Robert Griffith Professor of History Department of History 139 Battelle Tompkins American University 4400 Massachusetts Avenue, N.W. Washington, D.C.  20016 Tel: (202) 885-2419  Fax: (202) 885-6166 e-mail: bgriff@american.edu

Home Address: 108 Grant Avenue Takoma Park, MD  20912 Tel: (301) 891-3153

For details, click on:

Education	Honors and Awards	Academic Appointments
Administrative Appointments	Addresses, papers, etc.	Publications
Professional Service	University Service	Home Page

Education:
B.A., DePauw University, 1962 (With Highest Distinction)
M.A., University of Wisconsin, Madison, 1964
Ph.D., University of Wisconsin, Madison, 1967

Other: University of Arizona at Guadalajara, Mexico, 1964
          University of Dijon, France, 1965
          Harvard University, Institute for Educational Management, 1992

Administrative Appointments:

Chair, Department of History, American University, 2004 -date.

Currently serving as chair of the Department of History.  Back to the future?

Provost, American University, 1995 - 1997

          As the University's chief academic officer, I was responsible for all academic programs.   The University has 525 full-time and 450 adjunct faculty, organized into six colleges and providing instruction to approximately 11,000 undergraduate and graduate students.  The Office of the Provost is also responsible for libraries, international and special programs, and such support services as registration and records, computing, sponsored research and institutional research and planning.   The division's  FY98 budget was approximately $97,000,000.

Dean, College of Arts and Humanities, University of Maryland at College Park, 1989 to 1995

          As the College's chief academic officer, I was responsible for the largest and arguably most complex academic unit on the UMCP campus, with 373 tenure-track faculty, 240 full and part time instructors and almost 400 graduate assistants providing 25% of all instruction on the campus.  I was responsible for an instructional budget of approximately $27,000,000 (FY95).  I was also responsible for coordinating activities relating to the planning and design of a new $130,000,000 Center for the Performing Arts.

 Chair, Department of History, University of Massachusetts at  Amherst, 1983-1987

          As chair, I was responsible for a department of 40 tenure-track faculty, 30 graduate teaching assistants, as well as staff and part time lecturers.

Academic Appointments:

Professor of History, American University, 1995 to date.
Professor of History, University of Maryland at College Park, 1989-1995
Professor of History, University of Massachusetts at Amherst, 1977-1989
Associate Professor of History, University of Massachusetts at Amherst, 1971-1977
Assistant Professor of History, University of Georgia, 1967-1971
Instructor, University of Wisconsin, Kenosha, summer, 1966

Honors and Awards:

Rector Scholar, DePauw University, 1958-1962
Phi Beta Kappa, 1962
Woodrow Wilson Fellow, 1962-1963
University Fellow, University of Wisconsin, 1963-1966
Frederick Jackson Turner Award (by the Organization of American Historians for the best
      first manuscript in American History), 1970
Danforth Associate, 1970
Joseph H. Parks Award (outstanding teacher of history, University of Georgia), 1971
Grantee, American Philosophical Society, 1966, 1974, 1978
Grantee, Harry S. Truman Library, 1974
National Endowment for the Humanities Fellowship, 1974
Tom L. Evans Fellowship, Harry S. Truman Library Institute, 1978
John Simon Guggenheim Fellowship, 1980-1981
Fellow, Institute for Advanced Studies in the Humanities, University of Massachusetts
       at Amherst, 1982-1983
Golden Key International Honor Society (Honorary Member), 2003.

