Giving to History
We depend on the support of loyal alumni and friends like you to give students and faculty the extra support they need to succeed in their work. It is impossible to overstate how much your generosity matters to us. With gifts like yours, we’re able to fund student and faculty research, offer scholarships to deserving students, and host world-class speakers, seminars, and other history-oriented events that enrich our History community.
If you are interested in making a general gift to the Department, the best way to do so is by contributing to our History Memorial Fund. We use this fund to invest in our faculty and students in a wide variety of ways, including by funding student and faculty research, conference presentations, and scholarships.
Dedicated alumni have also helped us establish a series of named funds that honor some of our most admired emeriti faculty. These funds either provide awards and fellowship support to students in particular fields or contribute to the broader enhancement of our faculty.
The Zane L. Miller Fund for Research in American Urban History
Our much esteemed emeritus Zane Miller made a lasting mark on the study and teaching of the history of American cities. This named fund honors his legacy as a pioneer in the urban history field.Replace with your text
The John K. Alexander Graduate Teaching Award
This teaching award honors the distinguished career of John K. Alexander, who joined the Department of History in 1969 and taught UC students for 43 years before retiring as Professor Emeritus in 2012. Over his long career, Dr. Alexander was an extraordinarily devoted and gifted teacher whose American history lectures inspired literally thousands of undergraduates, while also offering graduate seminars that guided dozens of Masters and PhD students toward their own successful teaching careers.
The Barbara Ramusack Graduate Fellowship Fund
This fund honors Professor Barbara Ramusack, a leading scholar of South Asian history and a beloved mentor to generations of graduate students in the department. This fellowship is awarded annually to support the studies and research of a deserving graduate student working in the field of non-Western history.
The Roger Daniels Summer Fellowship
This fund provides a summer research scholarship to an excellent graduate student working in the field of US history. It honors the special achievements of Professor Roger Daniels, a long-time member of the department and one of the country’s most accomplished specialists in the history of US immigration.
The Hilda L. Smith Undergraduate Prize
Professor Hilda Smith is a distinguished professor of women’s intellectual history who was one of the founders of the women’s history field in the modern academy. This fund supports a yearly prize awarded to the best undergraduate paper on a topic related to the history of women, all regions, periods, and approaches included.
To support one of these funds please use the links above. To support a different fund in the department, or give using a different vehicle, please visit the UC Foundation website.
Thank You for 60 Years of Friendship!
Gene & Dottie Lewis
Our department benefits from the loyal support of many wonderful alumni, but our emeriti faculty and their families also figure among our most devoted friends.
We’d like to say a special thank you to two absolute stars in this category: former History Professor, Department Head, and UC Provost Gene D. Lewis and his wife Dottie Lewis. Together Gene and Dottie have extended close to sixty years of support and affection to our Department, going back to the late 1950s when Gene was first hired at UC as a new Ph.D. specializing in 19th-century US history and Dottie was an undergraduate.
Gene contributed to the life of the department and university in countless ways. Even after leaving UC, Gene and Dottie have continued to give back. Gene plays an active role in the UC Emeriti Association, and both Gene and Dottie help us through the year with their energy and advice as members of our Friends of UC History Association and, in particular, as members of the association’s Advisory Board, which consists of a small group of dedicated faculty, alumni, and emeriti who assist us in our alumni outreach efforts and fundraising events, including our annual Friends of UC History Fall Benefit.
While Gene and Dottie have done more for us than we can possibly mention in this small space, one of their most enduring contributions was to help establish the History Memorial Fund. The fund is a special all-purpose endowment designed to support the department’s many good causes and activities, including undergraduate and graduate student scholarships. History Memorial was created in 1985, and our records show that the Lewises were the third donors to contribute to the fund, making their first gift that very year. Since then hundreds of donors have followed in their footsteps, helping to make History Memorial into a thriving source of support for virtually everything we do as a department.
And the Lewises themselves continue to give. Just this year they established the Gene D. and Dottie L. Lewis Endowment Fund to provide still more support to the activities of our students and faculty. This gift will truly transform our department, putting historical studies at UC in a position to prosper for many years to come.
Gene and Dottie: Words are not enough! Thank you so much for everything you do to support our students and faculty. We are deeply grateful!