History B.A.

Program Director: W. Marshall Johnston, Ph.D.

Overview

The history major gives students a broad familiarity with human history, both Western and world, as a means of developing critical understanding and insight into how they might live now and in the future. The program engages students in deliberately rigorous intellectual development, and particularly focuses on the influence of religion in history. The exploration and discovery of lived human experience in the past (of church and world) is informed by a Christian/Anabaptist worldview. Upon completion of the major, students will be prepared to pursue advanced study in the disciplines of history, theology and philosophy, and in fields such as secondary teaching, law, library science, archival management and public history.

Students interested in majoring in history should complete their prerequisite courses during their freshman and sophomore years. Courses in their major should be selected in consultation with their major advisor. Personalized majors in specialized areas of history may be presented to the history faculty for consideration and approval.

Program Student Learning Outcomes

1. Identify and explicate significant ideas, persons, and events in a variety of historical epochs throughout human history and in a global context.
2. Formulate, carry out, and critically evaluate a focused research project involving the use of various forms of primary historical evidence, and showing an understanding of relevant theoretical approaches to the problem, as well as the most significant secondary research on it.
3. Communicate effectively and appropriate in both and oral and written forms, especially through the use of critical analysis in articulation and support of historical theses.
4. Synthesize important historical phenomena, based on the understanding of primary material, across millennia, cultures and interpretive modes.
5. Interpret and effectively describe the contribution of Christianity, particularly the Anabaptist-Mennonite tradition, and the Judeo-Christian legacy, in the development of human history.

Locations Offered

Main Campus Fresno