The Maymester Experience

Each year the Department of History hosts a Distinguished Visiting Public Historian who is in residence for during the Maymester intensive session teaching the "Current Issues in Public History Practice" seminar. He or she does not necessarily have an academic affiliation, but does bring years of practical experience and expertise in one or more practice fields, facilitating discussion about the connections between practice and theory.

2010: Stephanie Toothman
Dr . Stephanie Toothman is the Associate Director for Cultural Resources at the National Park Service. Prior to her present position, Dr. Toothman served as the Chief of Cultural Resource Programs for the Pacific West Region of the National Park Service. During her career with the National Park Service, she has served as a preservation planner in Washington, DC, as regional historian, as Acting Superintendent of the National Mall and Memorial Parks and has worked with the National Register of Historic Places.

Dr. Toothman taught MTSU's graduate field school on cultural resource management at the Ft. Vancouver National Historic Site. The field school explored partnerships between the National Park Service, state park systems, and universities and held a publicforum in Murfreesboro.

2009: Spencer Crew
Dr. Spencer Crew, widely recognized as one of the top public historians in the nation, is the former executive director of the Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of American History (NMAH) and the National Underground Railroad Freedom Center . He is currently on the faculty of George Mason University .

Dr. Crew's seminar, "Issues of Conscience, Commemoration, and Memory in Museums and Historic Places,"; focused on ways that public historians are incorporating issues of freedom and justice into their work. Dr. Crew also moderated a panel discussion, "American Slavery and Its Impact on Universities, Past and Present,"; that included Dr. Jim Campbell of Stanford University, Dr. Alfred Brophy of the University of North Carolina, and MTSU's own Dr. Carroll Van West .

2008: Michael Tomlan
Dr. Michael Tomlan wears many hats, including director of the Historic Preservation Planning Program at Cornell University, project director for the National Council of Preservation Education , advisor to the Global Heritage Fund , and president of Historic Urban Plans Inc. He has also consulted on projects for the World Heritage Fund , the
J. Paul Getty Trust, and numerous other national and international projects.

Dr. Tomlan taught a graduate seminar on sacred places and preservation. He also presented "Why Historians and Preservationists Avoid Religion," a community lecture, at St. Paul's Episcopal Church in Murfreesboro.

2007: Trudy Huskamp Peterson
Dr. Trudy Huskamp Peterson is a consulting archivist and author of Final Acts: A Guide to Preserving the Records of Truth Commissions (Woodrow Wilson Center Press/Johns Hopkins University Press, 2005) . Her 30-year career as an archivist has included a stint as Acting Archivist of the United States, serving on South Africa's Truth and Reconciliation Commission , and appointment as a public policy scholar with the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars .

In addition to teaching a summer graduate course on the power of records, Dr. Peterson was the featured speaker at a public forum during which she addressed topics related to her international work to connect the preservation of records to human rights.

2006: Dwight Pitcaithley
Dr. Dwight Pitcaithley, former Chief Historian of the National Park Service, and currently on the faculty of New Mexico State University, taught a course in summer 2006 on the topic of "Reinterpreting the Civil War."; The course examined the strategies that three National Historic Battlefields and two museums have adopted in recent years to interpret a broader history of the Civil War. As Chief Historian, he launched a sweeping Civil War reinterpretation initiative, articulated in Rally on the High Ground: The National Park Service Symposium on the Civil War (Eastern National, 2001).

Dr. Pitcaithley also co-moderated a community forum, "Rethinking the Civil War after 150 Years,"; with Dr. John Coski, Director of the Museum of the Confederacy, on opportunities and challenges with commemorating the sesquicentennial of the Civil War (2011-2015).