Both proved formative figures in the department. Professor Smither arrived from the PhD program at the University Chicago in 1990. I was still in middle school at the time. He came with a teaching and research specialty in early modern European history. He evolved into the department’s go-to military historian, teaching courses on the subject, but also building from scratch the Veteran’s History Project, a combined research-curatorial effort that collects oral histories from US military veterans who served in foreign wars. The VHP is now mainstay of the department’s public-facing outreach efforts and an immense oral-history archive for use for future researchers. Professor Smither will continue to curate it in retirement. It should not go without mention that Jim also served as department chair between 2001-2007. He also inspired countless students onto professional careers in history and other fields. He just published a book based on his VHP work (The End of the Rope: The Ripcord Campaign and American Disengagement in Vietnam). He always stops by the administrative office with a dose of good news to share. And in this final semester, he continues to teach European history surveys.

Professor O’Neill arrived to GVSU in 1991 from the PhD program at the University of California-Berkeley and put decades of care and labor into teaching future social studies teachers how to teach. The GVSU History Department today boasts the best social studies education program in the state because of the groundwork that Professor O’Neill plowed. He oversaw hundreds of student teachers in the field. He was a foundational contributor to the Michigan Council for History Education.

He made Grand Valley’s hosting of the regional History Day Conference into a signature annual event for the department every March. For over three plus decades, thousands of high school and middle school students participated in the contests, filling Grand Valley classrooms and conference rooms with the raucous, chaotic energy of historical thinking taking initial flight. Courses in colonial America, the American Revolution, and Native American history filled out his teaching repertoire. He consistently supported all department activities. His kind smile was the first I encountered upon arriving on campus in August 2012.

Another cohort of history and social studies students graduate in May. They join the ranks of alumni who consistently tell us in surveys that their voyages of learning and thinking with the History Department were profound and special. We continue from here the under-valued labor of fostering among students the tools and ethic to build careers and lives of meaning, only to be done now without the likes of Jim and Sean. They earned their rest. La lucha sigue….

By Michael Huner, Chair, Department of History

We end another academic year in the GVSU History Department contemplating more than just another nine months gone by, with lectures given, discussions had, students encouraged, papers graded, and projects overseen. More than just another cycle of department meetings, university politics, promotion decisions, and celebratory acts populate our reflections. Rather we consider, again, the enormity of entire careers devoted to studying the past, to recovering the past, to sharing our discoveries with students, and inspiring them to be intellectuals in the classroom as well. The 2025-26 academic year marks the final one for both Dr. Sean O’Neill and Dr. James Smither. They retire in May after over seventy combined years of teaching for the GVSU History Department. Not seeing them pace the halls of the Mackinac D-wing will be, in a word, strange.

How do you get kids interested in Detroit history and the history of the Great Lakes?
One of the quintessential goals of historical interpretation is to make the vast information contained within your exhibits both digestible and relevant to the audiences you lead. At the Dossin Great Lakes Museum, for example, our Detroit Public Schools third-grade students may only have a cursory knowledge of the Great Lakes, watercraft and travel, and the resources that encouraged centuries of people to settle across our two-peninsula state. It is best to approach the topic of natural resources from the lived perspectives of the city’s youth before me. Most of the students have never before seen a lumber mill, quarry, or real animal furs or pelts. I have found it far more productive, and even exciting, for such students when I make comparisons through cross-generational video games like Minecraft—a game I too played occasionally across my youth. By asking “what can you make out of wood?” or “what can make out of iron ore?” through the lens of Minecraft, the students before me—every time and without fail—excitedly chant out answers that are on track to what an adult would answer! What is made out of wood? Responses like row boats, furniture, simple farm equipment, and houses often surge to the forefront. With this simple call and response, I am now able to make Michigan’s lumber industry relevant to third graders by the dwellings they live in and furniture they use every day. What about more complex materials like iron ore? Well, one can make iron ingots, iron armor, iron swords and weapons, or iron farming and mining tools—all items that European settlers valued highly, traded with Native Americans for furs, and that we still use today, although altered through the production of steel. By employing a rerouted perspective into how children perceive the things around them through their lived experiences and hobbies, even the natural resources of the Great Lakes region become common knowledge to young students!

