Dr. Clyde
Milner II
Director of Heritage Studies
Dr. Milner was appointed
to the position of Director of the Heritage Studies Ph.D. Program in
July, 2002 and also serves as Professor of History at Arkansas State.
Dr.
Milner leads the Heritage Studies Ph.D. program
which utilizes multiple academic perspectives within a
laboratory of the Mississippi River Delta to produce heritage
professionals who identify, preserve, interpret, manage, and promote
regional history and culture for non-specialist public audiences.
Graduates qualify for senior positions in cultural and historical
agencies, cultural and historic tourism, museums and archives, parks and
historic sites, and consulting firms and heritage-related businesses.
Dr.
Milner came to Arkansas State University from Utah State University
where he was a professor of history and executive editor of the Western
Historical Quarterly. From
1997 to 2000, he also directed the Mountain West Center for Regional
Studies and was executive director of the American Studies Program.
Dr. Milner is the author or editor of seven books, including A New
Significance: Re-envisioning the History of the American West (1996),
many articles, and is helping to plan a six million word online
Encyclopedia of American History to be published by the Organization of
American Historians and Oxford University Press.
Dr. Milner grew up in North Carolina and earned his Ph.D. in
American Studies from Yale University in 1979.
He is married to Dr. Carol O’Connor, who is a professor of
history and Associate Dean of the newly formed College of Humanities and
Social Sciences at ASU. They have two children,
Catherine who attends medical school in Oklahoma, and Charlie, who is
currently a senior at Yale University.
Program
Highlights, by Dr. Clyde A. Milner II:
"Arkansas State University’s Heritage Studies Ph.D. Program
will soon complete its sixth year of existence with 48 doctoral students
participating in our course of study. Below are highlights from this past year
and previous years."
v
the completion of the first four Ph.D. degrees in
Heritage Studies
v
the awarding of a $1,000,000 challenge grant
from the National Endowment for the Humanities
v
a $30,000 grant renewed for a second year
from the National Endowment for the Arts
v
one of our students becoming the new State
Historian for Arkansas and Director of the Arkansas History Commission
v
an honorary doctoral degree for our retiring
Presidential Distinguished Professor of Heritage Studies
v
one of the program’s faculty being
recognized as “Arkansas Tourism Person of the Year”
v
World premiere of television film of John
Grisham’s novel, A Painted House, including a fund-raising dinner with
the author, that yielded $180,000 as endowment funds for the Heritage Studies
Ph.D. Program
v
World premiere of David Appleby’s
documentary film, Hoxie: The First Stand, that included in the audience
community leaders, former students, retired teachers, and family members who had
been part of that important story of school desegregation
v
Mary Gay Shipley Fellowship for a Visiting
Writer in Heritage Studies awarded to Minnijean Brown Trickey, one of the nine
African American students who in 1957, desegregated Central High School in
Little Rock
v
Visiting speakers brought to Arkansas State
with the support of the Heritage Studies Ph.D. Program include Dr. Peter Ascoli
(Julius Rosenwald and the Rosenwald Schools), Dr. William R. Ferris (Culture and
Blues of the Mississippi Delta), Dr. Anne M. Butler (Catholic Women Religious),
Dr. Martha A. Sandweiss (Photography of the American West), Dr. Joel R.
Williamson (Elvis Presley and the Elvis Girls), Dr. Gilbert Fite (American
Agricultural History), Dr. Alan Governor (Blues in Europe), Judy Peiser
(Southern Culture and Folklore), Dr. Philip Deloria (Personal Identity and
American Indian Heritage), and Dr. Keith Wailoo (African Americans and Health
Care History)
v
Extended internships, professional
appointments, and research travel for Heritage Studies doctoral students include
the following: a ten-week internship at the Smithsonian Institution in summer
2006, a two-month internship at the Saint Louis Art Museum, a one-month
internship at the Missouri Historical Society, the assistant editor of the
Encyclopedia of Arkansas History and Culture, and five grant-supported research
trips to Egypt
If you have any questions regarding the Heritage Studies Ph.D.
Program, please contact Dr. Milner at
cmilner@astate.edu
