This week, Jeremi and Zachary discuss the upcoming academic year and how universities can impact our relationships with democracy and politics.
Zachary sets the scene with his poem entitled, “A New Season.”
This is Democracy – New School Year
Breaking ChatGPT: Good Teaching Still Beats the Best AI
At this point, everyone seems to have heard of ChatGPT 3, the breakthrough artificial intelligence engine released in November 2022. A product of the OpenAI consortium, this online tool can generate long-form prose from simple prompts, with results often indistinguishable from human efforts. A New York Times column reported that ChatGPT “creates new content, tailored to your request, often with a startling degree of nuance, humor and creativity.”[1] The bot thus commonly passes the Turing Test: it can convince users that it is human.
Many observers greeted ChatGPT with something close to terror. Our dystopian future, they declared, will be the inverse of that foretold by The Jetsons. Instead of cheerful robot servants freeing us from manual drudgery, robots will replace us as writers, artists, and thinkers. Domestic labor and farm work will become the last arenas where humans surpass our robot creations. Our niche will shrink to that of Romba assistants, tidying up the spots missed by robot vacuums. While some of these commentaries were arch, many were earnest. Writing in the MIT Technology Review, Melissa Heikkilä explicitly posed the question “Could ChatGPT do my job?”[2] In the New York Times, Frank Bruni wondered “Will Chat GPT Make Me Irrelevant?”[3]
Many academics echoed these alarms. “You can no longer give take-home exams,” wrote Kevin Bryan, a professor of management based at the University of Toronto. Samuel Bagg, a University of South Carolina political scientist, suggested that ChatGPT3 “may actually spell the end of writing assignments.”
I dissent.
At its core, ChatGPT is just a predictive text algorithm. Simple predictive text engines are ubiquitous. In the common email client Microsoft Outlook, for example, if I write several lines of text (an indication that it might be time for a conclusion), and then type “please get”, the software immediately suggests “back to me.” If I accept that suggestion, it offers “as soon as possible.” This is not scary or surprising. The algorithm is simply relying on predictable prose patterns. The best predictive text algorithms are adaptive. You have likely experienced how your phone’s texting feature improves with time. That is simply a product of the software incorporating the probabilities of your writing habits. If I routinely write, “Please get me a taco and change the oil on my car,” a good algorithm will accordingly change the autocomplete suggestions for “Please get.”
ChatGPT3 is nothing more than those familiar text algorithms but at a massive scale. It seems different because size matters. The textbase is roughly 300 billion words, and the computational costs to train the engine (essentially the electric bill) ran into millions of dollars. Unlike familiar predictive text methods, which look at a few words (e.g., “please get” prompts “back to me”), ChatGPT3 accepts, and returns prompt with thousands of words.
That difference in scale obscures key similarities. After all, although both are primates, a 400 lb. mountain gorilla is threatening in ways that a 5 lb. ring-tailed lemur is not. But the fact that ChatGPT3 is just a predictive text algorithm is essential to appreciating its limits. Gorillas, however large and scary, are primates and share the core limits of that order: they cannot fly, live underwater, or turn sunlight into starch. In the same way, ChatGPT does not “think.”
No predictive text algorithm, no matter its scale, can write anything new. The scope of ChatGPT3 conceals that it is just a massive “cut and paste” engine, auto-completing our text prompts based on billions of pages scraped from the internet. That is both its great power and its core limitation. ChatGPT3 is devastatingly “human” at the most mundane “cut and paste” aspects of writing. It will likely automate many forms of “compliance writing” (certifications that a person or organization conforms to rules and regulations), as well as customer service letters, legal forms, insurance reports, etc. Of course, many of those tasks were already partly automated, but ChatGPT3 has radically streamlined the interface. By extension, ChatGPT can resemble a human student and earn a solid B+ when responding to any question that has an established answer. If there are thousands of examples on the internet, ChatGPT will convincingly reassemble those into seemingly human prose.
ChatGPT thus poses a real but energizing question for teachers. If ChatGPT is most human-like when answering “cut and paste” questions, why are we posing such questions? Adapting to ChatGPT requires not a ban on the software, much less a retreat into an imaginary past before computers, but merely some healthy self-reflection. If we are genuinely teaching our students to think and write critically, then we have nothing to fear from ChatGPT. If our test questions can be answered by ChatGPT, then we aren’t requiring critical reading or thinking.
