History

The 2023-2024 year was very busy and productive for the Department of History. Our focus continues to be on providing quality education for our students. As a testament to that, we have been ranked as the #1 Best Online History Bachelors Program in the United States by University HQ.   

We have achieved a record number of events and accomplishments this year. Our signature activities included the Jerrell Shofner Lecture on Florida Culture and History, the John T. Washington Lecture on Africana Studies and the Pauley Lecture on Global Affairs. We are proud to have provided a platform to showcase significant historical scholarship and foster collaboration between historians and students of history. In October, the second annual Florida Historical Society Annual Meeting and Symposium offered faculty and students an opportunity to present their Florida-focused history work. In January, we marked the fifth and final segment of the ZORA! Festival’s Academic Conference Cycle on Afrofuturism and the Hurston Legacy. 

In April, UCF hosted an international conference on “Holocaust Perpetrators and the Law,” thanks to the hard work of Professor Vladimir Solonari. The conference drew top scholars worldwide to examine the complex relationship between legal systems and historical crimes against humanity. A keynote address by Christopher Browning, titled “In Search of the Holocaust Perpetrators: A 55-year Personal Retrospective,” offered profound insights into the minds behind one of history’s darkest periods. Browning’s talk also shed light on the career of a scholar whose work has significantly influenced the field of Holocaust Studies. 

The history department is dedicated to supporting veterans through various initiatives. The UCF Community Veterans History Project has been actively involved in gathering, preserving, and honoring the stories and experiences of American veterans. Since 2010, the project has collected over one thousand oral histories. Last fall, the UCF Veterans Legacy Program (VLP) secured over $300,000 in grant funding from the Department of Veterans Affairs and National Cemetery Administration. The VLP focuses on commemorating U.S. veterans interred at national cemeteries. It connects UCF’s historical work with the broader community by utilizing advanced technology and innovative teaching methods developed by a dedicated coalition of UCF professors, staff, students and K-12 educators. The VLP team creates biographies of veterans and develops educational materials to teach veterans’ histories in K-12 classrooms. Additionally, the Florida France Soldier Stories project has begun working on biographies of American soldiers interred in the Normandy American Cemetery, the final resting place for some veterans who died during D-Day and World War II. These projects and veterans were celebrated during the November Veterans month events. 

The department has achieved significant success this year, including the receipt of the VLP grant, one of three major grants. Rosalind Beiler led the PRINT (People, Religion, Information Networks, and Travel) project, which secured a $330,253 grant from the National Historical Publication and Records Commission. Additionally, Tiffany Earley-Spadoni received a $284,304 grant from the National Science Foundation to study urbanism at the archaeological site of Kurd Qaburstan in Iraq. Earley-Spadoni also received the American Society of Overseas Research Memberships Service Award. 

 The above accomplishments only represent a few highlights of the history department’s achievements over the past year.  We also continue to have a thriving public history program and to expand our Regional Initiative for Collecting the Histories, Experiences, and Stories (RICHES) digital projects.   

We are committed to transforming UCF students into historians while making the study of history relevant to their everyday lives. You can see evidence of this transformation by checking out our internship blogs. If you want to learn more about our department and our accomplishments, please visit us at 320 Trevor Colbourn Hall.