The academic year 2006–07 was blissful, that is to say extraordinarily rich in scholarship and much excitement in the classrooms. The year marked the retirement of William Beik, Professor for Early Modern French History, who came to Emory in 1990 [see below for the “Reflections” given at the College Retirement Ceremony]. While Bill is retiring, Robert Desrochers has completed his first year as Assistant Professor for the era of the American Revolution. For seven months of the year Rosalyn Page, our department academic administrator was on medical leave, but fortunately by year’s end she was back at her post with a quick step and a robust smile. During her long absence, the other office staff contributed mightily, especially Becky Herring who added to her chores those of interim academic administrator.
         On 2 January 2007, the department received news that our colleague Betsey Fox-Genovese had passed away.  Although not entirely unexpected, it was a shock to lose one of our very most distinguished colleagues and friends. Betsey joined our department in 1986 as Professor of History and Director of Women’s Studies. Two years later she was appointed as the Eléonore Raoul Professor of Humanities, an honor she held throughout the rest of her tenure among us [see below “Words of Remembrance” as given at our memorial service held on 14 April 2007].
        James Harvey Young, Professor Emeritus, passed away on 29 July 2006. Harvey Young was a distinguished historian of American medicine, formerly historian of the Food and Drug Administration and Howard Candler Professor and Chair of the Department of History.  He won the Emory Williams Award for Distinguished Teaching and the Thomas Jefferson Award for Distinguished Service to the University, but many will remember him most fondly as the director of their doctoral thesis, for he supervised 38 to completion, a record unlikely to be surpassed. [see his obituary below].
        Six colleagues celebrated books authored or edited by them this year (Andrade, Burns, Collins, Crespino, Patterson, and Premo). To find out the publication details of these and other books and publications, as well as other exciting departmental news and achievements of individual colleagues, check out our departmental webpage and follow the links [http://www.history.emory.edu/]. Working with the help of a major grant from National Endowment for the Humanities for the creation of a Transatlantic Slave Trade Database, David Eltis assembled an international team, members of which passed through Emory for varying periods throughout the year. Two colleagues won distinguished teaching awards (Burns and Socolow). Eric Goldstein netted two book awards for his first book. Others made notable advances towards the completion of major research projects, many of which mark the culmination of many years of patient archival work.
        Our number of majors and minors continued in the right direction as we implemented a requirement for area concentrations, which previously had been an option leading to a certificate of special achievement only. Almost half of our majors have already declared either a geographic, chronological, or thematic concentration. We now have a truly robust honors program with many more students enrolled in the program than in former years. In order to assist these students in getting an early start, this year we began offering the required honors seminar in both semesters and have encouraged eligible students to declare their intentions to pursue honors before the start of the spring semester of their junior year. Early results seem to indicate significantly enhanced quality as well as a higher completion rate. The department created prizes for undergraduates, the Clio Prizes: one to recognize the best Freshman Seminar Paper, the other the best paper submitted in an advanced undergraduate seminar. Student Scott Rosenberg won a SIRE award for independent study supervised by Fraser Harbutt. These prizes join our traditional awards: the George P. Cuttino Fellowships and Scholarships; the Rabun Prize, named in honor of our colleague of long-standing, James Z. Rabun, honoring the best undergraduate in American History; the corresponding George P. Cuttino Prize for the best undergraduate in European History; and, the Matthew Carter Citizen-Scholar Award.
        At the graduate level, recruitment for 2006–07 matriculated 14 students, all fully funded for five years. The department received 136 applications for the class beginning 2007–08. The quality of the applicants continues to improve with the result being that we are competing head to head with schools in the very top tier of research universities. We placed three graduates in tenure track jobs: Jeffrey Houghtby at Iowa State University, Andrea Arrington at the University of Arkansas, and Kate McGrath at Southern Connecticut University. Our graduate students have organized themselves with a bit of financial support from the department to get together regularly and discuss their experiences teaching undergraduate surveys. Our graduate awards (the Benjamin, Major, Mathews, and McLean prizes) are all eagerly contested. Our new PhD program in Asian History is up and running with the first crop of two students enrolled and two more accepted for next year. African History has recently been ranked eleventh in the nation, and Latin American History is also exceptional. American and European histories continue to thrive. As these successes make manifest, we are gradually approaching our goal of gaining a place among the top fifteen graduate departments in History in the nation.
        Let me conclude on a personal note. As I end my year as interim Chair and my last full year of teaching at Emory University after 33 years of service, I wish to thank all my colleagues for their support, but especially the members of our two standing committees who worked tirelessly and very effectively throughout the year: John Juricek (DGS) and his graduate committee (Socolow and White) and Cindy Patterson (DUS) and her committee (Mann, Payne, and Rosenberg) deserve bells and whistles for their dedication and leadership.
        I have been truly honored to have had the opportunity of leading my colleagues once more.