understanding of the US political system, including the Bill of Rights, and how civic rights have evolved over time, including the role of social justice movements in securing and expanding these rights.