Should incoming college students pursue degrees in history?
In short, yes, I believe that all students of history should pursue their scholarly or educational interests in the field so long as they diversify their technical skills for the job market that lay ahead. Placing all one’s poker chips into the gamble of following your research through to a Ph.D. dissertation is a lofty, yet attainable goal, but one that should not be the only plan. I often make the analogy that my research methods and writing skills are my primary blade as a “weapon of knowledge.” However, my later training in public history mediums, oral history techniques, and historical interpretation through museums are what turned my knowledge into a universal and broadly employable “Swiss Army Knife” across other historical fields. History majors must keep contingency planning in mind as they approach their graduation and prepare for a competitive job market. As historians, we have the incredible ability to think critically, research, analyze broad arrays of research, and synthesize source material for others to read and learn. It is our job as history graduates to ensure that employers know the scholarly rigor we achieved in our studies as we enter the competitive world of employment!

What were your career goals when graduating from college? How did the Covid pandemic affect them?
After graduating from GVSU, many liberal arts students, including myself, were still feeling COVID’s wrath upon higher academia as well as the job market across academic and public history. While attending GVSU, I was determined to—or, at least, assumed I would—continue my studies in a graduate program. When graduation day finally came, however, no colleges or universities were admitting new history master’s degree students for the fall. With a preliminary knowledge of museum studies and best practices from Professor Abigail Gautreau, I turned to public history hoping to find an opening in the job market that would employ my research skills. As I departed GVSU, Professor Paul Murphy informed us graduates of the few remaining history internship opportunities accepting recent graduates across west Michigan. I jumped at every museum internship he listed and soon accepted a non-paid internship position at the USS Silversides Submarine Museum in Muskegon. It was with the phenomenal staff at the USS Silversides that my love and passion for public history became what I wanted to do for a living, owed largely to my primary mentors at the museum, their former archivist Amber Dowdy (History Major, Class of 2019) and former curator Don Kitchen. My internship at the Silversides lasted several months. With them, I developed skills in archiving 2D and 3D artifacts and documents in PastPerfect, exhibit creation and refurbishing, label writing and editing, and special event coordination.

Have you been able to use your knowledge of the Holocaust or military history in your current position? Are you still studying these topics?
In short, yes and no. I lobbied for and piloted our DHS Veterans Day Program 2025 in November which focused on Detroit’s industrial and manpower contributions to both World Wars, including an Oral History Workshop for local high school students. The presentation material for this event employed some of my research abilities, although to a limited extent when compared to the critical and complex minutia of academic history. Otherwise, I have sidelined my research into the Holocaust and German military, hopefully for a day and time when such research may elevate my employment prospects elsewhere. More importantly, I was able to synthesize many of the questions and interview formats I reviewed when working for Professor Jim Smither on the GVSU Veterans History Project for use by local students during my program’s Oral History Workshop. 

I had also undergone further oral history training in the History Preservation program at EMU, so between the two experiences, I was able to create an easily accessible questionnaire that students could use for their own research. I find Professor Smither’s general format for conducting oral history interviews with veterans more productive and open ended for interviewees. Above all, Professor Smither taught me that a healthy and productive interview with a military veteran comes from knowing as much of the macro- and microhistory surrounding a veteran’s service as possible before conducting the interview. As was reinforced by my training at EMU, knowing how the story starts, progresses, and ends regarding any particular conflict allows the interviewer to slot the interviewee’s story seamlessly into the narrative created during their recorded conversation. Curating a more focused, relevant set of questions and asking open-ended questions that welcome and respect the interviewee’s input helps gain their trust in your knowledge as both the interviewer and a credible historian.

What do you most enjoy about your current job at the Detroit Historical Society?
At least on paper, my position’s responsibilities are far removed from the field of program creation and active touring. However, thanks to the enthusiastic support and flexibility of the DHS Education Team, I am able to tour groups as well as produce and lead programs that are relevant to my research experience—like our annual Veterans Day Program and Oral History Workshop—while maintaining the core responsibilities of my position. When called upon for touring assistance, I am also able to tour groups at the Dossin Great Lakes Museum or for specific military-history-focused tours at the Detroit Historical Museum as our team’s content expert. I am incredibly thankful for my team and their ongoing support in accommodating the interests and capabilities of a “recovering” research historian.

