Welcome back to a new school year! The History Department is already planning a full year’s worth of events, from our annual Public History and Reece Kelly talks, to a roundtable with the students who went to France this year with me to work on and at a 12th-century monastery. Several students traveled abroad this past year. We also have several great things to report about our alums, including two who just recently crossed the big pond to begin graduate school, one in Scotland and one in Ireland. Our many donors have helped make so many of these things possible and I would like to extend my personal gratitude to them. The students have absorbed a wealth of experiential learning; I cannot wait for you to read about them all, so without further ado, please enjoy this newsletter.

This issue highlights just how busy our students and alumni have been—conducting research in South Korea, studying in the United Kingdom, excavating in France, exploring Camp Hale, and starting graduate programs across Europe. You’ll also find faculty updates on new books, upcoming lectures and our Department’s first ever river trip (led by Dr. G). Lately we’ve been releasing these newsletters at the end of each semester, but with so much happening in recent months, it felt right to share these stories a little sooner. As always, feel free to pass this along to friends and colleagues, and don’t hesitate to send ideas, updates, or photos for future issues—we’d love to hear from you. Drop me a line anytime: dober@fortlewis.edu

Save the Date: Senior Seminar Presentations November 15, 2025

Each year, History majors complete a year-long sequence culminating in their Senior theses. A highlight of this process is their public lecture, where students showcase their research and sharpen their presentation skills. This year’s Senior Seminar Presentations will take place on November 15. We’d love to see you there—once the schedule is finalized, we’ll share more details.

Join Dr. Michael Martin and several FLC History students for a special roundtable discussion about their summer work at the twelfth-century Eglise de Rauzet monastery in southern France. Over the course of three weeks, students engaged in preservation, excavation, and public history projects—restoring foundation walls, uncovering medieval glass and pottery, and helping to design a museum exhibit for the site. Come hear firsthand accounts of the challenges and discoveries of fieldwork abroad, and learn how experiential opportunities like this bring the past vividly to life for our students.

Student Reports from the Field

Ed. Note: This past spring and summer, many History majors traveled the globe for Senior Seminar research and study abroad. These experiences are often the most transformative of a student’s life, and we encourage our majors to see the world. In the past year, they’ve journeyed to Germany, France, Japan, South Korea, the United Kingdom, and across the United States. The reports below offer just a glimpse of where History is taking our students.

This summer Dr. Michael Martin led me and eight other Fort Lewis history students on a journey into the Medieval past. In southern France, we worked and lived at the historic twelfth-century monastery, Eglise de Rauzet (Church of Rauzet). Having undergone major restoration, renovation, and preservation work over the last three decades, this site represents an effort not only to understand the daily lives of the building’s original occupants but to resurrect a past that, for the locals, remains tangible today.

The course was organized into three distinct practices: preservation, excavation, and exhibition. Over a three-week period, we worked with trowels, shovels, picks, and brushes to both restore the remnants of the walls and corridors that fell centuries ago and to excavate a select portion (an approximately ten-foot by ten-foot section) left untouched during prior digs.

Preservation efforts worked to maintain the condition of the remaining stones that mark the foundational perimeter of the original structure. Other stones, however, are marked with significant engravings, such as the altar and gravestones. These stones, worn, weathered, and overgrown through centuries of exposure to the elements, require consistent upkeep. Preservation is a continuous process.

Excavation, meanwhile, employs more traditional archaeological methods. The designated mound had to be decapped and dug with careful precision inch by inch so as not to unintentionally destroy any precious artifacts that may be encased in the soil. Through these efforts, we uncovered several fragments of Medieval stone, ceramic, and glass that constituted a once proud and magnificent wall now rendered half sunk and shattered by the almighty force of time.

Concurrently, work was being done within the sections of the monastery that remain standing to develop an original museum to display discovered artifacts and the museum's restoration history. This process worked within the disciplines of archival procedure, curation methods, and gallery management to produce an educational environment that will be enjoyed by visitors, adventurers, enthusiasts, and other curious minds for years to come.

