Matthew Hibdon – Department of History

Remembering Dr. Nancy Rupprecht

August 28, 2020 - 2:15 pm

It is with deep sadness that we announce the passing of Dr. Nancy Ellen Rupprecht on Friday, August 7, 2020, in Murfreesboro, Tennessee.

Nancy, the daughter of Nancy Berneeda and Dr. George John Rupprecht, was born in Coeur d’Alene, Idaho. Her family moved when she was very young, and she grew up in St. Louis, Missouri. Anyone who knew Nancy quickly came to know what an ardent supporter she was of her hometown and every major sports team associated with it.

An exceptional student from a very young age, Nancy was particularly drawn to the study of history. Nancy received her B.A. and M.A. in that subject from the University of Missouri (Columbia), and went on to graduate with a PhD from the University of Michigan. It was at the University of Michigan that Nancy studied with Professor Gerhard Weinberg, who over time became a dear friend.

Nancy began her teaching career as a teaching fellow at the University of Michigan while pursuing her PhD. After a couple of short teaching assignments at Washington University in St. Louis, Grinnell College in Iowa and the University of Missouri (St. Louis), Nancy was hired at Middle Tennessee State University in August of 1985. Nancy became a full professor, and continued to teach at MTSU until the day she died.

At MTSU, Nancy was a Professor of History, the Chair of the Holocaust Studies Program, and one of the first directors of Women’s and Gender Studies. Nancy organized and chaired Holocaust Studies conferences for many years, published several articles and books and received awards for her contributions to History and Women’s Studies. Not only academic colleagues and students, but family and friends would concur that Nancy had a special talent for bringing history to life.

Nancy was interested not only in history, but in literature, sports, music, art, film, religion and politics as well. Whether conversing at the dinner table, hosting one of her annual Mozart’s birthday parties, or arguing in e-mails, Nancy managed to enlighten us with facts, anecdotes and witty commentary. We were all her students, and we all wished she had been our professor.

In addition to her parents, Nancy was predeceased by her grandparents; Jacob and Mary Ellen Doty Baird, Raymond George Rupprecht, and Ione Doyle and Edward Aaron (Hy) Neufeld, her aunts, Velma Grace and Anna Belle Baird, and four special friends who died too young: Terry Bunston, Deborah Johnson, Susan Pentlin and Thaddeus Smith.

Nancy leaves behind and will be greatly missed by her dear sister, Diana Rupprecht, her beloved nephew, Garen Rupprecht Kennedy, her cousins, especially Georgana Baird Morris, as well as her mentor, Gerhard Weinberg. A lifetime’s worth of friends, including Kimberly Allen, Andy Attalai and Christine Koskimaki Attalai, Emily Attalai Kaare, Sharon Brown, Cathy Crabtree, Sheila Crifasi, Steven Feltner, Linda Wirtanen Fitzgerald, Elyce Helford, Elaine Lytle, Al Meives, Floyd Pentlin, Jerry Perry and Janet Weinberg will mourn Nancy’s passing.

A virtual memorial is being planned for Dr. Nancy Ellen Rupprecht on her birthday, September 23, 2020. If desired, and in lieu of flowers, please donate to a charity you think Nancy would have supported.

Topic: Nancy Rupprecht Memorial – Session 2
Time: Sep 23, 2020 07:00 PM Central Time (US and Canada)

Join Zoom Meeting
https://us04web.zoom.us/j/76405793061?pwd=L0FkWENnNHlZMTYvUUZuOVhETHFtdz09

Meeting ID: 764 0579 3061
Passcode: NancyRupp2

A link to this obituary and a tribute wall to leave memories of Dr. Rupprecht is available at https://www.smithfamilyfcs.com/obituaries/Nancy-Ellen-Rupprecht?obId=17971391&fbclid=IwAR26R7cRjPi3ZlhYnY8SrnU3OCTR82PIkOcOi5D5S6YxO9Pv7wIppyrt0HY

History Faculty Statement: Black Lives Matter

June 5, 2020 - 2:28 pm

The History Department faculty at Middle Tennessee State University write in support of the peaceful and sustained national and international multiracial protests to end police brutality towards people of color and to make systemic changes to institutionalized racist practices. For decades Americans have witnessed the killing of unarmed African American men and women at the hands of the police and vigilantes. Each time there are protests and media coverage, but systemic reform has yet to be enacted. This time, with the brutal murder of George Floyd by the Minneapolis police, documented by horrified bystanders, tens of thousands of American citizens have risen up to demand an end to police brutality and for systemic change.