What did you do next?
Despite my newfound love for museums and public history, I was still highly motivated to follow my research through to a master’s degree. With the precarious start to the 2021-22 academic year underway, some universities—likely feeling the financial burden of restricted student admissions—began admitting greater numbers of students, including master’s students. I immediately launched myself, yet again, into the mania of college applications. My hopes were answered when I accepted admission into the MA program in the History and Historic Preservation departments at Eastern Michigan University, with financial support from the Opperman Fellowship in History, for the Winter 2022 semester.

What did you study for your thesis?
Between Winter 2022 and Fall 2024, I continued my graduate research into the German military’s complicity in the Holocaust during the Second World War while simultaneously enhancing my public history skills and best practices through EMU’s nation-leading Historic Preservation (formerly Museum Studies and now Preservation Studies) Department, mentored by Professor Nancy Bryk. My thesis, “In a Hell of Our Own Creation” on ProQuest, uses the lens of military geography to analyze German servicemen’s responses to their surrounding environments along the Eastern Front, explaining why frontline divisions killed indiscriminately and destroyed the landscape while rearguard personnel justified roundups, executions, and the abuse of Red Army prisoners of war. I argue that surrounding environmental contexts—which fostered soldiers’ fear, desperation, and reaffirmed hatred of Eastern Europeans—bolstered the German military’s complicity in the Holocaust.

When did you start working at the Detroit Historical Society?
Much like higher academia in 2021, it took some time for museums across Michigan and Ohio to even consider reviewing the applications they received for vacant positions. The Detroit Historical Society (DHS) was the only institution that took its applicants seriously. I applied for their base, part-time Visitor Experience Associate (VEA) position in the hopes of wedging my foot in the door. I started in May of 2024. As a VEA, I completed an array of frontline visitor services and retail work, special events assistance, and trained to become a docent on the Education team. I excelled and was even held back from docent training since the retail team needed my services to maintain their record profits going into the 2024 holiday season. Despite several offers of a promotion to VEA Supervisor by the head of the Department, David Wilson, I preferred to remain a rank-and-file VEA in the hopes that another position might open up at the DHS that better suited my public history or research skills. My gamble paid off in the Spring of 2025 when I became our Group Tours and Program Sales Coordinator on the Education Team—all within a year of joining our DHS staff.

Professor Sean O’Neill came to Grand Valley State in 1991 to teach colonial American and native Ameri-can history and to mentor student teachers. He continued to research Jesuit missionaries in seventeenth century North America and took a leadership role in history and social studies education in the state of Michigan. Thousands of middle school and high school students remember Professor O’Neill for the Western Michigan Regional History Day competition, which he coordinated for thirty-five years, be-ginning in 1991. He has been involved in the Michigan History Day State Contest for almost as long, volunteering as a judge, co-coordinator, and head judge. Professor O’Neill served as president of the Michigan Council for History Education from 1999 to 2001 and the Historical Society of Michigan from 2004 to 2006. He has been a leader in history and social studies education in the state, serving on state committees concerned with teacher preparation and testing, including advising on the creation of the Michigan Test for Teacher Certification in history. Professor O’Neill devoted much of his scholarly attention to teaching professional development, having presented many sessions on teaching history, including Michigan history, around the state. In 1993 and 1994 he won $100,000 grants for summer professional development in World and American history. In 2005, he helped secure the first of two three-year Teaching American History (TAH) Grants for Muskegon and Ottawa county teachers. The federal government extended the second grant for two years, for a total of over $2,200,000 for eight years of professional development. He also participated in three years of TAH-funded professional development for the Kalamazoo Regional Education Service Agency (RESA).

