Bronx Community College

Substitute Assistant Professor, History

Other Affiliations: City College of New York, History
Stony Brook University, History
Yeshiva University, History

Thesis Title: The Other Side of Vietnam: Conservatism and the Vietnam War

About

I earned my PhD from Stony Brook University in December 2010. I am interested in modern American social and political movements. My dissertation emphasizes the response of the conservative movement to the Vietnam War and analyzes how the war altered the movement's philosophy.

I was born in New York City and earned my undergraduate degree at McGill University in Montreal, Canada. At McGill I found my passion for studying modern American history. After my undergraduate work, I was admitted to Stony Brook's doctoral program, which has enabled me to expand my horizons as a professional and academic.

While working on my dissertation, I taught over twenty classes at Stony Brook University, City College of New York, Lehman College, and Yeshiva University. In Fall 2011, I am scheduled to begin working as a Substitute Assistant Professor of History at Bronx Community College. This means I will be a full time faculty at BCC, teaching five world and US history classes per semester while advising students and contributing to the department culture and life. This is a wonderful opportunity for me since I enjoy teaching modern history courses as I use my classes to explore various themes with students, such as social, intellectual and cultural movements. In my US history classes, I frequently talk to my students about what it means to be an American during different historical periods, and how that answer has shaped society, culture, and minority rights. I also utilize various technologies, including the Internet, in my classes to help make them more accessible to the students. I also try to bring music, documents, photos, and videos into the classroom to help the students learn through primary sources.  With my assignments, I emphasize real-world skills by focusing on writing and analytic abilities. This often requires assigning longer written essays, so that students can expand on their thesis and articulate their responses.

I am currently working on converting my dissertation into my first book. My dissertation was a close inspection of the conservative movement's response to the Vietnam War. It explores why the right supported the war, and more importantly, how that support for the (unpopular) war altered conservative movement identity. This comes to a central area of intellectual inquiry for myself; how and why do movements develop their identity. What effects can external factors play? This is explored within my work and will be present within my future work as well.