GU History Majors Gain Real-World Experience

Published: February 16, 2026

Author: Kollin Fields, Ph.D., Assistant Professor of History

Pictured are: Anna Tooley, Gavin Hillenburg, Carson Gates, Sawyer Mosbarger, Sergi Puigdevall, Pheonix Johnson, Jacon Off, Rebekah Frailey, Aiden Humason, Patrick McGovern, and Shepherd Wiegand.

The historian Herbert Butterfield wrote that “the chief aim of the historian is the elucidation of the unlikeness between past and present and his chief function is to act in this way as the mediator between other generations and our own.”

Historians, then, might be thought of as a sort of travel guide, taking those of us in the present back to the past. But why go back? The answer is not so simple, as students in this year’s Historiography course learned. Historiography is both the practice of historians and the “history of history,” so to speak: how historians write about the past, their debates and arguments and interpretations, and the historical context in which they thought and wrote.

While there is probably no one right answer, GU’s students in Historiography this semester have reckoned with lots of possibilities about why we look to the past. Perhaps we simply enjoy learning about these seemingly strange times and places; for others, the past might offer needed context for the present; and still another possibility is that History satisfies this deeply human desire to know.

As another historian has said, “In times of change and danger when there is a quicksand of fear under men’s reasoning, a sense of continuity with generations gone before can stretch like a lifeline across the scary present.”

With that in mind, the goal of the class was not only to learn about historians' practices and methods, but also to give students a vision of what their futures in historical study could be. To best meet this goal, students were tasked to interview a historian working in a field of interest to them.

While emailing a stranger was daunting, students rose to the occasion. They returned impressive results in their ability to connect with working historians and glean from them a sense of how historians operate, the ins and outs of higher education and the historical field as a whole, and how historians move from an idea to a finished product.

The students developed thoughtful questions for their interviews, such as:

• “What first interested you about the field of History?”
• “How do historians research and write?”
• “Where do you see the field of History moving in the future?”

While some students conducted interviews online for obvious reasons, many others met in person with local historians at universities such as Southern Illinois University Edwardsville, St. Louis University, and Indiana Wesleyan.

After each interview, students presented their work to the class and fielded questions about the interview process and what they learned from their conversations. As their instructor, I trust the process was rewarding and gave students real-world insight into the profession of History.

Rebekah Frailey, a senior, said, “This interview helped me prepare for life as a history major by giving me the chance to talk with someone who's made a career of history . . . speaking with Dr. Siddali helped remind me that history, like many other majors, is about pursuing what you are passionate about. Something Dr. Saddali said that stuck with me was that being satisfied in a career is not about figuring out what you can do, but instead is about figuring out what you can't not do.”

Shepherd Wiegand, a History major and McAllaster Scholar, said that what surprised him the most about the process was “the realization that every historical book I’ve ever read is really just the thoughts of a historian whom I can talk to.

People who write histories aren’t nebulous beings who I could never contact; they are often college professors, who are very open to communication about their subject of interest.” Shepherd writes that the interview “prepared me for life as a History major because it gave me connections. It is giving me the ability to know how to make more connections in the future.”

The range of historians interviewed, and their fields of study, is vast, including Caribbean slavery, the American Revolution, the Spanish Civil War, indigenous history, the Vietnam War, American intellectual history, and even college sports.

This demonstrates to our students that anything in the past is grounds for study and is worthy of being recovered and preserved by the historian. In a fast-moving digital age, this sort of personal communication with practicing historians reveals that while technology has its benefits, it can never replace a thinking mind, which is the lifeblood of the historian. Historians are, most fundamentally, storytellers, and we hope that our History majors will go on to tell stories worth telling.

The following students conducted interviews with professional historians from institutions across the country:

• Anna Tooley with Daniel Rodgers (Princeton University)
• Gavin Hillenburg with Erik McDuffie (University of Illinois)
• Carson Gates with Kent Brown (University of Illinois)
• Sawyer Mosbarger with Matthew Masur (Saint Anselm College)
• Sergi Puigdevall with Wayne Bowen (University of Central Florida)
• Pheonix Johnson with Roger Reese (Texas A&M University)
• Jacob Ogg with Ray Raphael (Humboldt State University)
• Rebekah Frailey with Sivana Siddali (St. Louis University)
• Aidan Humason with Joseph Roisman (Colby College)
• Patrick McGovern with Rowena McClinton (Southern Illinois University–Edwardsville)
• Shepherd Wiegand with Sam Young (Indiana Wesleyan University)