The opportunity to engage in the hands-on work of a professional field historian coupled with the chance to be totally immersed in the wider nuances of French language, culture, and cuisine makes this experiential course, for our school, nothing short of exemplary and, for a student of history, a truly once-in-a-lifetime adventure. We worked our fingers to the bone for long hours under the grueling sun, digging for trinkets in the dirt, for three long weeks. We tithed with the sweat of our brows, swinging pickaxes and moving earth. And we endured it all through a shared belief in the cause of history; not just to know the world, but to feel it—to experience it for yourself and draw closer to us, the people who make it, people past and present. The pursuit of public history allows us to do that. Our efforts in France represent a larger quest not just to learn history but to uncover, discover, and protect it. And I’m happy to report that the stars above Rauzet shone just as bright for us as they did for the monks of the Grandmontine.

My research trip to South Korea and Germany this summer was a fantastic opportunity to delve into my HIST 396/496 Senior Seminar topic in a way not possible through online research. My topic is centered around an incident during WWII when as many as 200,000 women, 80% of them Korean, were forced into sexual slavery by the Japanese military throughout their occupied territories. Since 1991, victims have spoken out about the incident through numerous testimonies. Despite these statements, ample documentary evidence, and international support for the movement, the Japanese government denies responsibility for the actions of its wartime regime. The topic is crucial for establishing a precedent and holding accountable all wartime human rights violations, as well as promoting progress in the realm of feminist action and policy changes within South Korea.

During my travels, I visited several sites of memory, designed both to honor the victims of the Japanese military “comfort women” system and to teach the complex history to a new generation. Installations like the Statue of Peace, which I visited in Berlin, Seoul, and Busan, feature bronze statues of a fourteen-year-old girl meant to represent the victims’ struggle and strength. Another place, called the Site of Memory in Seoul, is a park and art installation designed to honor and remember the 247 women who came forward. The Site of Memory was a calm place of reflection to visit before I went to the more intense War and Women's Human Rights Museum, where the realities of the “comfort women” system are addressed head-on. I also attended the 1,710th Wednesday Demonstration, where protesters called for redress from the Japanese government outside the Japanese Embassy in Seoul. Here, I participated in the protest, encountered counter-protesters, and gained insight into lesser-known facts about the movement. Additionally, I visited the National Library in Seoul and the Korean Cultural Center and Library in Berlin, which introduced me to a wealth of resources and fascinating new perspectives to consider while writing my senior thesis.

By researching in person, interacting with activists, and visiting museums, libraries, parks, and monuments, I witnessed the immense passion of the people behind this vital movement. I also saw a new generation of activists taking up the reins of an issue that has spanned over eighty years of resistance to Japan. By bringing the same passion to contemporary issues in Korea, they are helping to create a better future for women everywhere. It was not only a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity but also an energizing and life-altering experience that will forever fuel my passion for human rights. I’m forever grateful to the Fort Lewis History Department for their support!

This spring of 2025, I was elated to spend a study abroad semester at the University of York in the United Kingdom. My stay lasted from the 2nd of February until the 22nd of June, during which I took history classes on Black radicalism in the Americas, on Medieval Ireland and Wales, and an English literature course focused on British literature through a historic lens.

My travels during my time abroad were limited to the island of Britain, but I became well acquainted with the National Rail system. I went to Liverpool and took a photo with the Beatles statue; to Whitby, the inspiration for Bram Stoker’s Dracula; to Scarborough, where I visited Scarborough Castle and the grave of Anne Brontë; to Durham, where I explored Durham Cathedral and Castle; to Oxford, where I visited the Bodleian Libraries and other sites at the university; to Edinburgh, where I climbed Arthur’s Seat and visited Edinburgh Castle, birthplace of King James VI of Scotland (later James I of England), and home to the Scottish crown jewels and, of course, to London, where I saw Buckingham Palace, Parliament, and the Tower of London.

