History

Majoring in history will enable you to study the past while preparing for the future. History, which illuminates both the diversity and commonality of human experience over time and places, is essential to understanding the forces that have produced our world and that continue to shape its development. Our faculty and advisors will work closely with you to tailor your education to your interests and goals so that you can both take full advantage of the History Department’s rich and extensive course offerings and succeed academically within your degree program.  In the process of studying history, you will acquire valuable skills that will prepare you for a variety of careers.

If you see yourself as a middle or high school history teacher, the dual degree 4+1 program is the way to get there. Major in history and minor in education to reach your teaching goals.

This concentration offers students the opportunity to specialize in global studies beyond United States and European history. The department offers courses on the history of China, Japan, India and Pakistan, Latin America and the Caribbean, Ancient and Modern Africa, and transnational courses on colonialism, global politics, trade, and the environment.

The history major is well trained in conducting research, weighing evidence, processing information, crunching data, writing policy reports, and making oral presentations. Students interested in law school, business, or public policy can focus on these skills by taking a selection of courses in legal and business history. Internships available.

Taking history out of the classroom and into public discourse, public history teaches students how to be collaborative practicing researchers, interpreters of historical sites, and presenters of a living history. Students will have the opportunity to develop skill sets in the following areas: collecting and curating materials; creating and interpreting cultural heritage sites, events, and memorials; and contributing historical evidence to the design and production of cultural exhibits. Internships available.

This concentration offers students the opportunity to develop a specialization in European history. The department offers a breadth of courses in ancient, medieval and modern Europe, including classes in holocaust and genocide studies. The history department has faculty expertise in in Greece, Rome, Byzantium, Germany, France, England, Ireland, Russia, and the Balkans.

This concentration offers students the opportunity to develop a specialization in United States history. The department offers a breadth of courses in U.S. History, including Colonial America, The American Revolution, The Civil War, the Gilded Age and the Progressive Era, the Great Depression and the New Deal, the World Wars, The Vietnam War, Women’s History, African American History and the 1960s.

Students who elect to minor in history take 15-18 hours in history courses. The extensive range of elective courses offered by the department enables each student to develop a plan of study that reflects personal interests and goals. Each student will be assigned a departmental faculty advisor, as needed. View a list of history minor FAQs.

The master of arts in history provides students with the opportunity to explore a wide range of historical fields and methodologies. After fulfilling the requirements in the major geographical areas of historical study, students may concentrate in more specific regional and chronological fields. Given Salem’s prominent role in English settlement and colonization, the China Trade, and industrialization, as well as the ongoing legacy of the Witch Trials of 1692, our region provides abundant resources to support research in every period of the American past.

The master of arts in teaching history is designed for liberal arts graduates who wish to begin preparation for teaching history at the secondary level or practicing teachers who desire to expand their understanding of the educational process while increasing their formal education in history.

This innovative certificate program offers an opportunity to explore graduate level scholarship in the growing fields of comparative genocide, conflict studies and human rights. Offered in conjunction with the Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies and the history department, the interdisciplinary academic program explores issues ranging from the cultural, historical, and theoretical impact of the Holocaust to more recent genocides in throughout the world including Latin America, Southeast Asia, East Africa and Southeastern Europe.

Grounded in a deep commitment the research and pedagogy of human rights, the certificate program brings participants face-to-face with the urgent theoretical questions surrounding genocide, including the political, economic, cultural, social, and psychological causes and expanding into recent efforts at national and international efforts at reciprocity, reconciliation, and prevention.

Taking history out of the classroom and into public discourse, the graduate certificate in public history teaches students how to be collaborative practicing researchers, interpreters of historical sites, and presenters of a living history. Students will have the opportunity to develop skill sets in the following areas: collecting and curating materials; creating and interpreting cultural heritage sites, events, and memorials; and contributing historical evidence to the design and production of cultural exhibits.