The University of Houston Department of History celebrates the dynamic and diverse city in which it is located and the students who call that city home.

Our more than 30 full-time faculty members pursue exciting research agendas and their substantial publication records have made them leaders in their fields. While all faculty members excel, the department has developed concentrated strengths in Latin American history; U.S. history; Race and Ethnicity; Energy, Environment, and Urban Development; Women, Gender and Families; and War, Revolution, and Diplomacy.

We offer graduate training for a variety of careers, including university teaching and research, teaching at the primary and secondary levels, editing, and archive and museum positions. In the recent past, our Ph.D. program has placed students at Indiana University; the universities of Missouri, Alabama, Oklahoma, and Arkansas; Texas A & M; Cal State Sacramento; San Diego State, and numerous state universities in Texas. It also has staffed many of the community colleges in Southeast Texas. We have one of the best records in the nation of training and placing African American students, and we recently expanded our Mexican American history program. The public history program prepares M.A. students for a variety of jobs utilizing the historian’s skills in non-academic settings. Our graduate programs now total well over 100 students.

We seek to train both graduate and undergraduate students to understand not only U.S. history, but other areas of the world, including Europe, Latin America, Asia, Africa, and the Middle East.

Undergraduate majors in history number approximately 450; many of these students move on to graduate work in business and law and some enter history graduate programs. Other students pursue business opportunities upon graduation. Our department takes a leading role in the teaching of core courses in the Scholars’ Community, the university’s major undergraduate retention program. We also regularly offer courses in the Honors College. In addition, we have been at the forefront of the development of distance education at UH. Our commitment to teaching also extends into surrounding secondary schools in programs designed to expose public school teachers to the latest research in the history profession.

The department encourages ties to the university as a whole and to Houston as well. The Center for Public History has a strong emphasis on environmental/energy/and urban issues. Its Tenneco Speakers Series sponsors numerous programs in the department and on the campus as a whole. It publishes The Houston Review, a journal focused on the history of the region, and houses the Oral History of the Houston Project, archival collections on environmental and energy history, and the Texas Slavery Project. The closely related Humanities and Professions Program maintains strong ties to the business and law schools on campus, as well as to the related professional communities in the city. The department also has established on-going programs at the Texas Medical Center.

Members of our department play active roles in the Center for Mexican American Studies and the African American Studies Program at the University of Houston. The department also sponsors an annual workshop in Mexican American history and programs in African American history that bring leading scholars in these fields to the campus. These programs reinforce our strong graduate offerings in ethnic studies while also attracting the interest of audiences outside of the campus. The history faculty maintains a high professional profile. Since 2000, current members of our department have published more than 20 books and numerous articles. Its members edit three different series of books at university presses. Individual members hold degrees from the best graduate programs in the nation and are active in most of the major professional organizations in history.

Resources for faculty and students come from a variety of sources. The Tenneco Speakers Series funds numerous programs that greatly enrich the life of the entire campus while attracting the attention of people outside the university. The department currently houses three chaired professorships and three distinguished professors. Funds from these chairs support a variety of activities, including support for graduate students. Additional graduate support comes from the Murray Miller Fellowship Fund and a large number of teaching assistantships. Opportunities for funded, applied research experience are available through the public history program. Scholarships are also available for outstanding undergraduates. We have strong undergraduate and graduate chapters of Phi Alpha Theta, the national history honor society.

The Mission of the University of Houston is to discover and disseminate knowledge through the education of a diverse population of traditional and non-traditional students, and through research, artistic, and scholarly endeavors, as it become the nation’s premiere public university in an urban setting. In this role, the University of Houston applies its expertise to the challenges facing the local, state, national, and international communities, and establishes and nurtures relationships with community organizations, governmental agencies, public schools, and the private sector to enhance the education, economic, and cultural vitality of Houston and Texas.