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PLEASE NOTE: DUE TO AN ADMINISTRATIVE POSITION THAT PREVENTS ME FROM RESPONSIBLY TRAINING GRADUATE STUDENTS, I AM NOT ACCEPTING GRADUATE STUDENTS APPLICANTS UNTIL FURTHER NOTICE.
With Hugo Evans at BSGU Doctoral hooding ceremony, December 2013
Because you are reading this I assume that you are interested in graduate training in history. If so, you should be fully cognizant of the challenges that must be overcome to parlay a history PhD into a rewarding and financially stable career. If not, please look here and here.
Now assuming that you are still reading, I hope prospective students find this information useful. Please do not hesitate to contact me (sortiz@binghamton.edu) to introduce yourself, to see if our interests align, or to ask any questions not addressed here.
Areas of graduate training interest:
Even while my work, and therefore expertise, is on veterans, policy history, and politics, my research interests range broadly in the political, military, diplomatic, and cultural history of the 20th-century US. I have guided or am guiding dissertations on many different kinds of topics. Please see the list of current and former students below.
My new project
This project, a monograph tentatively titled, Comrades in Arms: Veterans Organizations and the Politics of National Security, 1919-1961 seeks to understand both what happened to make veterans organizations a “natural” choice for national security hawks as they waged the domestic politics of national security and what impact veterans actually had on American national security policy from the end of World War I until the war in Vietnam undermined the Cold War assumptions on projections of strength and military interventions abroad. The premise of the project is that veterans organizations hold a vital—but almost entirely unexamined—position in American political life as a domestic interest group focused on national security issues. I will argue that beyond veterans’ general stature in American political culture, these organizations’ extraordinary clout in the politics of national security was based both on their strong relationships with, and nearly unfettered access to, policymaking elites, and on their grassroots organizational structures reaching into thousands of communities across the nation.
List of current graduate students and their topics
Danielle St. Julien:
Locating the Black Middle Class: Race, Class and Public Policy in the 1970s
Ulysses and Penelope in America: Demobilization Protests at the End of World War Two
Michael Cangemi:
US-Vatican-Guatemalan Relations in the Late Cold War
Eve Snyder:
"Negative Dowry" to Equal Opportunity: Women's Higher Education, Federal Policy, and the Development of Gender Equality, 1945-1972
Hugo Evans (BGSU):
"De-Basing the San Francisco Bay Area: The Racial, Regional, and Environmental Politics of the 1991-1995 BRAC Military Closures"
Dustin McLochlin (BGSU):
Immigration Reform During the War on Poverty: The Bracero Program and the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965
List of former students and their placement
Dustin McLochlin, MA, BGSU, 2008: "American Catholicism and Farm Labor Activism: The Farm Labor Aid Committee of Indiana as Case Study." PHD Candidate, BGSU Dept. of History.
Kathryn Brown, MA BGSU, 2010: "The Education of the Woman Citizen, 1917-1918." Instructor, Bowling Green State University
Elizabeth F. Schnieder, MA BGSU, 2010: "The Devil is in the Details: Nebraska's Rescission of the Equal Rights Amendment, 1972-1973." Phd Candidate in Political Science, University of Nebraska--Lincoln
William Smith II, MA BGSU, 2011: "Send in the...Scholars?: The History of the Fulbright Program from 1961-1970." Education Abroad Advisor, University of Georgia Office of International Education
Expectations contract for PhD students
Requirements for Doctoral Dissertation Project (revised Sept., 2012)
Prof. Stephen R. Ortiz
You have asked me to direct your doctoral dissertation project. Below are my requirements for your project and information about my working style. Please read them over carefully. If you have any questions, consult with me soon. If you do not feel comfortable with these requirements or my way of doing things, you should feel free to ask someone else to be dissertation director. Before we move forward in your project, I will ask you to sign a copy of this document.
