430 Landrum Academic Center
baileyr4@nku.edu | (859) 572-5176
Dr. Bailey studied public history and Appalachian history for her masters and doctoral degrees, which she earned at West Virginia University in Morgantown, West Virginia. Her dissertation examined the local context of the Matewan Massacre, an episode in the West Virginia mine wars of the early 20th century. Her dissertation was published by West Virginia University Press as Matewan Before the Massacre. As an expert on the subject she was selected to be a contributing and featured scholar for the PBS "American Experience" episode, The Mine Wars. Her current research focuses on the life and work of one of the journalists who covered the mine wars. After coming to NKU in 2006 to start the public history program, Dr. Bailey now teaches exclusively online. Her courses cover the range of American history survey, American industrial history, American immigration history, the history of American popular culture, and periods in 20th century American history.
295F Founders Hall
bussj1@nku.edu | (859) 572-5946
Dr. Buss is a recent addition to the department's faculty, and he currently serves as the Founding Dean of the Honors College. Dr. Buss is the author of Winning the West with Words: Language and Conquest in the Lower Great Lakes (2011) and co-editor of Beyond Two Worlds: Critical Conversations on Language and Power in Native North America (2014), as well as numerous peer-reviewed articles and book chapters. His scholarly interests center on the intersections of settler memory, Native American history, and public commemoration. Dr. Buss has appeared on NPR, C-Span 2’s “Book TV,” and Zócolo Public Square to speak about his work.
446 Landrum Academic Center
hackettb1@nku.edu | (859) 572-6072
Dr. Hackett leads the department's Master's degree program in public history, and is the primary faculty member for that program. He also has extensive experience in the field of public history, and he has a special interest in museum exhibits. Dr. Hackett was responsible for the day-to-day management and development of historic sites as executive director of the Montgomery County (Ohio) Historical Society from 1992 to 2004. He also served as executive director of the Ross County (Ohio) Historical Society from 1987 to 1992 and curator of collections for the Olmstead County (Minnesota) Historical Society from 1985-87. More recently, he has written a book and developed an exhibit celebrating the 150th anniversary of St. Elizabeth Hospital. His students in his public history courses have helped to create exhibits for museums in New Richmond (OH), Cincinnati (OH), and Newport (KY), among others.
437 Landrum Academic Center
jacksoner@nku.edu | (859) 572-6146
With almost twenty-five years of academic experience at the university level, Dr. Jackson teaches in the fields of American and African American History/Studies, Race Relations, and Peace Studies. He has over fifty publications, including in journals such as Africology: The Journal of Pan African Studies, the Journal of African American History, and the International Journal of World Peace. Dr. Jackson recently received two awards for his community outreach work: the Goodwill Ambassador for the Golden Rule Award (2016) and the Second International World Civility Award from IChange Nations (2017).
429A Landrum Academic Center
landonw1@nku.edu | (859) 572-5535
Dr. Landon is a scholar of European history and an international authority on the life and times of Niccolò Machiavelli. He has published two monographs, Lorenzo di Filippo Strozzi and Niccolò Machiavelli: Patron, Client and the “Pistola fatta per la peste” (University of Toronto Press, 2013) and Politics, Patriotism, and Language: Niccolò Machiavelli’s “Secular Patria” and the Creation of an Italian National Identity (Peter Lang, 2005). The attention that Dr. Landon drew to Lorenzo di Filippo Strozzi has re-invigorated Italian and Anglophone scholarship dedicated to the famous, but historically neglected, Strozzi.
In the past few years, Dr. Landon has dedicated a good deal of his scholarly energy to bringing Machiavelli’s contributions to western political thought to the public’s attention by writing and performing Books That Matter: The Prince for The Great Courses. He has also written and performed a very successful series on The Borgia Family for Audible, which objectively re-assesses their notorious legacy. Dr. Landon's most recent production for The Great Courses on The Medici Family and their impact on the Renaissance has been released via the Wondrium label.
