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Gregory Wilson
GREGORY S. WILSON
/ University of AkronDepartment of History
201C Arts and Sciences Building
Akron, OH 44325-1902
Phone: 330-972-8575
E-mail:
ACADEMIC EXPERIENCE
Associate Professor (2007-present); Assistant Professor (2001-06)
Department of History, University of Akron
· Research and teaching interests include public history, modern United States political economy, environmental history, Ohio history, and the scholarship of teaching and learning.
Co-Founder and Publication Director, Northeast Ohio Journal of History, 2001 – present
· Directing the publication of web based journal as part of Northeast Ohio Research Consortium. See http://blogs.uakron.edu/nojh/
Principal Investigator, Interim Director and Content Advisor, “Teaching American History: The Akron Plan,” 2005 – 2008; P.I and Content Advisor, “Ohio as America,” 2008 – 2012; and “The Meaning of Freedom,” 2010 – 2014.
· Primary content advisor and co-writer for three Teaching American History grants funded by the Department of Education; combined total over $3 million.
Coordinator for Teacher Education, Department of History, University of Akron, 2007-10.
EDUCATION
Ph.D., The Ohio State University, Columbus, OH, 2001. Fields: Modern U.S. history, Early America, Latin America.
M.A., George Mason University, Fairfax, VA, 1993. U.S. and Public History.
B.A., Christopher Newport University, Newport News, VA, 1990. History.
GRANTS, HONORS AND AWARDS
Ohio Academy of History, Public History Award, 2010.
Teaching American History Grant, Department of Education, 2010.
Teaching American History Grant, Department of Education, 2008.
Campus Partner Award, College of Education, University of Akron, 2007.
Professional and Community Service Award, University of Akron, 2006.
Teaching American History Grant, Department of Education, 2005.
Early Career Achievement Award, University of Akron, 2003.
Faculty Research Grant, University of Akron, 2003.
Ohio Humanities Council Oral History Grant, “Mennonite Sea Cowboys in Ohio,” 2003.
Sally Miller Research Award, University of Akron, 2002.
Institute for Teaching and Learning Research Award, University of Akron, 2002.
Carnegie Teaching Fellow, University of Akron, 2001-02.
PUBLICATIONS
Ohio: A History of the Buckeye State (with Kevin F. Kern). West Sussex, UK: Wiley-Blackwell, 2013.
“Deindustrialization,” in Wanda Rushing, ed., The New Encyclopedia of Southern Culture, Volume 15: Urbanization. Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 2010, 44-7.
“The City and Public History,” Journal of Urban History, 36, no. 1 (January 2010):81-92.
Communities Left Behind: The Area Redevelopment Administration, 1945 – 1965. Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 2009.
“Americans Experience the Great Depression,” Retrieving the American Past, Pearson Publishing, 2004. Chapter in documents reader (page numbers change per issue).
“Deindustrialization, Poverty, and Federal Area Redevelopment in the United States, 1945 – 1965,” in Beyond the Ruins: The Meanings of Deindustrialization, Jefferson Cowie and Joseph Heathcott, eds., foreword by Barry Bluestone, Cornell University Press, 2003, 181-200.
“’Our Chronic and Desperate Situation’: Pennsylvania, Deindustrialization, and the Emergence of Redevelopment Policy in the United States, 1945 – 1965,” International Review of Social History, Vol. 47, 2002, 137-58.
WORK IN PROGRESS
“Above the Shots: An Oral History of the Kent State Shootings.” Book manuscript co-authored with Craig Simpson under contract with Kent State University Press. Expected publication 2016.
PUBLIC HISTORY PROJECTS
Peer Reviewed
Ohio Academy of History Public History Award, 2010: “The Times They Were A’Changin’: Akron Remembers 1968,” Content Coordinator/Student Supervisor, Oral history and museum exhibit, Lock 3 History Museum, Akron, 2008. Finding aid at the Akron –Summit County Special Collections: http://sc.akronlibrary.org/files/2012/02/Akron-Remembers-1968.pdf; also indexed on Library of Congress Folklife Center: http://www.loc.gov/folklife/civilrights/survey/view_collection.php?coll_id=2987
Co-Writer and Content Advisor for three Teaching American History grant projects: “Teaching American History: The Akron Plan” (2005-08, http://w3.akron.k12.oh.us/tahap/index.htm ); “Ohio as America” (2008-13, http://cybersummit.org/Resources/TAH/ ), and “The Meaning of Freedom” (2010-14, http://www.starkcountyesc.org/teachingamericanhistorygrant_home.aspx ). Projects funded by the Department of Education to promote intensive content training for social studies teachers in Akron, Summit County and Stark County; combined total nearly $3 million.
