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Graduate History Society

The Graduate History Society (GHS) is composed of all full- and part-time graduate students in the Department of History. The GHS works to enhance the student community in the history department in a variety of ways: working with faculty members, the Chair, and the Graduate Coordinator on student and program issues, organizing scholarly seminars, introducing new students to the department and the city, and arranging social events. The GHS also administers a listserv to which all graduate students are encouraged to subscribe.

Each fall, graduate students registered in the department elect an Executive Committee to lead the GHS. Eight GHS members express graduate students' concerns and serve as voting members at departmental meetings, and the society has four seats (3 PhD and 1 MA) on the department's Graduate Program Committee. The GHS is also a member of the Graduate Students' Union (GSU), from which it receives annual funding. All registered graduate students in the department are welcome to attend and participate at the monthly GHS meetings.

The GHS office, located in Sidney Smith Hall (room 3104), contains a wide variety of academic and professional resources, including graduate course evaluations, winning scholarship applications from recent years, and past comprehensive exam questions. There are also numerous guides on subjects ranging from teaching techniques to campus resources.

For more information about the GHS, please visit our website.

GHS Awards

The GHS Executive Committee puts out a call for nominations for and bestows three awards each spring. The Distinguished Service Awards recognize substantive contributions to graduate student intellectual and social life in the Department of History over the past academic year, and are awarded to a graduate student and a member of faculty. The Dana Wessell-Lightfoot Award (formerly the Long-term Service Award) recognizes distinguished service by a graduate student over several years. Individuals who have successfully defended their dissertations in the department in the past twelve months are eligible, with the winning nominee being deemed to have contributed substantially to the department and the graduate student community through his or her involvement in GHS, departmental, or other activities and projects. In bestowing this award, the GHS will recognize outstanding contributions to the culture of the department, and a longstanding commitment by the recipient to improving the graduate student experience in the Department of History.

*Renamed after the inaugural winner