Dr. Landon also has a keen interest in the ways in which Machiavellian politics appear in our contemporary environment. He provided the foreword for “Nick Machiavelli’s” The Politician (“Nick” is an active Canadian politician who published his book using a nom de plume—because he feared that the secrets he revealed would lead to recrimination). And, Dr. Landon has just finished his contribution to the forthcoming book, Machiavelli Pop (Palgrave), tentatively titled: “The Secretary and the President, or, Machiavelli, Trump and The Prince”.
Of real importance to the circumstances in which we find ourselves, Dr. Landon has also published widely on pandemics. He has written encyclopedia entries on The Black Death, and comparative analyses between the bubonic plague and Covid-19 (forthcoming: “History: Discover Blueprints to See a Way Out” in a volume edited by Dr. Joan Ferrante).
Dr. Landon’s research interests also extend beyond European history and contemporary politics. He is the Primary Investigator (Co-PI, Dr. Sharyn Jones) on the NSF REU Site: The Parker Academy ($336,000). For a detailed description of The Parker Academy and its influence on the history of education and race-relations in 19th century America, please see our website.
Outside of his academic interests, Dr. Landon co-operates a small organic farm and he serves as the Vice-Chair of the Campbell County Conservation District. Dr. Landon is passionate about preserving (and growing) family-run agricultural operations, and protecting and sustainably restoring our environmental resources.
In conclusion, Dr. Landon is always open to new collaborations (both academic and agricultural/environmental) and research projects. Contact him at landonw1@nku.edu, via LinkedIn or Academia.edu. Dr. Landon’s major publications are available at his Amazon Author page.
340 University Center
leroy@nku.edu | (859) 572-7976
Dr. LeRoy currently spends most of his time outside of the classroom, as the Executive Director of the International Education Center and the Director of the Office of Education Abroad. There, he is a champion for students who wish to add to their university experience by studying abroad, and when he does teach courses, they are usually on French history and are taught on-site in Paris, France!
409 Landrum Academic Center
lombardij2@nku.edu | (859) 572-6131
440 Landrum Academic Center
medlicottc1@nku.edu | (859) 572-5316
Dr. Medlicott has been part of the NKU faculty since 2005. She came to academia from an earlier career in the national security field, which propelled her into the study of geography.
Dr. Medlicott is committed to promoting a deeper awareness of geography and of geography’s pivotal importance to the human experience, past and present. To that end, her teaching and research interests are exceptionally broad, and they include physical, historical, and human-environmental geography, as well as regional studies of East Asia and of the American West. Summers find her teaching field courses within the “Crown of the Continent” ecosystem of western Montana. There she provides instruction on landscape transformation, environmental history, and cultural history, in collaboration with the Glacier Institute, an educational partner of Glacier National Park.
Dr. Medlicott’s current research focuses on historical geographies of the trans-Appalachian frontier and of early American religious groups. She is a nationally recognized expert on the Shakers, America’s oldest and longest-running communal society. She has consulted with many organizations on issues of Shaker history and heritage, including this region’s major Shaker heritage organizations, Shaker Village of Pleasant Hill and Friends of White Water Shaker Village. She has published several books on the Shakers, including her award-winning Issachar Bates: A Shaker’s Journey (University Press of New England), as well as myriad articles and book chapters. In addition to her many publications on Shaker heritage, Dr. Medlicott has also published widely for over twenty years on a range of other topics, including East Asia, historical geopolitics, and gender studies. Her work has appeared in many peer-reviewed journals and edited volumes.
Dr. Medlicott is active in several scholarly organizations, including the Communal Studies Association and the Association of American Geographers. She serves on the advisory board of the Center for Communal Studies Research and on the editorial review board of the peer-reviewed journal Communal Societies.
447 Landrum Academic Center
metz@nku.edu | (859) 572-5462
Dr. Metz is a geographer who focuses his teaching and research on how people interact with both their bio-physical and socio-economic environments, because environmental decisions are made by political and economic actors, not scientists. He features environmental issues in all of the courses he teaches. Recent research projects find Dr. Metz dealing with issues of both local and international environments. He has been studying the farmers markets of greater Cincinnati, and in 2016 he returned to a Nepali village he studied in 1986 to both document changes in the community and conduct additional research. Dr. Metz is now semi-retired, but he continues to teach for the department.
