The Department of History at the University of Arkansas has been host to many a first. Phi Alpha Theta, the largest college honor society devoted to a single discipline with 820 chapters in the U.S. and three other countries, was founded on the University of Arkansas campus on March 17, 1921. In addition, department alumni are to be found in most every remunerative profession, at least all the res
pectable ones. Many teach history at the college or high school level. Some, like Elizabeth Jacoway, Nan Woodruff, Ralph Turner, Bobby Lovett, C. Calvin Smith, and Charles King, are well-known and widely published scholars. Many others have distinguished themselves in fields outside academe. William Fulbright (BA 1925) and Mark Pryor (BA 1985), have represented Arkansas in the United State Senate, Senator Pryor telling us “I use the education I received at the University of Arkansas Department of History every day.” A considerable number are attorneys. A few became judges, including Henry Woods, Steele Hays, and Morris Arnold. Steele (BA 1974), has served his country as a top-ranking general in the U.S. We also count as proud products of our department bankers, medical doctors, librarians, journalists, museum directors, poets, park rangers, software entrepreneurs, helicopter pilots, cheerleaders, the mayor of Fort Smith, and a gadfly whose letters to the editor are unusually well-informed.
