Through his long career, Gary Nash has been a pioneer in opening the often-stuffy chambers of academia. He has shown a devotion to K-12 teachers throughout the nation and has ventured into their classrooms to observe, to teach, and, yes, to learn. It is all too rare for a noted historian, famous for his many seminal works, to roll up his sleeves…

The author has known Gary Nash as a friend since 1969, but she only began to work with him as a colleague in 1989, when he invited her to join the National Center for History in the Schools (NCHS) as it was just forming. During the seven years she spent as Assistant and then Associate Director of the NCHS, they shared the extraordinary experience…

In this article, the author recalls the first time she met Gary Nash. He came to speak at a Bradley Commission meeting and she was rather surprised to see him appear and to find out that he, along with Charlotte Crabtree, was involved in a National Center for History. She gives three reasons for her surprise which she thinks may tell aspects of…

In this article, the author recalls the time she met Gary Nash at UCLA on July 13, 1992, when they began the work of creating the National Standards in History. Professor Nash was the leader in the development of the United States History Standards. In creating the Standards, they were to focus on Historical Thinking. They needed to organize the…

In this article, the author gives tribute to Gary Nash, a brilliant scholar, an award-winning professor, a prolific writer, a true humanitarian, and a revered historian. She honors him for his work with public school teachers. He has provided the educational support, encouragement, and motivation behind the importance of teaching history. Here,…

It is as a longtime client, softball teammate, colleague, traveling companion, and friend that the author writes this article to honor Gary Nash. He has known him in varied guises in five different decades, and on five continents, with Africa coming in 2009. In this article, the author recalls some of his memories of Gary over five decades.

In this article, the author looks back at the time Charlotte Crabtree, longtime Professor of Education at UCLA with a special interest in elementary history-social studies curriculum, asked him to join her in applying for a million dollar grant to be awarded by the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH), chaired by Lynne Cheney. Crabtree had…

Biography has a proven track record of exciting interest in historical events. Barbara Tuchman used it extensively in her best-selling histories, considering it a "vehicle to carry the larger subject," something that "encompasses the universal in a particular... representative." Others favor biography because it "humanizes history," "personalizes…

While it is true that every history is composed of facts, there is something more to history, something that makes it more than just the sum of its factual claims. That something is called narrative. A narrative is not simply a story (although it may be that). Rather, it is a structure for organizing factual claims. As many historians have noted,…

As a graduate of Dartmouth College who holds a Ph.D. from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, the author launched her academic career with a total debt load of over $105,000. As soon as she started working as a full-time faculty member six years ago, she began to make payments of between $600 and $1,000 a month to creditors, depending on what her…

There is a long history in the United States of collaboration between the academy and K-12 educators. Indeed, history, as an academic discipline in America, began in an atmosphere of professorial concern about history's place in the schools. In this article, the author provides a brief and general overview of the history of collaborative efforts…

For the past twelve years, the author has been teaching a lower division introductory historical methods course that uses active learning to introduce students to the issues and practices of historical methods, the "how to" of historical inquiry, research and writing. In her methods course, she is working to take into account the perspectives and…

"Corporatization," etymologically, likens developments in higher education to those of the business world. Like shooting fish in a barrel, however, merely identifying the multiplying examples of for-profit extrusions, managerial models, let alone ideological legitimations of capitalist logic on university campuses hardly constitutes an honest…

The American emphasis on utility and practicality in education was expanded over the course of the twentieth century, particularly in the development of community colleges with their dual mission of liberal arts education and vocational training. Because of their mission and their dependence on local funding and community requirements, two-year…

The process of changing U.S. higher education institutions along a corporate model has been going on for several decades. It consists of changes, some open, some obscured, on various fronts: the erosion of tenure by attrition; the simultaneous increase in the use of contingent faculty; the rise in tuition; the dramatic decrease in federal and…