Dr. Ben Dodds is an associate professor in the Department of History, specializing in the history of late medieval England. He received his BA, MA, and PhD from Durham University (2002) and taught there from 2003 to 2017. Dr. Dodds joined FSU in 2017.
How many years did you spend in graduate school?
When D J Kinney defended his PhD dissertation in the fall of 2018, he decided not to seek an academic job straight away. Instead, he set out to share his passion for the Cold War era with a broader audience. “I love telling stories and making podcasts about the Cold War was a natural extension for me.” Thus, The Cold War Vault was born.
Dr. Katherine Mooney is the James P. Jones Associate Professor of History. She received her BA in American Studies from Amherst College in 2004, her MA and PhD from Yale University in 2008 and 2012, respectively. Dr. Mooney joined FSU in 2014.
When did you start thinking about graduate school?
How did you get interested in music?
I started with piano and then guitar and when I was 11, I switched to tuba. I always loved music. In my high school, I joined the marching band. I became a section leader in my senior year. I went to a large high school with a big marching band, so the transition to playing with the FSU Marching Chiefs was not that hard.
What did it take to become a MC?
Dr. Maximilian Scholz is an assistant professor specializing in the social and religious history of early modern Europe. He received his BA, MA, MPhil, and PhD from Yale University (2016). His dissertation was titled “Exile and the Recasting of the Reformation: Frankfurt am Main, 1554-1618.” He joined the FSU Department of History in 2017.
How would you describe your general experience of grad school?
Earlier this year, Dr. Sam Holley-Kline received the Undergraduate Research Opportunity Program’s postdoctoral mentor award. Dr. Holley-Kline, whose area of expertise is the history of modern Mexico, is a Dean's Postdoctoral Scholar in FSU’s History Department. Michelle Evangelista (FSU 2023 International Affairs), one of his UROP student researchers, nominated Dr. Holley-Kline for the mentoring award.
Logan MacMillan, a history major, graduated from Florida State University in December 2020. Two months later, he left for France to pursue intensive language studies. Studying abroad has changed since the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, but many study abroad programs are working to provide the cultural immersion and experiences students seek. MacMillan took the time to tell us about his stay abroad in spring and summer 2021.
Dr. Matthew Mewhinney is an assistant professor of Japanese Language at the Department of Modern Languages and Linguistics. He received his BA and MA from University of California, Santa Barbara in 2006 and 2009, respectively. He completed his PhD degree in Japanese Language from University of California, Berkeley in 2018. Dr. Mewhinney joined FSU in 2019.
What is your primary research interest?
Dr. Suzanne Sinke serves as the History Department’s Associate Chair for Graduate Studies. She is a historian of migration and gender studies in the U.S. context. She received her MA from Kent State University in 1983, and her PhD from University of Minnesota, Twin Cities in 1993. She joined FSU in 2002.
How did you know you wanted to do a PhD and become a historian?
I was singularly committed to becoming a teacher of history from childhood. The question was only at which level, and I started my undergraduate studies planning to be a high school teacher.
I have never had any desire whatsoever to be a department head. Yet after fifteen years at the University of North Georgia, that’s where I find myself. Perhaps it was inevitable. There is some truth to the old saying that the department head (DH) you want is the person who does not want the job. Technically, I am the Associate Department Head (ADH), but UNG has five campuses. I supervise two campuses, where I assume all duties of department head except for budgeting. We serve five-year terms and can be re-elected. Most often, the ADH goes on to serve as the DH.