We can break ChatGPT simply by demanding that students directly engage historical sources. Consider the prompt, “Relate the Gettysburg Address to the Declaration of Independence. Is Lincoln expanding on an older vision of the Republic or creating a new one?” ChatGPT generates a compelling simulacrum of a cautious B-student: “the Gettysburg Address can be seen as both an expansion of the principles outlined in the Declaration of Independence and the creation of a new vision for the nation.” But essay never quotes either document and ChatGPT gets confused as soon we push for specifics. Thus, the prompt “When Lincoln declared that ‘all men are created equal’ was he creating a new vision of liberty?” generates the response “Abraham Lincoln did not declare that ‘all men are created equal’; rather, this phrase comes from the United States Declaration of Independence, which was written by Thomas Jefferson in 1776.” This answer is incoherent because ChatGPT3 does not “understand” the meaning of “declare.” It was likely tripped up by a probabilistic association of “declare” with “declaration.”
ChatGPT3 collapses completely when we move beyond canonical sources and press further on specifics. Consider the prompt “Washington’s famous ‘Letter to a Hebrew Congregation in Newport’ is a response to an invitation from that congregation. Using your close reading skills, which aspects of that invitation does Washington engage and which does he ignore?” Here, GPT becomes an expert fabulist. There is no massive internet corpus on the original invitation, so it infers grievances: “For example, the Jewish community in Newport had expressed concerns about their status as a minority group, as well as their economic and social opportunities.” In other iterations, it asserts that Washington ignored a plea to “help secure the rights of all citizens, including those who are marginalized or oppressed.” Those answers have little to do with the primary sources, although they are compelling imitations of a poorly prepared student.
ChatGPT misses core elements of the exchange. For example, the invitation calls for the divine protection of Washington and for his ascent to heaven, but Washington responds modestly and with a broadly ecumenical vision of the afterlife. Even when I pasted the original Newport letter to Washington into ChatGPT, it responded with a boilerplate summary of Washington’s response. It can only write what’s already been written.
I have focused here on American history because in my specialty of Japanese history, where there are comparatively few English-language examples to repurpose, ChatGPT breaks down both rapidly and thoroughly. I asked it about Edogawa Ranpō’s 1925 short story “The Human Chair.” It is a haunting, gothic work about an obsessed, self-loathing craftsman who builds a massive chair for a luxury hotel, conceals himself in it, and then thrills as he becomes living furniture for a cosmopolitan elite. ChatGPT insisted that it was about a man who tried to turn his wife into a chair. ChatGPT didn’t do the assigned reading because it can’t read. That insight applies across fields and disciplines: the algorithm can only write modified versions of what’s already on the web.
Perhaps, in some distant future, ChatGPT 500 (the descendant of ChatGPT 3) will have absorbed everything that has been written or said. Until then, we need merely inflect our questions to move beyond predictable answers. Open ended questions about Rousseau’s Social Contract or Kant’s What is Enlightenment? need to slip into oblivion. But relating any of those canonical texts to non-canonical sources, and insisting on quotes, is a vibrant alternative. How, for example, does this Boston newspaper editorial on the Haitian Revolution relate to Rousseau? Or “Here’s an neglected passage of Spinoza. Relate to it to this well-known passage from Kant.” Such questions stymie ChatGPT3. They can also give our students a better education that is also more true to the objectives of the humanities—teaching students to think for themselves. And they will make teaching more rewarding. At first glance, ChatGPT3 is genuinely scary. But even the scariest gorillas cannot fly or turn sunlight into starch. And, “please get back to me as soon as possible.”
Mark Ravina is the Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Chair in Japanese Studies at the University of Texas at Austin.
[1] https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2022/12/26/upshot/chatgpt-child-essays.html?searchResultPosition=1
[2] https://www.technologyreview.com/2023/01/31/1067436/could-chatgpt-do-my-job/
[3] https://www.nytimes.com/2022/12/15/opinion/chatgpt-artificial-intelligence.html?searchResultPosition=5
The views and opinions expressed in this article or video are those of the individual author(s) or presenter(s) and do not necessarily reflect the policy or views of the editors at Not Even Past, the UT Department of History, the University of Texas at Austin, or the UT System Board of Regents. Not Even Past is an online public history magazine rather than a peer-reviewed academic journal. While we make efforts to ensure that factual information in articles was obtained from reliable sources, Not Even Past is not responsible for any errors or omissions.
