About Dr. McWatters
P.O Box 23
Middle Tennessee State University
Murfreesboro, TN 37132
615-898-5805
dmcwatte@mtsu.edu
As a young person growing up in the 1960s, I was fascinated with the power of film to educate. During my successful run for student Prime Minister in my British Columbia High School of 1964, I called for “a TV in every classroom!” It wasn’t until the digital revolution of the 1990s, however, that I recognized the potential of New Media for History as a tool not only for professors, but also for students who can now, thanks to increasingly affordable and accessible digital technology, actually “do history” themselves.
Today, the entire globe has entered into a dialogue with digital technology. As in all fields, the digital landscape for History is complex, but its elements are visible, the New Media tools waiting to be picked up and used. The possibilities are limitless, but the challenge of digital history requires new ways of thinking about both historical research and presentation.
In order to become citizens of the digital world, students of history must learn to use digital history tools. My personal focus is documentary filmmaking, but I encourage students to use other digital history tools in all my classes. For example, in addition to the student films produced in several classes, and listed on this website, one of my graduate classes developed the original website for the Heritage Partnership of Rutherford County.
I completed my PhD at the University of Florida in 1979, with a specialization in Latin American History. After teaching history at the University of Florida and the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, I made a career shift in 1983 when I and three of my colleagues formed HMS Associates, one of the first (and largest) history consulting firms in the United States. After 10 years as an owner, historian, and business manager of HMS Associates, in 1993 I returned to teaching, at MTSU, where I have since taught numerous graduate and undergraduate courses, including public history, historic preservation, and cultural resources management.
MTSU
Professor of History, Middle Tennessee State University 1993-present (Full Doctoral Faculty status)Education
Co-Director, Public History Program, 2000-2006
Acting Director, Public History Program, May-August,1993-2000
Ph.D. University of Florida, Gainesville, Florida, 1979Prior Positions
M.A. University of Calgary, Calgary, Alberta, Canada, 1972
B.A. Simon Fraser University, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, 1969
Principal (Owner and Historian) and Business Manager, HMS Associates, a History consulting firm (Chapel Hill, NC; Columbia, SC; Jacksonville, FL; Santa Fe, NM), 1984-1993Other Professional Roles
Visiting Assistant Professor of History, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Urbana, Illinois, 1980-1983
Historian, Spanish Florida Borderlands Project, Library of Florida History,
University of Florida, Gainesville, Florida, 1977-1980
Chair, Vice-Chair, and Member, Murfreesboro Historic Zoning Commission, 1994-2008Teaching
Founder and Board of Director Member, Heritage Partnership of Rutherford County, 2006-2008
Board of Directors, National Council on Public History, 1995-1997
Graduate courses in History Documentary Filmmaking and in Public History, Historic Preservation, Cultural Resources Management, Labor History.Major Publications and Presentations
Undergraduate courses in History Documentary Filmmaking, Historical Research Methods, Public History, and American History.
Awards and HonorsBook: Raising Arizona’s Dams: Daily Life, Danger, and Discrimination in the Dam Construction Camps of Central Arizona, 1890s-1940s, University of Arizona Press, 1995. (Developed as part of Section 106 project and co-authored with Eugene Rogge, Melissa Keane, and Richard Emanuel.)
“The City Different? Historic Preservation and the Santa Fe Plaza,” The Public Historian, 29:4, Fall 2007.
National Register Nomination, Lebanon Woolen Mill (Lebanon, TN). A major architectural and historical analysis of the Lebanon Woolen Mill, owned by John Edgerton, President of the National Association of Manufacturers, July 2007.“Red or Green? Copper Mining, Environmental Degradation, and Reforestation in the Copper Basin of Tennessee since 1890,” in-depth research paper and presentation at National Council on Public History, Annual Conference, Victoria, British Columbia, Canada, March 2004.
Keynote Speaker: “A Social Profile of Dam Construction Workers at Roosevelt Dam, Arizona, 1903-1911,” Bureau of Reclamation History Symposium on Centennial of the establishment of the Bureau in 1902, Las Vegas, Nevada, June 2002.
"History of Oxon Hill Manor, Prince Georges County, Maryland, 17th-Century-present," Oxon Hill Manor Archaeological/Historical Site Mitigation Project, Maryland Department of Transportation, 1986.
Current ResearchCertificate of Commendation for Contribution to State and Local History, American Society for State and Local History (AASLH) for book, Raising Arizona’s Dams, 1996
Phi Beta Kappa Membership, 1979
Canada Council Doctoral Fellowship, 1972-1976
Documentary film work on the historical cultural landscape of MTSU campus, as represented by its changing “footprint,” 1911-2011
