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Distinguished Visiting Alumnus David Nicandri
On April 15-16, 2008, the History Department welcomed its former student David Nicandri back to campus through the college's Distinguished Visiting Alumni
program. Presently the Executive Director of the Washington State Historical Society, Dave enjoyed speaking to four different History classes on how he still puts his Plattsburgh History degree to work. Among other topics, he described editing Columbia: The Magazine of Northwest History
, serving on a National Park Service team that is evaluating the nuclear site at Hanford, Washington, for designation as a historic landmark, and researching and writing about the early Canadian explorer Alexander Mackenzie for publication and exhibit purposes. Dave also spoke to the campus community about his Plattsburgh years and the many lessons he learned in -- and outside of -- the classroom. In his freer moments, Dave also delighted in seeing his old college haunts from 1966-70, including Macdonough Hall, the student housing on Brinkerhoff Street, and the Monopole downtown. Evidently impressed, he thought that the college still felt like a second home to him. Our students felt equally impressed by Dave’s amusing, but insightful, look back on the years that made him the successful historian that he is. His two-day visit was a grand time for all.
Photo: Three mentors and their student: Dave Nicandri (2d from left) joins his former professors, Drs. David Glaser (left), Adnan Abu Ghazaleh (2d from right) and Jack Myers (right)
For more on Dave Nicandri's visit, see the story on our alumni page: http://web.plattsburgh.edu/academics/history/alumni/nacandrivisit.php
Dr. Kroll Publishes Two Major Works on The History of Science, Exploration, and The Sea
Dr. Gary Kroll, who recently received tenure in the history department at SUNY Plattsburgh and will be officially promoted to Associate Professor next fall, is the co-author (along with Michael Reidy and Erik Conway) of a new book: Exploration and Science: Social Impact and Social Interaction , published by ABC-Clio , 2007. Exploration and Science is a survey and analysis of the interchange between the culture of exploration and the practice and discourse of science from the early modern period to the space age. Dr. Kroll contributed three chapters dealing with American exploration in the 19th century West, marine biology, and oceanography. He notes that his contribution to the book "was largely shaped by my experiences teaching the history of exploration to Plattsburgh students."
In April 2008, Dr. Kroll's monograph, America's Ocean Wilderness
, will be published by The University Press of Kansas
. America's Ocean Wilderness
is a cultural history of America's exploration of the ocean and the first book to critically analyze the legacies of seven marine explorers. Assessing work that often straddles professional science and popular culture, Gary Kroll examines the different perspectives a handful of scientists and naturalists--Jacques Cousteau, Thor Heyerdahl, Roy Chapman Andrews, Robert Cushman Murphy, Eugenie Clark, Rachel Carson, and William Beebe--have offered on what the ocean means and how their views helped shape the way many Americans relate to the seas. Kroll argues that to truly know the ocean we first need to understand our own western frontier, showing how easily our popular infatuation with the continental wilderness--in the spirit of manifest destiny and its problematic legacy of conquest--has been transferred to the watery world. Indeed, the twentieth-century American imagination was quick to imbue the ocean with frontier characteristics, whether as a trove of inexhaustible resources, an ecosystem in need of stewardship, or a place of recreation.
Exploring the phenomenon of Americans' fascination with wild and inaccessible places, Kroll shows how these seven explorers helped create and perpetuate the idea of an ocean wilderness by applying terrestrial logic to the seas. And he demonstrates that their own appeal and accomplishments were abetted by the willingness of Americans to understand other new frontiers in terms of the West.
As the ocean gradually became an extension of the nineteenth century conception of wilderness--an attitude not without ecological consequences--many of the sea's environmental problems were linked to the way we think about it as a frontier space, Kroll argues. With poisoned waters, depleted fisheries, and dying coral reefs, the seas are endangered by the same kinds of forces that threatened and ravaged America's terrestrial wilderness. America's Ocean Wilderness offers a new perspective on this last earthly frontier, encouraging readers to realize that the way they view the ocean may well seal its fate.
Dr. Hornibrook Travels to China as University Representative 
Dr. Jeff Hornibrook, Associate Professor, represented the History Department as part of delegation from SUNY Plattsburgh that traveled to China this fall. SUNY Plattsburgh is in the process of establishing ties to Wanli University in Ningbo, China. The universities plan to foster both student and faculty exchanges in the future. Dr. Hornibrook teaches courses in East Asian and Chinese history and recently completed a manuscript on the early history of a Chinese railroad line that runs from a coal mine in the central highlands to the river valley below.
History Department Faculty Presenting at Scholarly Conferences
Our department faculty pride themselves on being active teacher-scholars, and many of us will be presenting papers or participating in panels at scholarly conferences this year. Dr. Jessamyn Neuhaus will present a paper entitled "Is Poppin' Fresh a Feminist? Gender Ideology, Home Cooking, and the Pillsbury Doughboy" at the Northeast Popular Culture Association (NEPCA) annual conference at Clark University in Worcester, MA. Three of our faculty will be presenting papers at the annual Berskshires Conference of Women Historians: Dr. Connie Shemo will present "All the Vision of a Prophet and a Seer: The Adoption of Kang Aide/ Ida Kahn, 1873" and Dr. Neuhaus will present " 'Is it ridiculous for me to say I want to write?' Domestic Humor and Redefining the 'Housewife Writer' in Fan Mail to Shirley Jackson, 1953-1965." Dr. Wendy Gordon will also be presenting a paper. Dr. Shemo and Dr. Jeff Hornibrook are participating in the annual conference of the New York Council on Asian Studies (NYCAS) at SUNY Binghampton. Dr. Hornibrook's paper is entitled: "The Train Kept a Rollin' All Night Long: Cultural Impact of Western Gizmos and Smokestacks in a late Qing Dynasty Chinese Coalmine." Dr. Shemo and Dr. Rice will be representing the department at the annual conference of the Organization of America Historians. Dr. Shemo will present a paper entitled "Wants Learn Cut, Finish People: Chinese Interpretations of American Missionary Medical Education for Chinese Women, 1890-1930," and Dr. Rice is the organizer and discussant of the "New Directions in Early American Environmental History" panel. Dr. Rice will also be presenting a paper, "Bacon's Rebellion in Indian Country" at the Rocky Mountain Seminar in Early American Studies.
Questions, Comments, Suggestions?
For more information about the History program at SUNY Plattsburgh, please contact
Wendy Gordon, Chair
History Department
Champlain Valley Hall
Plattsburgh, NY 12901
Phone: (518) 564-2213
Fax: (518) 564-2212
E-mail: gordonwm@plattsburgh.edu