Professor James Smither arrived at Grand Valley State University in 1990 to teach Renaissance and Reformation history. Students remember the rigor of his writing instruction in HST 200: Writing History. He also served as Assistant Chair and, from 2001 to2007, as Chair of the department. Professor Smither taught a variety of courses in French and European history over the years and began to teach the History of Warfare in 2001. That experience led him to create the Grand Valley State University Veterans History Project in 2006. Professor Smither has conducted and recorded over 800 oral history interviews with area veterans and the Project has recorded over 2500 interviews in total. Over 1100 interviews are now archived online at GVSU with several hundred more on the Veterans History Project YouTube channel and being processed for archiving. This work led to documentary filmmaking. His productions include Nightmare in New Guinea (2006)about Michigan veterans of the Red Arrow division who overcame terrible conditions to win the Army’s first victory in the Pacific in World War II and A Team of Our Own (2015) about women’s baseball in Grand Rapids. He edited Joseph P. Olexa’s Death and Life in the Big Red One: A Soldier’s World War II Journey from North Africa to Germany (2023) and wrote The End of the Rope: The Ripcord Campaign and American Disengagement in Vietnam (2026).Professor Smither has other books in mind in retirement and plans to sort through all the interviews, documents, written memoirs, and other materials collected by the Veterans History Project over the last twenty years.

Veterans History Project: https://www.gvsu.edu/vethistory/.

Participants had the chance to explore different ways of approaching a variety of experiences with material environments. The conference addressed a number of interrelated questions, including: How does material culture/the environment influence humans, and how do humans in turn influence and construct their material environment? What different forms of trauma emerge as a result of climate/environmental disasters? How are experiences with the environment represented and processed through a variety of media, narratives and images?

Highlights included panels on psychological theories dealing with material environments and mental health, the different ways in which environmental disasters are visualized, representations of environmental stress in popular media, and diverse narratives of climactic trauma, which included a presentation by GVSU alumna Jennifer Ventimiglia, who is now a professor at Northeastern Illinois University, on films and music constructed by Chicago youth.

The Great Lakes History Conference in October 2025 focused on “Climate, Environment, Psyche and History.” Jason Crouthamel (GVSU) and Peter Leese (University of Copenhagen) organized the conference, which featured scholars from Europe and the United States in history, psychology and psychiatry, film studies, criminology, medical humanities, education, art & design, philosophy, environmental studies, and literature.

Finally, the conference offered panels on case studies of environmental trauma in a variety of historical contexts. The event also included a Latin American History Workshop organized by Mike Huner, and a Student Panel organized by Alice Chapman, which gave our students the opportunity to gain experience in presenting their work and receiving feedback on their research. Thanks to all colleagues and students who joined us and helped make the conference a rewarding experience!

If you are interested in supporting current Grand Valley State University undergraduates, consider making a donation to one of the following funds established to honor past history faculty or advance current historical work.  Contact the History Department with any questions (616-331-3298) or the University Development Office (https://www.gvsu.edu/giving/).

Quirinus Breen Prize Scholarship: Benefits students regularly enrolled in any history course.

Frances Ann Kelleher Endowed Memorial Scholarship: History or Social Studies students studying abroad.

James F. and Virginia L. Goode Global Programs Endowed Scholarship: Need-based scholarship for students planning to study abroad.

Glenn A. and Betty J. Niemeyer History Scholarship Endowment: Benefits deserving junior or senior history majors.

David M. Stark Endowed Scholarship in Latin American History: Benefits students of any major with a special interest in Latin American History or Latin American Studies.

Veterans History Project Endowment: Funds oral history interviews, documentaries, educational materials, and live presentations by U.S. veterans.

Kathleen Underwood Endowed S3 Fellowship: Assists students in the Student Summer Scholars (S3) Program and who are conducting research on social inequality in women and gender studies and/or history.

Joan L. Chapman Endowed Scholarship: Assists students from the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences who are enrolled in either the history or English programs and also demonstrate financial need in covering the cost of their education.

Social Studies Education Endowed Scholarship: Assists students majoring in Social Studies (Secondary Education) or Pedagogical Content Knowledge for Elementary Teaching (PCKET) with a concentration in Social Studies with the intention of pursuing a career as a teacher.