As for York itself, I became enamored with the city, the university, and the people I met along the way. I regularly visited Clifford’s Tower, The Shambles, the city wall, and, of course, York Minster. From the York Pride Festival to the Viking Festival, there was always something to do or see. I deeply miss my flatmates and dear friends who accompanied me along my journey and who shared family recipes, traditions, and new perspectives at our weekly barbecues.

Indeed, I encountered difficulties—whether adjusting to a larger university or jumping on the wrong train in the center of London—but I loved every moment of it and hope one day to return, pursue further studies, and revisit the people and places that made this experience unforgettable.

One of the requirements for History students at Fort Lewis is to write a thesis on a topic of their choice. I wanted mine to be on something local while also rooted in modern history. I fell in love with Colorado because of skiing, and one cannot mention the history of skiing in Colorado without the 10th Mountain Division. I knew I wanted to do my thesis related to the 10th Mountain but was not sure in what way I wanted to explore this celebrated military unit.

My thesis professor, Dr. Gulliford, was instrumental in helping me define my topic. He provided a wealth of source material, and the ability to bounce ideas off him was as important as any primary source. Part of the research process is visiting an archive to find primary sources, and the 10th Mountain has a huge collection at the Denver Public Library. As the spring semester came to an end, Dr. Gulliford asked when I was planning to visit the collection in Denver. He then suggested camping at Camp Hale, which I enthusiastically agreed to. After getting kitted out with camping essentials, I met Dr. Gulliford in Leadville at the end of July.

Most of the buildings built during the 1940s are long gone, with the last demolished in the 1960s. However, the foundations of a few structures and the man-made canal that runs through the camp are still visible, as well as the gravel roads the army built. The Forest Service had signs posted warning not to wander off trail as there could be live ammunition in the area—so one could say that I risked life and limb for my research! Part of the Colorado Trail passes through the national monument, and we hiked a small portion to see what the troops would have seen all those years ago. We reached a part of the trail that offered a spectacular view of the surrounding mountains. It was easy to understand why so many ski troopers fell in love with the mountains and decided to stay after the war.

We finally found the campgrounds at Camp Hale and decided to move our gear so we could sleep where the soldiers once had. If I read the map of the former grounds correctly, our camp was located near the bayonet and grenade training areas. To be in the same space that the ski troopers once trained was a truly unique opportunity, one that helped my writing process by bringing me closer to the people I am researching.

The 10th Mountain Division trained at Camp Hale, located about twenty minutes north of Leadville. The U.S. Army built a small city that could accommodate 15,000 fighting men plus logistical and administrative staff. They were deployed to Italy in early 1945, where they fought with tenacity and dislodged German defenders at Riva Ridge, putting their mountain warfare skills to good use. After the war, many returned to the area where they once trained, becoming founders of Aspen and Vail as well as leaders in environmental conservation. Their legacy lives on in the designation of Camp Hale as a national monument and in the warming hut system that connects Aspen and Vail, built and funded by 10th Mountain veterans.

The History Department will induct this fall new members to the Iota Pi chapter of Phi Alpha Theta, the honorary history society for undergraduates, graduate students, and history faculty. Phi Alpha Theta is a professional organization  that seeks to promote the study of history through the encouragement of research, good teaching, publication, and the exchange of learning and ideas among historians. Members get to participate in regional conferences, biennial national conventions, and special scholarship opportunities. 

If you meet the criteria for eligibility and you want to join the society, please contact Michael Fry at either 970-247-7352 or fry_m@fortlewis.edu. To qualify for induction, you must have completed at least 12 semester hours in history, and you need a GPA in history of 3.1 and an overall GPA of 3.0. You need not be a history major. There is a one-time initiation fee of $55. The fee includes a membership certificate and four electronic issues of the Phi Alpha Theta journal, The Historian. Membership in the society is for life. Former students are welcome to apply.