From There to Here: Matthew Butler
Map of West Germany (in blue), where Dr. Butler was born (via Wikipedia)
I can’t claim to have a particularly fascinating or intrepid migrant story, just a slightly convoluted one: I came to the US from the UK in 2008, though I had not lived in “my” part of the UK, England, for five years before that because when I moved here, it was from Belfast in Northern Ireland. Even the “my” feels a bit elective, since I wasn’t born in England but in West Germany as the child of a British services family, and have spent a lot of time living in and studying Mexico. All of this is to say that people can have multiple and cumulative senses of belonging and that borders are often arbitrary things––just as that archaic-sounding phrase, “West Germany,” tells us. I came to Austin to work, then, pure and simple, but expecting that home would soon be where the heart is. Sometimes, actually, I think Texas claimed me long ago because I have always been fascinated by vaquero-culture; I still like the fact that a bus ride to UT down I-35 rolls along the Chisolm Trail. Really I came to Austin because UT has a brilliant Latin American History program with an incredible library and archive, the Benson Collection, largely focused on Mexico. And sunshine, which hasn’t been invented in England yet. I’ve stayed in Texas because I like it (mostly), because my son was born here, and because my students are always teaching me new things. Mexico is also our neighbor: for me it’s a privilege to work in a University that has such historic and actual ties with the country I study, and so many Mexican and latino students.
From There to Here: Jorge Cañizares-Esguerra
Map of Ecuador (via Wikimedia)
I arrived in the Unites States 30 years ago, penniless but wide-eyed. I did not come to be a graduate student. I came as a migrant, fleeing war. I was fortunate. I met my first wife in Ecuador and she was a US citizen, I therefore did not come undocumented. Since I had only a smattering of English and everything in this country was wholly unknown to me, it took me months to find a job as a dishwasher. It was not easy: I had been trained as a medical doctor. I originally applied to a degree in Neurophysiology but Tufts turned me down. Then, one day, I serendipitously found in Madison courses on Kepler, Galileo and Copernicus. I immediately applied to the History of Science and got in without funding. I waited a year to establish residency. In the meantime, I learned to speak and write in English. I kept on working as a minimum wage, fast-food cook for five years while taking seminars and doing research. Graduate school was a mixture of homesickness, material hardship, and intellectual feasting. I loved every minute.
From There to Here: Indrani Chatterjee
In 1947, when British India was carved into two states of India and Pakistan, many Hindu families relocated from eastern Pakistan (which became Bangladesh in 1971) to Indian Bengal. My parents came from two such families. My father was deeply curious about the world, and bought various Readers Digest and National Geographic publications on a meager rupee-based salary, earned as a doctor in the postcolonial Indian army. My youth was shaped by his predicament, balancing between his own ‘outsider’ status in the complex social-political world of postcolonial India, and the straining to flee these complexities for a world conjured up by books, theater, film.
In the 1980s, when I wanted to pursue research in history, funds were scarce. I worked as an adjunct at various women’s colleges for some years, learning to teach neo-literate young girls about distant places and long-ago events in Hindi when necessary. I met my partner, another historian, at a teacher’s strike for better wages during one such stint. Five years later, a scholarship to pursue research in School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), University of London, finally gave me the chance to belong to the land of books my parents had taught me to love.
The wealth of records in the SOAS Library, British Library and the British Museum convinced me to remain in the field of teaching and research, and to make these gains available to others in the country of my origin. But the country of my birth-origin had moved on by the late 1990s. Though I resigned my tenured job of teaching in a college of Delhi University, and moved to a full-time research position in my mother’s beloved city, Calcutta, the ethnic-linguistic and religious sectarianisms of the closing years of the millennium also narrowed research agendas. The Indian elections of 1998 were decisive in that regard. My life in research, as distinct from my partner’s, was over if we did not relocate. By 2000, we had both begun another version of ‘outsider’ lives, this time in the North American academe, he as a chair-holding professor, and me as a spouse on a visa that disallowed paid employment! Then began the struggle to secure work-authorization and the green card (resident status), learning the rituals of professional belonging – the job-search, from letter-writing to securing letter-writers for one’s own research, the social codes undergirding the profession. Mercifully, there were the Journal of Higher Education, various web-sites for applicants, and more than a little help from my friends. With all these tools, a brave Black feminist Chair heading a search at Rutgers University, New Brunswick, NJ and an inheritance of survivorship, I entered the academic workforce in 2001. And here I am, a citizen, learning my way through the delightful open stacks of the Perry Castañeda Library, willing to do whatever it takes to preserve this new country of mine for the perpetually curious.