1. The project should:
§ undertake to answer a significant problem in modern American history
§ provide analysis that is fitted in scale and register to a PhD (not MA) program
§ rest on a wide-ranging, intensive base of primary evidence to which you have access
§ consist of chapters that are worthy of being conference papers and possibly journal articles
§ ultimately result in a publishable book manuscript after many years of post-PhD revision
2. Write a 15-25 page prospectus which includes:
§ a clear statement of the central questions/problems you will address (2-3 pp)
§ an historiographical section (literature review) in which you discuss the relevant secondary sources and show how your project fits into the existing literature (8-10 pp)
§ a thorough discussion of your project’s significance, emphasizing how your study will increase our understanding of the past (1-2 pp)
§ a thorough discussion of the methodology/models you will be employing (2-3 pp) to answer the questions formulated above.
§ a thorough discussion of the available primary sources (2-4 pp)
§ a tentative chapter outline, a tentative timeline for completion of the project, and a listing of fellowships for which you intend to apply (1-2 p)
3. Create a long-horizon timeline with due dates for:
§ prospectus draft submitted to advisor
§ revised prospectus submitted to advisor and readers
§ prospectus meeting with full committee
§ research trips/agenda
§ Individual chapter completion dates. Please note: I want one chapter draft at a time. The sequence doesn’t matter too much (ie, give me chapter 3 first if that is what you have.)
§ draft of entire thesis (with revised chapters) to advisor, three months before defense.
§ entire revised thesis to advisor and readers, one month before defense
§ dissertation defense
4. Join a dissertation study group, or form one if necessary:
§ meet regularly to present or critique others’ presentations
§ present draft of your dissertation proposal to the study group
§ present two different dissertation chapters on two different occasions to study group
§ prepare thoughtful written critiques of others’ presentations at each meeting
5. Apply for every single external and internal research funding grant and
fellowship for which you are eligible
6. Conference Presentation:
A good dissertation needs public airing and feedback. You will present a minimum of two chapters of your dissertation at national, regional, or specialized thematic conferences. Get as much outside feedback from commentators, hopefully ones prominent in your field(s), as possible. And join networks of scholars in the process. Oh yes…
7. Make as Many Connections to Other Scholars as Possible: From other grad students to chaired professors, make contacts everywhere and any way with people who share your interests. Don’t be shy--introduce yourself. Not everyone will be receptive. But don’t let that stop you.
8. Criteria for the successful defense of your dissertation:
a significant issue in modern American history
methodology well explained
a precise argument fitted to the significance of the project
argument well supported with intensive primary evidence
argument properly placed in historiographical context
argument is grounded with a sensitivity to historical context, chronology, contingency, and causation
entire dissertation is well organized and clearly written
Things to note:
Expect unvarnished, detailed, and rigorous criticism—lots of it. That is my job.
Do not take criticism personally.
Writing quality is extremely important to me—you will learn how to write like a historian in this process. But you will find this very difficult and frustrating.
Solicit multiple opinions of your work from fellow graduate students, faculty at BU, and persons who are experts in your field and/or subfields. But…
Your advisor (me) has the final say on whether and when your dissertation proceeds.
The dissertation is a very important goal—it is rarely the final goal, though. A good dissertation will help you in your quest for employment, but it is not sufficient. You must do much more in today’s marketplace than write an acceptable dissertation. We will have many conversations about your employment goals and how to match your CV and experiences accordingly.
I will turn written material back to you very quickly. It is my professional obligation to do this for you. It is your obligation to not waste my time. If I make edits or request revisions, and they are not incorporated in the subsequent draft, we will have a problem. If you continue to make the same writing error after many, many corrections, I will get frustrated and angry.
I prefer constant contact and dialogue to having you out in the wilderness writing (and struggling). Ask questions, no matter how mundane or silly they may sound. Send thoughts, questions, etc.
I always prefer email to phone conversations. I have office hours that you should feel free to use, but we can always make arrangements to meet outside of those hours, if necessary. Casual drop-ins can be useful. If you see my door open, feel free to come in. I will usually have time to chat. Depending on the topic and my schedule, though, I may ask you to schedule a meeting later.
Your work is important to me because I have an interest in seeing you grow as a scholar and reach your goals. But your work is also a direct reflection of my work as a professional historian. My name will be on your dissertation forever; I take that very seriously.
______ _______________________ __________________
Date Student Stephen R. Ortiz
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