NEH Grant Application (unfunded): Catalyst for Change: The Ohio & Erie Canal in Ohio and American History. Digital humanities program submitted September 2007.
Grant Scholar, “WWII and Memory in Aurora (Ohio),” Ohio Humanities Council, Aurora Historical Society, 2005-06. Advised, wrote, and reviewed content and display of objects for museum program on WWII.
Director, Oral History Project, “Sea Cowboys: Mennonite Conscientious Objectors in the WWII Era,” Ohio Humanities Council, Columbiana (Ohio) Public Library, 2002-03. Grant-funded project that interviewed five Mennonite men from Columbiana County, Ohio, who served as sea cowboys, ferrying livestock and supplies from the US to Europe after WWII, and who also spent time in the Civilian Public Service for conscientious objectors during the war. Public presentation at Columbiana Public Library.
Non-Peer Reviewed
On-air Commentator, Nine Long Days: TR’s Journey to the White House, produced by WMHT (New York), 2014.
Panzner Wetlands/Copley Swamp Interdisciplinary Studies. Co-developed with UA faculty and students from Biology, Geography, and History an ongoing teaching, research and public history project, 2014 – present. See https://www.facebook.com/CopleySwamp?ref=aymt_homepage_panel
Rubber City Revisited. Digital humanities project ongoing with local historical professionals and students detailing the history of Akron, particularly its built environment, 2014 – present. See https://blogs.uakron.edu/rubbercityrevisited/
Consultant, Cuyahoga Valley National Park. Participated in panel to recommend new interpretative framework for the Ohio & Erie Canal Visitors Center. 2012.
On-air Commentator, The States: Ohio, The History Channel, 2007.
Consultant, Friends of the Kennedy Stone House, Salt Fork State Park (Ohio). Researched history of Kennedy family and wrote living-history scripts for non-profit group restoring, maintaining and interpreting the Kennedy Stone House at Salt Fork State Park in Ohio. 2006.
MAGAZINE PIECE
“Bailout,” In the Fray Magazine, June 2009, (http://inthefray.org/content/view/3393/288/)
SELECTED BOOK REVIEWS
The CCC in the Cuyahoga Valley, Kenneth J. Bindas et al., in Northwest Ohio History, (82:1), Fall 2014, 85-7.
The Life of Pennsylvania Governor George M. Leader: Challenging Complacency, Kenneth C. Wolensky, in Oral History Review, (40:2), Summer/Fall 2013, 475-77.
DDT & the American Century: Global Health, Environmental Politics, and the Pesticide that Changed the World, David Kinkela, in Journal of World History, (24:1) March 2013, 250-53.
Nearby History: Exploring the Past Around You, 3d. edition, David Kyvig and Myron Marty, in Teaching History, 36:2 (Fall 2011), 109-10.
The Face of Decline: The Pennsylvania Anthracite Region in the Twentieth Century, Thomas Dublin and Walter Licht, in International Review of Social History, 51:3 (December 2006), 496-99.
Breaking Away from the Textbook, Shelly Kintisch and Wilma Cordero, in Teaching History, 31:2 (Fall 2006), 107.
Ohio and the World: Essays Toward a New History of Ohio, edited by Geoffrey Parker, Richard Sisson, and William Russell Coil, in Northeast Ohio Journal of History, Volume 3, Issue 2, Fall 2005, 87-93, http://blogs.uakron.edu/nojh/category/volume-3-issue-2-fall-2005/
The Voice of the People: Primary Sources on the History of American Labor, Industrial Relations, and Working Class Culture, Jonathan Rees and Jonathan Z.S. Pollack, in Teaching History, Volume XXX, Number 2, Fall 2005, 106-7.
RECENT CONFERENCES AND PRESENTATIONS
“Panzner Wetlands/Copley Swamp: An Interdisciplinary Teaching, Research and Public History Project,” Roundtable Panelist, “Environmental History Lab: Methods and Beyond,” American Society of Environmental History, Washington, DC, March 2015.
“Pedagogy in a Postindustrial City: Doing Public History in Akron,” Deindustrialization and Its Aftermath: Class, Culture, and Resistance, Concordia University, Montreal, CA, May 2014.