A Primer for Teaching Environmental History: Ten Design Principles. By Emily Wakild and Michelle K. Berry (2018)
by Bryan Sitzes
Environmental history is an approach that broadens our historical scope by acknowledging how the human and non-human worlds have interacted and shaped each other’s fates over time. Emily Wakild and Michelle K. Berry have produced a guide that teachers with diverse historical interests can apply in high school, undergraduate, or graduate classrooms. The authors envision teachers using A Primer for Teaching Environmental History in two ways: creating an entirely new course on environmental history or integrating environmental history into a more general history course. Despite their environmental focus, the disciplinary skills and pedagogical techniques they share are applicable in any history classroom. Whether you are looking to update your high school US history survey or conduct a graduate seminar on colonial histories of water, Wakild and Berry offer relevant advice on identifying course objectives, course structure preparation, communicating and engaging with students, developing disciplinary skills through activities and projects, assessment, and a great deal more. They pair these general concepts with examples from their own classrooms and suggest how other teachers might tweak the techniques to fit their own class.
A particular strength of Teaching Environmental History is that the authors repeatedly show teachers how to structure activities, units, and an entire course so that earlier lessons provide foundations for later, more complex ideas. The first tip in the book suggests asking students to think about their lunch – a tangible and personal object – and consider what processes were necessary for this sandwich or energy bar to arrive in their possession (farmers growing grains, rainfall watering agricultural fields, extracted oil powering global trade networks, etc.). Once students familiarize themselves with the various processes and relationships that make their lunch possible, Wakild and Berry show how teachers can historicize this concept by having students consider the history of bananas. Students listen to a 1922 song about a banana shortage in NYC and wonder, why was there a banana shortage? Students learn about globalization and teachers might choose to explore US foreign policy in Latin America, integrate economics by considering consumerism or labor, discuss the meanings of nature and natural, or begin interdisciplinary approaches by sharing papers on genetic engineering. A multitude of possibilities allow teachers to tailor the banana to the needs of their own classroom. Along the way, students learn to find sources, connect discrete information, and communicate what they found through writing assignments with topics they had a hand in choosing.
A Selection of Environmental History Books (see our article on teaching Environmental History)
The initial section on connecting students to environmental history also relates to a concept Wakild and Berry introduce at the end of their book: environmental justice and marginalized communities. Although teachers may want to avoid such a complex idea at the outset of the semester, the extremely visible effects of nature on contemporary society can also help students connect with course material. Wild fires in California, undrinkable water in Michigan, and hurricanes on the coasts are all issues students may already be familiar with. Teachers could use Elizabeth Rush’s Rising: Dispatches from the American Shore (2018) since she considers the effects of sea level rise and transmits the voices of affected coastal communities in California, Louisiana, Florida, and New York.
The second part of Teaching Environmental History shows how teachers can connect the various units in their course together through field excursions, human connections to space, and centering a semester around energy. Wakild and Berry consider the unique benefits and challenges of field trips, whether taking students to Latin America for a month, walking along a river that cuts through your local community, or creating assignments for distance-education students to go explore the outdoors in their areas. Students of today connect to spaces far beyond their local community through technology, and so helping students develop a sense of place can utilize the skills they already have. Teachers can pair Instagram or YouTube with diaries of travelers of the Oregon Trail or Indian Ocean to help students develop deeper feelings for places than if they only read a text.
Wakild and Berry end their primer by considering issues relevant to nearly every classroom: integrating technology and conducting assessments. Accordingly, approaches to incorporating environmental history take a backseat to discussions of general teaching philosophy in these chapters. Both technology and assessment actually appear throughout the book but receive extra attention in conclusion. The relative absence of environmental history discussions in the final chapters is a clue to the relevance of technology and assessment in all classrooms. They acknowledge the challenges these issues present while focusing on the immense benefits for students. Technology and assessments do not necessarily form pedagogical speed bumps or road blocks. With creativity, we can integrate institutional demands while continuing to imbue students with the skills necessary to critically reflect on the past and become well-informed global citizens. That is the primary objective Wakild and Berry want to help other teachers achieve.