436 Landrum Academic Center
meyersde@nku.edu | (859) 572-1482
Dr. Debra Meyers, professor of History, has been a member of the NKU faculty since 2001 and has since had a dramatic impact on the university and her students. Meyers ranks among the very best professors. Students consistently find her courses engaging and challenging. They applaud her for her knowledge, preparation, understanding, and fairness. Her classes, ranging from American history, to gender and religion, to feminist theology, and many others, reflect both her breadth and depth of her experience and knowledge.
Meyers’ active encouragement and leadership prompted her department to adopt the university’s fledging Women’s & Gender Studies (WGS) Program in 2009. Meyers rebuilt the program and the number of students enrolled in WGS classes burgeoned. With a commitment to expanding educational opportunities for all students, she established an online minor in WGS, one of the first at NKU and she led her department in creating an online BA degree program in History, the second one in the nation.
As a scholar, Dr. Meyers is a recognized expert in American women’s history and American colonial history. She has published eight books, numerous articles and book chapters, and given many presentations at scholarly conferences. She is currently working on two new publication projects: Gender, Love, and Religion in the Early Chesapeake and Misogyny and Christianity.
Meyers was recognized for her achievements with NKU’s 2019 Frank Sinton Milburn Outstanding Professor Award, which honors a faculty member who has demonstrated excellence in teaching, scholarship and service over the course of her career. Meyers’ students also extol the ways in which she encourages each one to succeed. In 2017, she received the Outstanding Faculty Advisor Award, nominated by online students she had never met face to face, but who were still so impacted by her tireless work as a teacher, mentor, and service-oriented faculty member.
Books
415A Landrum Academic Center
millerbu@nku.edu | (859) 572-5471
Dr. Miller currently serves as the Chair of the Department of History and Geography and as the Director of Social Studies, a role in which he works extensively with the College of Education, teacher trainees, and area schools in a variety of endeavors. His book, Inequity in Education: A Historical Perspective, edited with Debra Meyers and published by Lexington Books/Rowman-Littlefield (2009), addresses the complexity of teaching underserved groups in American public schools.
434 Landrum Academic Center
quinnka@nku.edu | (859) 572-5654
Prof. Quinn found her academic passion in the field of classics, an interdisciplinary subject that involves the study of the ancient Mediterranean basin through art and archaeology, ancient history, ancient literature and language, and more. This interdisciplinarity has allowed her multiple opportunities to interact with students around NKU by partnering with departments across the university, including the Department of World Languages and Literatures, the Department of English, the Honors College, and the College of Informatics. Prof. Quinn's research centers on the publication of previously overlooked Late Roman and Byzantine settlements at archaeological sites in the eastern Mediterranean, and her dissertation (in progress at the University of Cincinnati) focuses on the interactions of Byzantines, Crusaders, and Ottoman Turks at the site of ancient Troy in Turkey. Prof. Quinn teaches courses in ancient history and Latin language, and she frequently employs Barnard College's Reacting to the Past curriculum in her courses. She also shares her passion for travel and history with undergraduate students on study abroad programs through the Department of History (Egypt) and the Kentucky Institute for International Studies (Greece, Italy, Turkey).
439 Landrum Academic Center
reynoljo@nku.edu | (859) 572-5279
Dr. Reynolds has traveled to West Africa eleven times to conduct fieldwork in Nigeria, Niger, and Ghana. At NKU his teaching focuses on world history, with a special focus on Africa. Dr. Reynolds has received a variety of awards for his research and teaching at NKU, including the Outstanding Junior Faculty, Excellence in Sustained Research, Alumni Strongest Influence, Outstanding Adviser, and Milburn Outstanding Professor awards.
Dr. Reynolds's publications include works on Islam and Politics in West Africa, Africa's place in World History, and wider works on World History, 20th Century History, and Food History. (In fact, he has recently started a blog with some food history colleagues that you can check out here!)
If you are curious about any of the subjects, Dr. Reynolds teaches, he encourages you to sign up for one of his classes. If you aren't a student, you're welcome to sit in any time. And, if you have a workplace, school, place of worship, or organization where you would like to have him speak, just send an email.
Dr. Reynolds serves as the current Vice President (President Elect) for the World History Association; his terms of office will run from 2020-2022 (VP) and 2022-2024 (President).