American Historical Association (1971)
Organization of American Historians (1972)
University of Rhode Island (1972)
New England Historical Association (1973)
Organization of American Historians (1974)
Harry S. Truman Library Institute (1975)
Ithaca College (1975)
Northern Great Plains History Conference (1975), Keynote Speaker
Clayton College (1976)
Smithsonian Institution (1977)
Southern Historical Association (1978) Chair
Senate Historical Conference (1978)
Duquesne History Forum (1979)
American Historical Association (1980)
Organization of American Historians (1981)
University of Rhode Island (1981)
Conference, Joseph McCarthy and the Press (1982)
Conference, Objectivity and the Press (1982)
Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars (1984)
New Hampshire Council for the Humanities (1985)
The 1960s & American Politics (1985) Chair
New England Workshop on German Affairs (1985) Chair
Organization of American Historians (1986) Chair
Phi Beta Kappa Address, DePauw University (1987)
American Historical Association (1987) Chair
Conference, Muslims in America (1988) Chair
Phi Beta Kappa Address, University of Maryland at College Park (1991)
Convocation Address, University of Kentucky (1992)
American Association of University Professors (1993)
Organization of American Historians (1995)
American Historical Association (1999) Chair
Eisenhower Academy, Gettysburg College (2001)
American Studies Association (2001) Chair
Society for the History of  American Foreign Relations (2003) Chair. Two sessions.

External Committees (selected):

Membership Committee, Organization of American Historians (1975-1979)
Frederick Jackson Turner Award Committee, Organization of American Historians (1979)
Committee on Historians and the First Amendment, Organization of American
        Historians (1979)
Chair, Advisory Board, Guide to the Study of United States History outside the U.S.,
        1945-1980 (1983-1987)
Chair, External Review Committee, Department of History, Rutgers University ( 1987)
Member, Board of Editors, Journal of American History (1987-1990)
Member, External Review Committee, Department of History, SUNY-Stony Brook (1991)
Member, External Review Committee, Department of History, University of Delaware (2002)
Member, Search Committee for Treasurer, Organization of American Historians (2002)
Chair, Local Arrangements Committee, American Historical Association, Annual Meeting (2003-4)
Member, Middle States Accreditation Review, SUNY-Stony Brook (2004).
Member, Middle States Accreditation Review, Lehigh (2008).
Treasurer, Organization of American Historians, 2008-

Referee/Consultant (selected):

Journal of American History, American Quarterly, Political Science Quarterly, Wisconsin Magazine of History, The  Historian, Pacific Historical Review, Journal of Cold War Studies, Columbia University Press, Johns Hopkins University Press, University of Wisconsin Press, Rutgers University Press, University of Massachusetts Press, University of Kentucky Press, University of North Carolina Press, University of Missouri Press, Memphis State University Press, Little, Brown and Company, Houghton Mifflin, Prentice-Hall, McGraw-Hill, Dorsey, the Museum of American History, the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, and the National Endowment for the Humanities.

Graduate Committee, History Department (1971-1972)
Executive/Personnel Committee, History Department (1972-1973, 1974-1975, 1975-1976,
      1976-1977, 1979-1980, 1981-1982, 1982-1983, 1989-1990).  Recorder, 1981-1982;
      Chair, 1982-1983
Chair, College of Humanities and Fine Arts Grievance Committee (1974-1975, 1975-1976).
Danforth Fellows Selection Committee (1973-1974, 1974-1975)
Graduate Guidelines Committee (1978-1979)
Teaching Evaluation and Improvement Committee (1978-1979)
Dean's Committee on Special Appointments (1984-1985)
Provost's Committee for Fellowship Preparation (1985-1986)
Provost's Classroom Planning Committee (1986-1987)
University History Committee (1986-1987)
Co-Chair, 125th Anniversary Committee (1987)
Chair, Department of History (1983-1987)
Chair, Search Committee for Chair, Journalism Dept. (1988)
University Telecommunications Committee (1988-1989)

University  Service, University of Maryland, College Park (selected):

