In the fall of 2019, the Department of History launched a new Certificate Program in conjunction with the Departments of Political Science and Education, Teaching Advanced History and Government—geared towards current and prospective secondary school teachers working with an AP or Honors Social Studies Curriculum. With the increased popularity of Advanced Placement and Honors courses at the high school level, a growing number of secondary school teachers find themselves teaching courses that the College Board deems comparable to college level courses. This graduate certificate gives our students the scholarly training that will enable them to excel in their own classrooms.

The Department of History is delighted to welcome Eliza Gettel, PhD, who received her doctorate in Ancient History from Harvard University. Dr. Gettel is a historian of the ancient Mediterranean, especially Greek and Roman society. She joined the Villanova History faculty in January 2020, after spending fall 2019 on research fellowship in Munich, Germany, working on her current monograph project. It investigates how ancient Greeks living within the Roman Empire thought about their place in this massive state with the models available to them in the premodern Mediterranean. Particularly, her book explores how Greeks drew on local federal state models to negotiate the balance of power in the sort of state we now call an empire. Her previous publications have addressed individuals displaced within the ancient Mediterranean and intersections between classical and early anthropological scholarship. She has received several national and international fellowships for her past and present research, including from the Council of American Overseas Research Centers, the Social Science Research Council, and US-UK Fulbright Commission.

Dr. Gettel also has a deep interest in the material culture of the ancient Mediterranean. In addition to research specialties in epigraphy (inscriptions) and numismatics (coins), she has a master’s degree in social archaeology, and she has worked on archaeological projects in Turkey, Greece, and Jordan. Her love of archaeology often plays a part in her teaching. In her classes, Dr. Gettel seeks to introduce students to the great diversity of very real people who lived in the ancient Mediterranean thousands of years ago.

After 20 years at Villanova, Catherine Kerrison, PhD, is retiring at the end of the 2020 - 2021 academic year. Dr. Kerrison is the author of two scholarly prize-winning books: Jefferson’s Daughters: Three Sisters, White and Black in a Young America, and Claiming the Pen: Women and Intellectual Life in the Early American South. She has also published numerous scholarly articles. Dr. Kerrison has been an active member of the profession throughout her career. She earned several prestigious fellowships, served on the editorial board of an important journal in her field, and has been much in demand as a public speaker. Dr. Kerrison consistently worked to reach beyond the academic community with her scholarship.

Dr. Kerrison served as a much sought-after mentor to her students, many of whom have gone on to earn doctorates and garner success in academia and the field of public history. Students invariably left Dr. Kerrison’s courses with new insights about gender, race, early America and the Founders as well as heightened skills as writers. Dr. Kerrison taught at every level of the college curriculum and made a significant contribution to the development of the Gender and Women’s Studies program, serving as its director.

Dr. Kerrison’s ongoing career as a successful historian demonstrates that once the pen is claimed, it is rarely relinquished. While her friends, colleagues and students will miss her presence on Villanova’s campus deeply, Dr. Kerrison is not hanging up the pen—or more specifically the laptop—she claimed as a scholar. She has plans for another book and several essays. We all look forward to reading what comes from Dr. Kerrison’s next chapters.