Richard V. Damms is being recognized as the 2011 Humanities Teacher of the Year by Mississippi State's College of Arts and Sciences and the Mississippi Humanities Council.
Presented annually at public and private institutions of higher learning around the state, the award carries a $500 honorarium and the responsibility to share humanities-based research in a public setting with students, colleagues, and the community.
"Greeks and Romans: Harold Macmillan, Dwight Eisenhower and the Romance and Reality of the Anglo-American 'Special Relationship'" is the title of the associate professor of history's Monday [Nov. 28] presentation. Open to all, the 3 p.m. program takes place in the Griffis Residence Hall Forum Room of the Shackhouls Honors College. A reception follows at the location.
Damms, a history department faculty member since 1995, specializes in American foreign relations and 20th century U.S. political history. His current research examines Anglo-American relations in the aftermath of the 1956 Suez crisis. [For more, visit http://library.thinkquest.org/20176/suez.htm.]
An Ohio State University doctoral graduate, he has participated in several projects designed to improve the quality of history education in Mississippi. These have included direction to the department's Teaching American History grant program and service as editor-in-chief of Mississippi History Now: The Online Journal of the Mississippi Historical Society.
Most recently, he has worked with the Mississippi Department of Education to revise the state's U.S. history curriculum.
Damms is the author of "The Eisenhower Presidency" (Pearson/Longman, 2002) and the forthcoming "Scientists and Statesmen: President Eisenhower's Science Advisers and National Security Policy" (Republic of Letters/Martin Nijhoff Publishers, 2012), among other publications.
He is a Rotherham, United Kingdom, native who also graduated from the University of Durham. [Additional biographical information is available at www.msstate.edu/dept/history/rdamms.htm.]
For more information about Mississippi State University, see www.msstate.edu.