HIST 324: Colorado History | Andrew Gulliford

HIST 362: Rise and Fall of the Soviet Union | Ellen Paul

HIST 373: History of Mexico | Michael Fry

HIST 392: World Topics: History of Buddhism | Douglas Ober

HIST 396: Philosophy and Methods | Ellen Paul

And plenty of HI-1’s, other lower-levels and more!

I am currently working on the second edition of my Historical Dictionary of Guatemala. The dictionary provides a historical chronology, a concise introduction to Guatemalan political history, more than 700 dictionary entries with reliable and condensed information on the most important events, prominent people, significant places, key institutions, political organizations, economic enterprises, foreign relations, music, art, literature, religion, education, and culture of the largest country in Central America. An extensive selected bibliography, segmented thematically, features more than a thousand articles and books. The first edition was published by Rowland and Littlefield in 2019, and the new owner of the copyright, Bloomsbury Press, has asked me to produce a revised version. I agreed to have the new edition ready by June 2026.

This October I’ll be a historian for a Fort Lewis on the Water (FLOW) three-day, two- night San Juan River trip which will be one of the first FLOW trips for a History/Humanities class. We will look at prehistoric Native American rock art and discuss Native American History in the Bears Ears area of San Juan County, Utah (Ed. note: all students, staff, faculty, and community members are welcome to join Dr. G’s River Trip: see the posting above for more details). In the meantime, I continue to teach about Native American boarding schools including Old Fort Lewis, in HIST 131 Introduction to the Southwest; HIST 320 The American West in the 19th Century; and in HIST 324 Colorado History.

This past summer, I gave a variety of historical speeches to the Ouray Historical Society, the Bayfield Public Library, and at the Town of Frisco. As chair of the La Plata County Historical Commission, I also helped to organize an event at the Old Fort on June 28, 2025, where I spoke on the boarding school history. Other FLC staff came and spoke about reconciliation. We had 180 people in attendance in the WPA-era library.

On August 1, 2025, I was also invited by the National Park Service to speak as a preservation professional at Mesa Verde National Park for their Traditional Trades Advancement Program and their Preservation Trades Career Networking Event.

I continue to hear from former students and welcome email contacts and connections. Like all of us in the History Department, I am proud of our student successes. Email Dr. G at gulliford_a@fortlewis.edu

I am teaching a course on Race in American History this fall along with several American History survey courses. In the meantime, I am balancing the demands of teaching with those of being a new parent to my son Leo!

As I mentioned above in my Welcome from the Chair note, I was in France this summer with nine History majors. The students worked in three areas: archaeology, public history, and preservation. I cannot express enough my pride in the work they accomplished, especially in light of the excessive heat (France went through a heat wave much of the time we were there). The students persevered and accomplished so much. They helped restore the exterior foundation wallstones for visitors to see. They uncovered a wealth of medieval window glass and medieval pottery sherds. Finally, they built up a museum room exhibit chronicling the history of the site from medieval to modern times.

As you can see from the images, their work was most professional and profound. They were even featured in an article in the regional newspaper, the Charente Libre. The owner of the site, Kate Douglas (also pictured below), sent me a note thanking everyone from the students to Fort Lewis College, to their humble instructor to donors. It ended with “You have changed my life.”

As for this upcoming year, I continue work on my book projects as outlined in previous newsletters. Also this will be my fourth and final year as Chair of the department as we prepare to pass the baton next year.

Before the exhibit: a workroom at the Eglise de Rauzet where Fort Lewis students catalogued medieval stone fragments, ceramics, and metalwork. Photo courtesy of Michael Martin.

This past summer, I made steady progress on my current book project, tentatively titled The Idea of the Indigenous: How Asia Rewrote a Global History. The book examines how the idea of “Indigeneity” and of “Indigenous peoples” has been mobilized and politicized across Asia, with particular focus on India, Nepal, Bangladesh, Burma, and China. The project situates these histories in a global frame while showing how Asian actors reshaped the very terms of debate at United Nations forums in the post-World War II era. I am aiming to complete the manuscript by summer 2026.

