Department of History

She is an Assistant Professor of History at Oxford College (of Emory University), where she was awarded the Sammy Clark Exemplary Teaching and Service Award for 2003-2004 by the Student Government Association. In October of 2004 she presented her work on Head Start in Mobile as part of Mobile's city-wide program "Inspired by the Past, A Vision for the Future: Reflections on the 50th Anniversary of Brown and the 40th Anniversary of the Civil Rights Act." Her book Carry It On: The War on Poverty and the Civil Rights Movement in Alabama, 1964-1972, has been published by the University of Georgia Press.

Christian Gelzer (Auburn History Ph.D., 1998) wrote his dissertation, "The Quest for Speed: An American Virtue, 1825-1930," under the direction of Professor Lindy Biggs. He is a historian at the Dryden Flight Research Center, NASA's primary center for atmospheric flight research and operations. NASA Dryden is critical in carrying out the agency's missions of space exploration, space operations, scientific discovery, and aeronautical research and development.

Boris Gorshkov (Auburn PhD, 2006, Auburn MA, 1999) completed his dissertation on child labor in imperial Russian industries in May 2006. His MA thesis was on the topic of "The Peasantry and the Development of the Textile Industry in Pre-Reform Central Russia, 1800-1861."

From 2004 to 2006 he taught as a temporary faculty member in the Department of History and Philosophy at Kennesaw State University. His book, A Life under Russian Serfdom: Memoirs of Savva Purlevskii, was published in 2005 by Central European University Press.

His article "Serfs on the Move: Peasant Seasonal Migration in Pre-Reform Russia, 1800-1861" appeared in Kritika: Explorations in Russian and Eurasian History no. 1 (Fall 2000): 627-656. An additional article, "Democratizing Habermas: Peasant Public Sphere in Pre-Reform Russia" appeared in a special issue of Russian History/Histoire Russe (Fall 2004). Most recently, an article entitled "Towards a Comprehensive Law: Tsarist Factory Labor Legislation in European Context, 1830-1914" appeared in the essay collection Russia in the European Context, 1789-1914: A Member of the Family (New York: Palgrave McMillan, 2005).

Gordon E. Harvey (Auburn History Ph.D., 1998) wrote his dissertation under the direction of Professor J. Wayne Flynt on "New South Governors and Education Reform, 1968-1976: Albert Brewer, Reubin Askew, and John West." His first book, A Question of Justice: New South Governors and Education, 1968-1976, appeared in 2002 from the University of Alabama Press.

He has taught at the University of Louisiana at Monroe since 2000, and was recently named the L.M. McKneely Professor of Humanities, a 3-year endowed appointment that comes with an annual research budget. He recently published a book chapter on environmental politics in 1970s Florida and is finishing a political biography of Reuben Askew, Florida governor from 1971-1979, and has started research for a book on the 1970s South, tentatively entitled Dixie in the Age of Disco.

He is married to Marie, and has two sons, Preston and Hudson.

Martin T. Olliff, III (Auburn History Ph.D., 1998) wrote his dissertation, "From Craft to Profession: The American Culinary Federation and the Occupational Identity of the Twentieth-Century Chefs," under the direction of Professor Larry Gerber.

Dr. Olliff is the director of the Archives of Wiregrass History and Culture at Troy University Dothan.

Carol Ann Vaughn (Auburn History Ph.D., 1998) wrote her dissertation, "'Living in the Lives of Men': A Southern Baptist Woman's Missionary Journey from Alabama to Shandong, 1830-1909," under the direction of Professor J. Wayne Flynt, adviser. Her M.A. thesis, defended in 1994, addressed "The Early Life of Martha Foster Crawford in Antebellum Alabama, 1830-1851."

She currently serves as Assistant Professor of Women and Leadership Studies and Director of the Christian Women's Leadership Center at Samford University.

Martha Graham Viator (Auburn History Ph.D., 1996) wrote her dissertation under the direction of Professor H. Hines Hall on "Edward Malet and the Egyptian Question in Anglo-German Relations, 1884-1890."

In 1988, she defended her thesis, "Edward Malet and the British Occupation of Egypt, 1879-1883."

After teaching European and World History courses at various colleges and universities in New Jersey and Pennsylvania, she returned to school and obtained a secondary school teaching certificate and taught high school from 2001 to 2006. She then joined Rowan University 's Department of Teacher Education where she teaches social studies pedagogy and supervises teacher candidates during clinical practice.

She is married to Timothy J. Viator, Professor of English at Rowan University .