By: Kelsie Holman, CHaSS Communications Journalist
Ravi Gupta has taken over as Head of the Department of History in the College of Humanities and Social Sciences at Utah State University. Gupta has been at USU since 2013 and has served as the director of the Religious Studies Program at USU. He has taught a variety of classes, from world religion surveys to in-depth classes on Hinduism. He also co-led a USU Study Abroad trip to India.
In his new role, Gupta hopes to foster the teacher-scholar model. This is the idea that research and teaching have a symbiotic relationship, allowing both the student and the scholar flourish. When professors conduct research, their knowledge finds its way into the classroom and students are inspired by their professor’s enthusiasm for the subject. Similarly, students' interests can inspire professors in their research and lead to professor/student collaborations. In this way, the connection between instruction and research benefits both students and teachers. This commitment to scholarship and teaching is a great strength of the History Department, and Gupta wants to facilitate its development even further.
“I hope that every student at USU has the opportunity to take a class in the History Department. Everything has a history, a context within which it emerges. The discussions within our classes teach us what it means to be human,” said Gupta. “We are at a very important moment in our nation’s history and today, as much as ever, we need to study our past in order to build a better future.”
In history courses, students learn to think critically about issues and ideas that are essential to the human experience. Every student, regardless of their major, benefits by taking a course in history, religious studies or classics.
To help elevate the faculty who have authored books, Julia M. Gossard, associate dean of research in the College of Humanities and Social Sciences (CHaSS), created CHaSS Book Talks. This series invites faculty with recent publications to share their resea...
A new series was recently introduced to promote the creative work and research conducted in the college. The CHaSS Book Talk series was designed to help facilitate a more robust intellectual community among faculty, staff, and graduate students, centering...