Commentator, “The Paths Not Taken: Alternatives, Bypasses and Path Dependency in the City,” Urban History Association, New York City, October 2012.
“Rumor, Allegation and the Kent State Shootings,” Oral History Association, Cleveland, OH, October 2012.
“The Kent State Shootings and the Politics of Truth, Trauma and Reconciliation,” Oral History Association, Denver, CO, October 2011.
“Akron, Tire Production and the Global Rubber Trade,” Workshop on Environmental Sites of Conscience: ASEH/NCPH Joint Conference, Portland, OR, March 2010.
“Nature and the Management of Space: Local and Global Connections to the Cuyahoga River Valley, Ohio, USA,” World Congress of Environmental History, Copenhagen, Denmark, August 2009.
“Industrial Akron: Sharing Authority in the Classroom and the Community,” invited presentation and panel organizer, Sharing Authority: Building Community-University Alliances through Oral History, Digital Storytelling and Collaboration, Concordia University, Montreal, Canada, February 2008.
“The City and Public History: Learning Styles, Content and Partnerships,” American Historical Association, Washington, DC, January 2008.
“Teaching American History: The Akron Plan – A Federally Funded Model to Enhance Teacher Content Knowledge, Create Dynamic Curriculum and Improve Student Outcomes as Learners of American History,” Midwestern Educational Research Association, St Louis, MO, October 2007.
“The Ohio and Erie Canal Corridor and the Romance of the Past,” National Council on Public History, Santa Fe, New Mexico (Panel Organizer: “Canals, Orchards, and Earthworks: Tensions Visible and Invisible in Ohio’s Public History”), April 2007.
“Teaching Out of Doors: Bringing Together Public and Environmental History,” Panelist, American Society for Environmental History, Minneapolis, MN, March 2006.
COURSES TAUGHT
United States since 1877
Ohio HistoryHistorical Methods
Introduction to Public History
Oral History / History, Communities and Memory
American Environmental History
The United States since 1945
The U.S. in the 1960s
Graduate Research and Writing Seminar
PROFESSIONAL SERVICE
Non-UA Related
Ohio Academy of History, Teaching Award Committee, 2006 – 2010.
Ohio Academy of History, Public History Committee, 2001 – 2007.
Akron Public Schools Social Studies Steering Committee, 2002 – 12.
Manuscript Reviewer, Journal of Student Centered Teaching, 2003 – present; Northeast Ohio Journal of History, 2002-present; Ohio History, 2012-present; Kent State University Press, 2012-present; University of Akron Press, 2014.
Participant, College Board AP US History Best Practices Study, 2005-06.
Grant Evaluator, Department of Education Teaching American History Program, 2003.
Ohio Speaker’s Bureau, Ohio Humanities Council, 2003-05.
Teacher Preparation Benchmarking Study, sponsored by the Northeast Ohio Council on Higher Education, 2003.
UA Related
Internship Director and Coordinator for Public History in University of Akron History department.
Faculty Senate, University of Akron, 2010-11.
Buchtel College Council, University of Akron, 2014-present.
University of Akron Department of History Committees: Technology (Chair), Graduate, Undergraduate, Latin American Search Committee; Asian History Search, Chair’s Advisory Committee; Chair Search Committee; World History Committee; Assessment Coordinator.
University of Akron, College of Education, Department of Instructional and Curricular Studies search committee, 2006.
GRADUATE ADVISING
Dissertation Director, Thomas Weyant, “A Time of Protest: Antiwar Activism and Draft Resistance in Northern Appalachia during the Vietnam Era, 2012-present.
Dissertation Director, Christa Adams, “Collecting Asian Art at the Cleveland Museum of Art, 2014 – present.
Dissertation Director, Matthew Hiner, "Nationalization and Deregulation: The Creation of Conrail and the Demise of the Interstate Commerce Commission, 1973-1984” 2001- 2006. Ph.D. conferred 2006.
Dissertation Reader, John Henris, “Agriculture and Reform in the Antebellum North,” 2006-2009.
Dissertation Reader, Jim Koshan (Kent State), “The IWW, Immigrant Labor, and Industrial Unionism in the Pittsburgh District, 1909-1913,” 2005
M.A. Thesis Director, Kalwant Johal, “The Battle Over the Kent State Shootings and the Monopoly of Memorialization,” 2009.