Public History Certificate

Coordinator: Kerri Inglis, Ph.D.
Email: inglis@hawaii.edu

Website: https://hilo.hawaii.edu/depts/history/publichistory.php

Certificate Description

Public History promotes a collaborative study of the past that generally takes place in settings beyond the traditional classroom. With an emphasis on applied learning, the Public History Certificate encourages students to build upon their foundation in public history courses offered in the history department by choosing electives from at least three different disciplines. Completion of the certificate will prepare students for future endeavors in museums, archives, resource management, oral history, film and media production, etc. As a growing and popular new field within the discipline of history, public history offers new and exciting opportunities for historians, and those who pursue this certificate. This certificate is interdisciplinary in nature, provides internship (applied-learning) opportunities, and endeavors to serve our university and local communities.

Students will be required to take 9.0 credits from core course offerings, plus 12.0 credits of electives in order to complete the certificate.

Program and Student Learning Outcomes for the Public History Certificate

Those who successfully complete the Public History Certificate will be able to:

  1. demonstrate basic knowledge of origins, evolution and major debates in the field of public history, its history, its historiography and the current theories and ethics that define the professional practice (historical museums, historical societies, historic preservation, etc)
  2. understand current methods and skills in historical documentation and interpretation to make history accessible and useful to the public
  3. demonstrate ability to analyze and apply interpretive historical methods to public historical documents and sources such as monuments, buildings, material culture, electronic media and other public and collective representations of the past
  4. think critically about history – drawing conclusions from readings, applying knowledge to new situations, analyzing and synthesizing secondary and primary sources, evaluating arguments, and understanding how historical interpretation fit into the larger context of historical inquiry
  5. communicate historical knowledge and interpretations to a variety of general public audiences and/or through a variety of public history venues, demonstrating an understanding of strategies of visual display and exhibition of historical content for public audiences
  6. understand practical and ethical issues related to communicating history to a variety of general public audiences
  7. recognize potential career paths related to public history

Requirements (21 Credits)

  1. Required Public History Courses (9 Credits)

    • HIST 390 Public History in Hawaiʻi (3)
    • HIST 391 Internship (3)
    • HIST 393 Hist Preservation & Archives (3) or ANTH 470 Museology (3)
  2. Required Elective Courses (12 Credits) Choose 4 courses (12 credits) from at least 3 different alphas

    • ART 392 New Media Art Seminar (3)
    • ANTH 310 Contemp Iss in Hawaiian Anth (3)
    • ANTH 388 Pots, Bottles, and Shipwrecks (3)
    • ANTH 389 Cultural Resource Management (3)
    • ANTH 470 Museology (3)
    • COM 240 Professional Communication (3)
    • COM 260 Media and Culture (3)
    • COM 444 Public Relations (3)
    • DRAM 243 Drama of Hawaiʻi & the Pacific (3)
    • DRAM 387 Performance Education (3)
    • ENG 200E Lit Genres: Myth/Folklore (3)
    • ENG 205 Hawaiʻi on Screen (3)
    • ENG 206 Intro to Popular Culture (3)
    • GEOG 328 Cultural Geography (3)
    • GEOG 331 Tourism Geographies (3)
    • GEOG 382 Qualitative Research (3)
    • HIST 284 History of Hawaiʻi (3)
    • HIST 300 Historical Methods (3)
    • HIST 301 Professional Practice (3)
    • HIST 389 Oral History Methods (3)
    • HIST 393 Hist Preservation & Archives (3)
    • HIST 448 Hawaiʻi Island to 1850 (3)
    • HIST 449 Hawaiʻi Island since 1850 (3)

Notes:

  1. Each course for the Public History Certificate must be passed with a grade of C (2.0) or better.