Dean, College of Arts and Humanities, 1989-1995
Ad Hoc Committee on the Appointment, Rank and Tenure Policy (1989-1990)
Academic Environment Committee (1989-1990)
APAC Draft Document Planning Committee (1989-1990)
Committee on Access and Course Availability (1990)
Chair, President's Medal Committee (1990)
Chair, Faculty-Staff Campaign for Maryland (1990)
Academic Planning Advisory Committee (1990-1992)
International Affairs Policy Advisory Committee, (1990-1992)
President's Committee on Excellence Through Diversity (1990-1992)
Committee on Undergraduate Women's Education (1990-1992)
Dean's Advisory Committee [to the Provost], (1990-1992)
Chair, Search Committee, Dean of the College of Behavioral and Social Sciences (1990-1991)
Committee on the Center for the Performing Arts, Associate Chair (1991-1995)
Governor's Advisory Board on Service and Citizenship (1991-1993)
Resolutions Committee, Council of Colleges of Arts and Sciences (1991-1992)
Library Administrative Review Committee (1992-1993)
UMS Task Force on Teacher Preparation (1992-1993)
UMCP Task Force on the Electronic Library (1992-1993)
Vice President's Information and Technology Advisory Committee (1993-1995)
Chair, Deans' Subcommittee on UMS Collaborative Programs (1993-1994)
Chair, Search Committee for Associate Provost for Academic Affairs and Dean of
        Undergraduate Studies (1993-1994)
Provost's Advisory Committee for the President's Diversity Action Plan (1994-1995)
Information Technology Strategic Planning Task Force (1995)
Chair, Special Concept Group on Undergraduate Curriculum Issues (1995)

University Service, American University (selected):

Provost (1995-1997)
Department of History, Graduate Committee (1998-9)
Department of History, Graduate Committee (1999-2000)
Chair, Department of History Undergraduate Committee (2000-2001)
Advisor, Phi Alpha Theta (2000-2001)
Chair, Department of History Undergraduate Committee (2001-2002)
Departmental Merit Committee (2002)
Chair, Department of History Undergraduate Committee (2002-2003)
Chair, Department of History Undergraduate Committee (Fall, 2003)
Advisor, Phi Alpha Theta (Fall, 2003)
Chair, Department of History Undergraduate Committee (Fall 2004)
University Instructional Resources Committee (2006-2007)
Search Committee, Dean of Academic Affairs (2006)
Search Committee, University Librarian (2006-2007)
Search Committee, Provost (2007-2008). Chair
Chair, Department of History, 2004 -

Publications:

The Politics of Fear:  Joseph R. McCarthy and the Senate (Lexington, Kentucky:  University Press of Kentucky, 1970.  Second edition, with a new introduction, Amherst, Ma: University of Massachusetts Press, 1987.)  Winner, Frederick Jackson Turner Prize, Organization of American Historians (OAH)..

Excerpts reprinted in Thomas C. Reeves (ed.), McCarthyism (1973); in Davidson, Lytle and Batchelor, A History of the Republic (1985); and Davidson, Lytle and Batchelor, Voices of Freedom (1987).

Digital edition (2000) available to members and subscribing institutions at netLibrary at: http://www.netlibrary.com/

Digital edition (forthcoming). The Politics of Fear has been selected as one of 500 history books to be included in the first stage of the History e-book project of the American Council of Learned Societies (ACLS)

          2nd edition (with Paula Baker) published by Houghton-Mifflin, 2001. 3rd edition, fall, 2006 (2007 publication date).

Ike's Letters to a Friend:  1941-1958 (University Press of Kansas, 1984).  [edited]

The Specter:  Original Essays on McCarthyism and the Cold War (New York:  Franklin Watts, 1974).
[co-edited]
 

Articles and Essays:

"Welcome to Washington, D.C.," Perspectives: Newsmagazine of the American Historical Association (October, 2003), 51-53; "Bon Appetit, Washington," Perspectives: Newsmagazine of the American Historical Association (December, 2003), 53-54; and portions of various other articles that appeared in Perspectives and/or the Program for the 118th meeting of the American Historical Association.

“Untangling the Web of Cold War History,” Journal of Multi-Media History (Volume 3, 2000). Published in March, 2001.

“The Cultural Turn in Cold War Studies,” Reviews in American History (March, 2001), 150-157.

"Budget Cuts and Shared Governance:  An Administrator's Perspective," Academe (November/December, 1993), 15-17.

"Forging Postwar America:  Politics and Political Economy in the Age of Truman," in Michael J. Lacey (ed.), The Truman Presidency (Cambridge University Press, 1989), 57-88.

"The Selling of America:  The Advertising Council and American Politics, 1945-60,"  Business History Review (Autumn, 1983), 388-412.

