Renewed history club gives possibility to share research

“This is the Stephen Colbert Appreciation Society. If you’re here for the History Club meeting, you’re in the wrong place,” said senior Cody Foster, president of the IU History Club.

The IU History Club made history last week during its first meeting since 2001. Previously known as the Phi Alpha Theta History Honor Society, members were once required to pay a $50 membership fee and maintain a minimum GPA.

Now the History Club is open to all those who are interested in the stories of our past.

“The History Club encourages new techniques in research,” Foster said. “It’s open to anyone interested in cross-analyzing history.”

This semester’s goals for the History Club are numerous, Foster said.

The group will work to organize group study sessions, volunteer at local museums and have book readings and movie screenings. Foster also said he hopes to publish an undergraduate history journal.

“It’s ridiculous that we have one of the top 20 history departments in the U.S., and we don’t have an undergraduate journal,” Foster said. “It should be seen that undergraduates are really passionate about history.”

Foster also said he wants to bring interested students to the Careers in History Symposium on Nov. 12 at IU-Purdue University Indianapolis.

The event will focus on both public and applied history and the career options available to history students.

Cynthia Koch, director of the Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library and Museum, will use Skype to lecture during the event — something history professor and club advisor Padraic Kenney said he is looking forward to.

Kenney said he believes the symposium will be a good opportunity for history majors to learn about their options after graduation.

“It will help formulate what history can do for them,” Kenney said. “Whether it’s graduate school, law school or the job market.”

Although the History Club focuses on the past, Foster said students should also focus on the present.

“We history students are pretty dorky,” Foster said. “There’s a lot of us that do outside research we’re interested in. It offers a way to share our work.”