410 Landrum Academic Center
tenkottep@nku.edu | (859) 572-6186
Dr. Tenkotte is one of NKU’s most prolific scholars. He has authored/edited 14 books, contributed chapters and essays to 12 other books, and written hundreds of articles and book reviews for a wide range of publications, from academic journals to newspapers. His publications include a specialization in US History, American Urban History (particularly Cincinnati and Northern Kentucky), and topics in World and Asian History.
In addition, Dr. Tenkotte has been a contributor to 16 television documentaries, including his 2018 national PBS debut, Ten That Changed America: Engineering Marvels. Award-winning productions include Where the River Bends: A History of Northern Kentucky (Kentucky Educational Television), winner of 2 Regional Emmy Awards, and Sacred Spaces of Greater Cincinnati (Cincinnati Educational Television, Greater Cincinnati Television Educational Foundation and Voyageur Media Group), winner of a Regional Emmy Award, as well as the prestigious Public Education and Awareness Award of the Ohio Historic Preservation Office, 2008.
Dr. Tenkotte just completed a digital textbook entitled The United States since 1865: Information Literacy and Critical Thinking (Great River Publishing, 2019). He is working on three more books, including Resilience and Renaissance: Newport, Kentucky, 1795-2020. He is also editor of the weekly “Our Rich History” column in the NKyTribune, an online publication of the non-profit Kentucky Center for Public Service Journalism.
450 Landrum Academic Center
vances1@nku.edu | (859) 572-5460
Dr. Vance-Eliany’s current research interest is on antisemitism in colonial Algeria and France. Her publications include “Antisemitism in France and colonial Algeria,” Patterns of Prejudice 51, no.3-4 (2017): 292-317; “Sol Hatchuel, ‘heroine of the 19th Century:’ Gender, the Jewish Question, and Colonial Discourse” in Jewish Culture and Society in North Africa (Indiana University Press, 2011); and The Martyrdom of a Moroccan Jewish Saint (Brill, 2011), among others.
429B Landrum Academic Center
washington@nku.edu | (859) 572-6483
Dr. Washington's work focuses on the African American experience, and he has published several monographs and dozens of articles in anthologies, journals, and encyclopedias. His international experiences consist of speaking engagements and research both in southern Africa and in Japan. He has received both the Malone (1991) and Fulbright (2001) Fellowships. As a Malone fellow, he studied Arab history, culture, politics, and religion at the American University at Cairo in Egypt, at which time he also traveled to Kuwait, Abu Dabi and Qatar. As a Fulbright Fellow, he was invited to teach at Kyoritsu Women's University and Tokyo Christian Women's University in Japan.
432 Landrum Academic Center
watkinsan@nku.edu | (859) 572-7708
Dr. Watkins focuses on United States history to 1877. She enjoys teaching courses from the early colonial period through the Civil War, and she is well-versed in the history of Kentucky and the American South. Her research interests are focused on the Early Republic period of United States history, with an emphasis on nineteenth-century Kentucky, family and community life, and slavery.
445 Landrum Academic Center
wilcox@nku.edu | (859) 572-5134
Dr. Wilcox is a member of several national and international organizations of Latin American history and studies, as well as in environmental history and studies. He has travelled extensively in Europe, the Middle East, North Africa, and throughout Latin America, including recent and extensive experience in Brazil, Paraguay and Argentina. To students he enthusiastically advises travel, not only as a tremendous cultural experience, but because it provides an incomparable combination of enjoyment and learning.
Dr. Michael C. C. Adams, History, 31 years of service
Dr. Leon E. Boothe, History, 21 years of service
Dr. James C. Claypool, History, 32 years of service
Dr. Tripta Desai, History, 50 years of service
†Dr. David Payne, History, 33 years of service
Dr. James Ramage, History, 43 years of service
Dr. W. Michael Ryan, History, 28 years of service
†Dr. Louis R. Thomas, History, 17 years of service
Dr. Robert C. Vitz, History, 36 years of service
Dr. Edwin T. Weiss, Jr., Geography, 30 years of service
Dr. Jeffrey Williams, History, 43 years of service
