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Nicole Young graduated May 2016 with a Bachelors of Science in Sport and Exercise Psychology with minors in History and Africana Studies. She received a Fulbright ETA to learn, grow, and teach in Malaysia.

Beth Parnizca (BA, 2011) started at Fredericksburg and Spotsylvania National Military Park as an intern after her freshman year at WVU and was hired as a permanent employee after she graduated. She said, "My experience at WVU led me directly to my position and gave me the tools to succeed." Beth credits her ability to take graduate-level courses, work closely with faculty, and to serve as an officer of Phi Alpha Theta as formative for her role in the Park Service. She said, "The department really pushed me to think and write critically as a historian, supported and encouraged me at every turn, and demonstrated ways of reaching average students and people that I use daily in the field." 

While our department has very high employment rates, we rejoice with every alumni from our program who receives a job. Recently, three alumni from our program have found success in the academic job market. 

J. Blake Perkins contributes to modern political discussion  

The History Department is pleased to honor Dr. Anne Kisaka Nangulu with the Eberly College of Arts and Sciences’ 2017 Outstanding Alumni Award for History.  Dr. Nangulu is a Professor of History in the School of Arts and Social Sciences at Moi University in Eldoret, Kenya. The History Department has had a long and successful relationship with Kenya, and especially with Moi University. The Department’s strong ties with Kenya have largely been through the efforts of Dr. Nangulu’s PhD supervisor, Professor Robert Maxon, who over the past thirty years has worked with many Kenyan students who have come to WVU to study under him.  In all, Professor Maxon has produced twenty-five PhDs in African history, and half of them have been from Kenya. Dr. Nangulu was one of first group of Kenyan students to complete their PhD with Professor Maxon. It is fair to say that she is one of the most accomplished and successful of the Department’s PhD alumni, not only for Kenya, but for the program as a whole. Many of her students have subsequently gone on to study and complete their PhD graduate work at WVU. In fact, today, nearly half of the History faculty at Moi University, have earned their PhD from WVU. It is like a small extension of WVU, thousands of miles away, in East Africa! Thus, in honoring Dr. Nangulu, we are also honoring what is a very special relationship between WVU and Kenya.

For students interested in law school, studying history provides a solid set of skills to research, present, and contextualize. Many students who have come through our program are interested in law school or working with law. Two examples of these are Carrie Cecil, attorney at Spilman Thomas & Battle, and Jessie Reckart, associate at Bowles Rice LLP.

Eliana Ginsburg graduated from WVU in with her Bachelor of Arts in history in 2006 and thought she wanted to work in the history field. Pursuing this, she went on to obtain her Master’s Degree in Public History from the University in Maryland and then completed two internships in New Orleans, at the Louisiana State Museum and the National World War II Museum.