The coming academic year will take me to a range of venues for public lectures. In late September, I will speak at the Fort Lewis College Philosophy Club on Buddhist ethics and comparative religion. In November, I travel to Rome to participate in the Civilizationism(s) project, where I will discuss how discourses of “civilization” have been mobilized by Hindu and Buddhist movements in Asia to advance competing visions of politics and identity. In December, I am honored to have been invited to speak in the University of Pennsylvania’s Annual South Asia Lecture Series, where I will present Soft Power Sutras: Buddhism, Nationhood, and the Political Imagination, from Nehru to Modi.

In the classroom, the year ahead will involve teaching several liberal arts core courses in World Civilization, as well as an upper-level course on the History of Buddhism. These courses remain some of my favorite opportunities to introduce students to big questions about global history, culture, and religion while connecting them to the kinds of archival and conceptual work that inform my research.

This past summer, I had the chance to reflect on my eventful Fulbright experience at the University of Sarajevo in Bosnia and Herzegovina during Spring 2025, (some pictures below) while also beginning work on my next research projects. The Fulbright semester gave me new perspectives on teaching and scholarship in an international setting, and I am excited to bring those insights into both my writing and my courses here at Fort Lewis.

Looking ahead to the coming year, I will be teaching a range of courses in European History. In Fall 2025, I am offering the Western Civilization survey and Modern Europe (HIST 379), in which students are diving deep into key events and movements beginning with the French Revolution. This course emphasizes lively discussion and requires regular student presentations that allow individuals to connect course themes to their own research interests.

In Spring 2026, I will teach The Rise and Fall of the Soviet Union (HIST 362), the first half of the Senior Seminar capstone (HIST 396), and two online sections of Western Civilization II (HIST 261). I look forward to guiding students through these courses as they develop the research and analytical skills that will carry them forward beyond Fort Lewis.

Ed. Note: The Fulbright Program, a flagship U.S. government educational exchange initiative, offers over 400 awards in more than 135 countries, enabling U.S. citizens to conduct research, teach, and engage with global communities. Some programs are also open to undergraduate students, making this an excellent opportunity for our graduating seniors and other recent graduates who wish to experience the world beyond the United States. Dr. Paul’s selection adds to the History Department’s tradition of academic excellence: two of our faculty, Michael Fry and Douglas Ober, have also previously received the Fulbright Fellowship, in Guatemala and India, respectively.

Hello, my name is Matthew Waid, and I had the pleasure of completing my undergraduate degree at Fort Lewis College. I majored in History and wrote my thesis on early Medieval Irish monks and how they utilized and understood their living and worshiping spaces. During my time at Fort Lewis, I focused heavily on museums as a potential career path and interned at the Center of Southwest Studies in both the museum and the archive.

Although I was determined to pursue a career in museums, I had the chance to join an archaeological field school in Romania with a close friend from the History Department. The experience was eye-opening: the combination of physical work in the field and the intellectual problem-solving it required deeply inspired me. I have since returned to this field school for a second season and will soon begin a master’s program in Archaeology—specializing in Experimental Archaeology—at University College Dublin. Regardless of what path my life takes me down, I am extremely excited and determined to find a career in which I can practice my love of history.

We are very proud of our alumni and would love to share their stories. Please email us with stories of how you have used your History degree, or places you have visited with some historical connections you would love to share, along with a photo of you there, or at your job putting that degree to work!

We also have a map of the United States in our department hallway. We would love to pinpoint where our alumni are at. Eventually we would like to build up an electronic version to include on our website in the Alumni Updates section. Please let us know where you are at!

Our work would not be possible without the generous support of our community donors. Your gifts are testaments to the value of history, critical thinking, and the liberal arts in a complex and interdependent world.

Your ongoing contributions are most appreciated, please consider donating to one of our funds to help us continue this valuable work.

History Associates Fund

Reese Kelly Excellence Fund

Public History Fund

Duane Smith Lecture Series

General Ron & Miss Jane Fogelman's History Excellence Endowment