"Dwight D. Eisenhower and the Corporate Commonwealth," American Historical Review (February, 1982), 87-122.

Reprinted in Griffith (ed.), Major Problems in American History Since 1945, (1992); and in Robert F. Himmelberg (ed.), Business and Government in America Since 1870, Volume 9, Government Business Cooperation, 1945-1964: Corporatism in the Post-War Era (Garland   Publishing, Inc., 1994).

"Joseph R. McCarthy," in John A. Garraty (ed.), The Dictionary of American Biography (New York:  Charles Scribner, 1980), 405-406.

"Old Progressives and the Cold War," Journal of American History (September 1979),
334-347.

"Senatorial Papers and the Incomplete Past," in Richard A. Baker (ed.), Proceedings:
Conference on the Research Use of Senators' Papers (Washington, 1979), 13-16.

"Why They Liked Ike," Reviews in American History (December, 1979), 557-583.

"Perjury?", Civil Liberties Review (July-August, 1978), 64-71.

"The Influence of the Korean War on Domestic Politics," in The Korean War:  A 25
 Year Perspective (University of Kansas, Press, 1977).  Excerpted in The Wilson  Quarterly (Summer, 1978), 135-137.

"Truman and the Historians:  "The Reconstruction of Postwar American History,"
Wisconsin Magazine of History (Autumn, 1975), 20-50.

"American Politics and the Origins of McCarthyism," in The Specter: Original Essays on McCarthyism and the Cold War (New York:  Franklin Watts, 1974), 1-17. Reprinted in William Chafe and Harvard Sitkoff, A History of Our Times:  Readings on Postwar America (1983, 1987); Gary B. Nash, Retracing the Past: Readings in the History of the American People (1986); Allen Winkler, The United States since 1945 (1989). Digitized by Herron - a division on Ingenta (2003).

"Legislative Politics and McCarthyism:  The Internal Security Act of 1950," in  The Specter: Original Essays on McCarthyism and the Cold War (New York:  Franklin Watts, 1974), 173-189.  [Co-author.]  Reprinted in Joel Silbey (ed.), The United States Congress in a Nation Transformed, 1896-1963 (Carlson Publishing, Inc., 1991).

"Joseph R. McCarthy," in John A. Garraty (ed.), The American Biographical  Encyclopedia (New York: Harper & Row, 1974), 704-705.

"Theatre in the Rotunda," Texas Law Review (Summer, 1972), 1292-1296.

"Ralph Flanders and the Censure of Joseph R. McCarthy," Vermont History, Vol. 39
(Winter, 1971), 5-20.

Georgia's Compatibility Oath," Change Magazine (October, 1971), 16-17.

"Hubert Humphrey's Southern Strategy," The Progressive (October, 1971), 16-17.

"The Liberal Capitulation," The New Republic (October 9, l97l), 23.

"The Politics of Anti-Communism," Wisconsin Magazine of History, Vol. 54
(Summer, 1971), 299-308.

"Ill at Ease in Academe:  American Universities in Crisis," Georgia Review, Vol. 25
(Spring, 1971), 56-65.

"The Political Context of McCarthyism," Review of Politics, Vol. 33 (January  1971) 23-25.

"The Senator and the General," Wisconsin Magazine of History, Vol. 54 (Autumn 1970),
23-29.

"Senators Potter, Hennings, and McCarthy," Wisconsin Magazine of History, Vol. 49
(Summer, 1966), 334-337.

"Prelude to Insurgency:  Irvine L. Lenroot and the Republican Primary of 1908,"
Wisconsin Magazine of History, Vol. 49 (Autumn, 1965), 16-28.
 

Book Reviews:

I have reviewed more than sixty books in a wide variety of scholarly journals, including the American Historical Review, the Journal of American History, Reviews in American History, Business History Review, Political Science Quarterly, Texas Law Review, Civil Liberties Review, the Journal of Southern History, the Georgia Review, the Wisconsin Magazine of History, and Science, as well as more general circulation magazines such as The Progressive and the old Saturday Review of Literature.