In their epilogue, Wakild and Berry anticipate criticisms that their examples might skew too heavily toward modern histories and that too many “extra-disciplinary” approaches like environmental justice or natural science research risks diluting the requirements of a history course. I do not find either of these potential criticisms very problematic. Examples from the 19th, 20th, and 21st centuries help demonstrate the relevance of environment history to students unfamiliar with the discipline, and the techniques the authors share can be translated to use with earlier histories if some teachers desire. As for diluting the historical discipline of the class, environment history thrives best when traditional skills of historians are combined with other approaches. Interdisciplinarity also allows teachers to engage more of their students, since some will surely be more interested in literature or the natural sciences. Any environmental historian who intends to teach should read A Primer for Teaching Environmental History, and teachers of all kinds will probably find it useful in preparing for their next semester.
From There to Here: Susan Deans-Smith
Map of England (via Wikimedia)
I came to Texas from England over thirty years ago, now. My prior experience of living in the U.S. had been during my year abroad as part of my undergraduate degree at the University of Warwick, embedded in the department of History at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Although unbeknownst to me at the time my experience in Madison proved to be pivotal and part of the chain of events that would result in my coming to UT-Austin and Texas. Two things happened as a result of my time in Madison. The first was exposure to an absolutely brilliant political scientist of Latin American history– Peter H. Smith. The second was my first trip to Mexico. After completing my year at Madison and before returning to England to complete my senior year at Warwick, I embarked on my version of Jack Kerouac’s road trip – in my case a Greyhound bus and its Mexican counterpart (solo, no less) from Madison to Mexico City. Mesmerized by my experiences in Mexico, I knew that I wanted to specialize in its history. During the writing up of my dissertation at Cambridge University, I was lucky enough to be invited for one year as a visiting professor in the History department at UT-Austin. That year was particularly memorable and as I look back I’m still not quite sure how I did what I did: prep for four new courses in a university system very different from that of Cambridge where I was used to the tutorial system; complete my dissertation that involved some commuting between Austin and Cambridge; and, oh yes, fall in love with the Texan who I would marry. In fact, in March of that memorable year, I flew to Cambridge to defend my dissertation (successfully), and flew back to Austin the next week to get married. Not bad! But, things got even better. As it turned out, the professor for whom I substituted for a year, decided not to return. I applied for the tenure-track position that opened up and was fortunate to be selected for the position. And, here I am at home in Texas and privileged to be working with creative colleagues, stimulating students, and phenomenal research resources. Plus, I never did like the English climate……
Also in this series:
Tatjana Lichtenstein
Julie Hardwick
Toyin Falola
Yoac Di-Capua
From There to Here: Julie Hardwick
Map of the United Kingdoms (via Wikipedia)
(UT History faculty come from all over the world. Here are their stories.)
I came here, aged 21, on 15 August 1984 to join a study abroad program in Wisconsin with every intention of returning to the UK to become an accountant in London – and in fact I had a nice job waiting. Instead I met my now husband of 31 years two days later, and I have been here ever since: first on a student visa as I shifted into a PhD program at Johns Hopkins, then on a green card as the spouse of a citizen, and latterly as a United States citizen. We have two native Texan daughters who have dual citizenship and they are very proud of their American and British roots.
From There to Here: Tatjana Lichtenstein
(UT History faculty come from all over the world. Here are their stories.)
Map of Denmark (via Wikimedia)
Being an immigrant has always been part of my story. More than 50 years ago, my parents left their home country in search of a better life. They ended up in the small country of Denmark in northern Europe. And it’s small: if you take a map and draw a line connecting Dallas, Houston, and San Antonio – well, Denmark fits within that triangle – and its population is less than those three cities combined. Like many European countries, Denmark did not have a tradition for welcoming immigrants. It was not part of the country’s DNA. My strange name, my parents’ accent, and our different foods made me stand out. I was a foreigner despite having been born there. Even though we were citizens, my family didn’t quite belong; didn’t really feel at home.
Perhaps because I had this feeling of being different, I developed a fascination with history very early in my life. Much like you and I have personal histories – experiences that we can point to as having shaped us – communities and societies also have stories that define them. To me the past is the key to understanding who we are as individuals and as community members. By the time I graduated from high school, I had decided that I wanted to become a professional historian, a teacher and researcher. After finishing my undergraduate degree in Denmark, I spent two years at Brandeis University near Boston, before I went to the University of Toronto for my doctorate in History.