The changes must be deep seated. Activists, academics, journalists, and policy-makers have outlined substantive proposals to change police departments nationwide (See, for example, No More Money for the Police; Anguish and Action; Podcast The Daily: The Systems That Protect the Police; America’s Protests Won’t Stop Until Police Brutality Does; Black Lives Matter: News There must also be equal access to wealth, to educational resources, to housing, to jobs, to healthcare and to the promises of a democratic society. Over and over again, the tremendous inequities based on race nationwide have been documented. Over and over again these inequities have been ignored by those in government responsible for creating policy. As inequality, already at its most dramatic extreme in the United States, continues to grow as a result of the pandemic, people of color are, once again, impacted disproportionately.

In the MTSU History Department, faculty commit to researching, teaching and designing community engaged projects that relate in significant ways to the history of race, gender and power. We further commit to increasing our outreach to community groups of color, to directing departmental resources to diversity initiatives in the department and in the larger university, and to advocating for substantive changes that will impact the lives of people of color. These may include advocating for equitable conditions for employees of color (including contracted employees such as food service workers), improving outreach to students of color for the graduate program in Public History, discussing how to better serve students of color, inviting scholars of color to speak on campus, making our curriculum more inclusive and diverse, increasing hires of diverse faculty and staff, and advocating for a more equitable distribution of resources (including salary) for all employees of color on campus. Through our Public History Program, we will increase our efforts to diversify the interpretation of area museums and historic sites, and to design projects that reveal systemic racial injustice to broad public audiences.

This country has the capacity to change. We can institute widespread changes that make it a more democratic, a fairer, and a more just society. As historians who teach courses on African American history, slavery, the international slave trade, race and the law, the Civil Rights Movement, we know well the long and painful history of racism in the United States. We also know that there have been periods in the history of this nation when the people have risen up and demanded change and that change—labor reforms, voting rights, civil rights—has resulted. We demand that this be a moment of systemic, decisive change. Black Lives Matter.

Signed,

Emily Baran, Interim Chair, Department of History
Martha Norkunas, Professor of Oral and Public History
Louis Haas, Professor of History
Louis Woods, Associate Professor of History
Susan Myers-Shirk, Professor of History
Sean Foley, Professor of History
Kelly Kolar, Associate Professor of History
Aaron Treadwell, Assistant Professor of History
Michael Paulauskas, Senior Instructor in History
Mark Doyle, Professor of History
Cyrana Dowell, Lecturer in History
Lisa Pruitt, Professor and Public History Director
Andrew Polk, Associate Professor of History
Ann Mulhearn, Lecturer in History
Stacey Graham, Research Associate Professor, Center for Historic Preservation
Aliou Ly, Associate Professor of History
Mary Evins, Associate Professor of History, University Honors
Louis Kyriakoudes, Professor of History and Director, The Albert Gore Research Center
Yuan-Ling Chao, Professor of History
Brady Holley, Lecturer in History
Becky McIntyre, Associate Research Professor
Adonijah Bakari, Associate Professor of History
Benjamin Sawyer, Senior Instructor in History
Andrew Fialka, Assistant Professor of History
Kathryn L. Sikes, Associate Professor of History
Molly Taylor Poleskey, Assistant Professor of History

Remembering Langston Carter, 1994-2020

April 17, 2020 - 2:17 pm

It is with tremendous sadness that we share news of Langston Carter’s death. Langston was an MA student in our History program, who had, as one faculty member has said, “a world of potential ahead of him.” Those faculty fortunate enough to work with Langston remember his extraordinary empathy, work ethic, wit, and intelligence, as well as his huge role in our graduate student community. Faculty described Langston as a “spark of energy” in class, and as someone not afraid to deal out sarcasm and snark when warranted. He was the kind of student who was a “joy” to have in class.

His graduate school peers, who knew him much better, remember how his qualities impacted their lives—Langston joining others for late-night writing sessions after already putting in a full day’s work, hugs that “felt like a gift,” epic karaoke performances, the “type of friend who was there when you needed him most,” and as someone with enough sass to make everyone around him laugh. His students called him the perfect teaching assistant, one pleading for Langston to stay just the way he was.

As one faculty commented, “His passing is a painful loss to our department’s community of scholarship, and our heart goes out to his family, his friends, and his fellow graduate students as we mourn him together.”