History

I was born in New Jersey in 1961 and raised in the small town of Leonardo, directly south of New York City. I watched the towers of World Trade Center being built in the early 1970s. My father pastors a church near the Jersey shore. He has been in the same pulpit for 56 years, and now at the age of 80 has no plans to retire. I attended the local public schools, and then headed off to Bob Jones University in 1979. I majored in art for three semesters, but then switched to social-studies education in the middle of my sophomore year. My father's father probably inspired me to love history more than anyone else I can think of. His two older brothers served in the First World War, and I vividly remember him showing me postcards that one of his brothers sent from Europe in late 1918 and early 1919. My grandfather always wanted to know why things are the way they are, and that persistent question has stuck with me for over 40 years. I taught as an adjunct professor at the University of South Carolina for three semesters after I graduated with my Ph.D. in history in 1992, but my first full-time teaching position was at Palm Beach Atlantic University in West Palm Beach, Florida. I taught there in the history and honors programs for twelve years (from 1994 to 2006) before coming to Hillsdale. I spent a sabbatical in 2003 as a Visiting Fellow at St. Edmund's College, Cambridge, UK. On two occasions I lived in central London and Cambridge with a group of my Florida students.

Thanks to my first graduate seminar at the University of South Carolina in 1986, I became interested in late-nineteenth- and early-twentieth-century American intellectual history. For my dissertation, I ended up combining that interest with theology and the First World War by writing about the Social Gospel clergy in the U.S. and their response to the war.

My favorite class would have to be The History of the American Identity. It is a course I designed from the ground up a number of years ago. It surveys the 400-year story of how Americans have pictured their meaning in history and their place in the world. I use all primary historical documents, and that selection keeps changing every time I teach the course as I continuously rethink the complex story of America's national self-consciousness.

This is a difficult question. I have taught a few thousand students over the past twenty years, including a former Saturday Night Live cast member. Choosing my "favorite success story" out of all those isn't easy. I am most excited by seeing students connect with the world of books and ideas for the first time in their lives. Or watching skeptical students who had a bad experience with history in high school discover that there is a whole world out their they never knew existed. Helping students to lead what Socrates called the "examined life" is one of the greatest rewards I have as a teacher. I can't tell you how often over the years a student has said to me, "Dr. Gamble, you've ruined me!" They mean it as a compliment. They can no longer watch a movie or television program, or read a book or an article, without seeing the things we have talked about in class. That's the kind of success story I hope to see every year.

The College and I share a commitment to the liberal arts tradition and to the life of the mind. Here, I have the luxury of taking for granted things that faculty at other colleges and universities can only dream about.

Don't ever think about your humanities and core classes as something to "get out of the way." The core liberal arts classes at Hillsdale aren't "in the way" of anything. They are instead one of the primary reasons to come to Hillsdale. Think of the core as what we sometimes call your "first major." These classes are indispensable to your formation as an educated human being.

This one's easy. My first impressions of Hillsdale students have never changed. They welcomed me from the first day and made me feel as if I had always taught here. Hillsdale students have a gift for friendship. They are also the hardest working students I have ever met. They make me work harder to keep up with them! I have colleagues at other colleges who can't believe I assign the level of books I do. I also like the fact that I learn so much from my students. Education at Hillsdale is definitely a two-way street. I can't even count how many books I have read in the last year that were first recommended to me by students.

rgamble@hillsdale.edu