Over nine years ago, I started my job as a professor teaching history at the University of Texas at Austin. My specialization is war and violence in the twentieth century, specifically the Second World War. It is a great privilege to be a teacher and a mentor to my students. This past January, I became an American citizen and am proud to take on the responsibilities that follows with that privilege.
Standish Meacham and Multiculturalism in the Public University
By Carson Wright
Notes of Dr. Standish Meacham
“What are you going to do with your degree?” This one question, asked by well-meaning family members at Thanksgiving dinner and smug strangers over the Internet alike, embodies one of the biggest obstacles to the study of the humanities today: the notion that a college degree’s main purpose should be to serve as a stepping stone to a related career. This question effectively cheapens the bachelor’s degree to a four-year job training program and ignores the power of the academy and its students to act for the public good. Dr. Standish Meacham, who served as a professor of history, department chairman, and dean of the College of Liberal Arts at The University of Texas at Austin in the second half of the 20th century, can be seen as an example of this power as he used his position to advocate for social equality and consciousness in a contentious time of American history.
Meacham came to The University of Texas in 1966, lured by the idea of an “academic frontierland,” a landscape free from the restrictions of the Ivy League. In this frontier, aided by the financial support of University of Texas Chancellor Harry Ransom, Meacham was instrumental in creating an exhibition of the photography of Paul Martin, leading to an enduring interest in the history of the British working class and leftist politics. His academic interest in marginalized people is reflected in his commitment to equity and fairness as an administrator.
Dr. Meacham wanted the academy to look like the community it served. Dr. Meacham was named chair of the History Department in 1970 and he developed the department in the face of challenges from the university administration. He resigned in 1972 in protest of restrictions on faculty influence in university decision making. Returning to the chair in 1984, Meacham oversaw growth in the department once again, including the hiring of three female professors. Satisfied with his work, he stepped down following the 1987-88 academic year. At the urging of several colleagues, Meacham allowed his name to be put in the running for the new Dean of the College of Liberal Arts and assumed the office in 1989. Stepping in to the office of the deanship would open Dr. Meacham to what was the greatest moment of controversy of his already tumultuous academic career.
The university, like many other state schools at the time, was consumed by a battle over the role of higher education in Reagan’s America. Meacham advocated for a more inclusive university. In a set of undated notes, he approached the issue from a practical perspective: one day Anglo-Americans will no longer be the majority demographic in Texas and that “successful society cannot exist… without willingness to welcome change and celebrate human spirit in all its diversity.” He believed that universities had an obligation to make all students feel secure to have true freedom of thought in academia. Taking the argument further, Meacham wrote that the United States had benefited from a multicultural population since its founding. He believed that even though universities had not been multicultural from the beginning, it would be worth the effort to make them so. Meacham believed that universities had an obligation to maintain a community that facilitates “mutual respect” and “guarantees psychic security.” Meacham practiced what he preached and he oversaw the hiring of nine people of color to the College of Liberal Arts faculty. However, not all of Meacham’s efforts met with success.
In 1990, a proposed class in the English department – “E 306: Writing About Difference” – became a political battleground. The course was a writing composition course focusing on matters of racism and sexism, and would have been required for all students. Meacham supported the idea, and allowed the English Department to create a syllabus. Soon, however, news of the proposed change reached the press, and “Writing About Difference” attracted national news coverage. Conservative faculty members claimed that the new syllabus was unnecessary and politicized a required course. Their argument gathered momentum, both on and off campus, as professors and columnists alike attacked the course as propaganda. At the behest of University President William Cunningham, Meacham postponed the implementation of the course for a year. In the end, the course was never taught and Meacham resigned from the deanship soon after, returning to the History Department to teach.
Although “Writing About Difference” was never taught, Dr. Standish Meacham’s support of E 306 was emblematic of his dedication to inclusivity in the university and his commitment to using the university a tool for the public welfare. He wanted a university education to reflect the complex reality of American history, not just an idealized memory. His research on English working class history went hand in hand with his actions as an administrator. In both facets of his academic life, Dr. Meacham was devoted to the building up of marginalized groups. An academic background in the humanities – in History – shaped Dr. Meacham’s view in a way that drove him to make a positive impact at the University of Texas.
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