Seminars and site visits led by prominent scholars, with an explicit focus on classroom teaching

The scholars and staff invited to participate in this NEH Landmarks workshop were chosen because of their extensive knowledge of Civil War history and of the battle of Gettysburg, because of the immense enthusiasm they bring to their work, and because of the attention they pay to helping teachers connect what they learn here to their own work as teachers. NEH Summer Scholars who come to Gettysburg, regardless of whether their knowledge of Gettysburg is extensive or just beginning to be built, will find that this award-winning workshop faculty is uniquely positioned to help them develop deeper understanding of Gettysburg and connect it to their students in powerful new ways.

Dave Powell, the project director, is a history educator and Professor of Public Policy at Gettysburg College. Prior to joining the faculty at Gettysburg, Powell was a high school social studies teacher in suburban Atlanta. He was certified by the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards from 2004–14, and also holds teaching certificates in Pennsylvania in secondary social studies and English. His scholarly work focuses on teacher education, on the history of education, and on education politics; he is especially interested in knowing more about how teachers come to understand the subjects they teach and make their knowledge accessible to students. At Gettysburg College, Powell twice served as chair of the Education Department and also served as chair of Interdisciplinary Studies and as director of the College’s First-Year Seminar program. In addition to a regular roster of courses focused on history education, education policy, and democratic philosophy, Powell also teaches a seminar for first-year students, “This Machine Kills Fascists!: Protest Music & Social Change in the American Experience,” that exposes students to the American blues and folk music traditions via a social and cultural history of major political movements in the 20th century. Powell earned his Ph.D. at the University of Georgia and focused his undergraduate studies in History and English at the College of William & Mary, where he was lucky enough to take the last course on the Civil War ever offered by the legendary professor Ludwell Johnson.

Carol Reardon is the George Winfree Professor of American History Emerita at Penn State University. She has served as a visiting professor of history at numerous colleges and universities, including the U.S. Army War College, the U.S. Military Academy, and the University of Georgia, and has also been scholar-in-residence at the George and Ann Richards Civil War Era Center at Penn State since 1999. She is a member of the Historians’ Council of the Gettysburg Foundation and is past president (for two terms) of the Society for Military History. She has received the U.S. Department of the Navy’s Superior Public Service Award and has twice been awarded both the Department of the Army’s Outstanding Civilian Service Award and the Department of the Army’s Commander’s Award for Public Service; she has also been recognized numerous times for her superior teaching. Reardon is the author of Pickett’s Charge in History and Memory, along with numerous other publications, and co-author of A Field Guide to Gettysburg: Experiencing the Battlefield Through its History, Places, and People. Reardon earned her Bachelor’s degree at Allegheny College, a Master’s degree at the University of South Carolina, and holds a Ph.D. in history, granted by the University of Kentucky. Although she will say that she has failed retirement at least twice, Dr. Reardon’s participation in our Landmarks program doesn’t count toward that—and is a highlight for participants in every workshop we offer.

Sarah Kate Gillespie is an art historian and instructor of both Art & Art History and Civil War Era Studies as well as interim director of the Schmucker Art Gallery at Gettysburg College whose work centers on the analysis of Civil War-era art and photography and the way these pieces transmitted meaning not only to people hungry for news about the war as it was happening but also how they shape our understanding of it today. She earned a bachelor’s degree at Mount Holyoke College, a master’s at George Washington University, and a Ph.D. at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York, all in art history. At Gettysburg, Gillespie teaches survey courses in Western Art and a seminar titled “Cameras, Canvas, and Cannons: Visual Culture of the Civil War Era.” Prior to her appointment at Gettysburg, Gillespie worked as a curator of American art at the Georgia Museum of Art in Athens, Ga., and as a curator of fine arts at the Brooklyn Historical Society in Brooklyn N.Y. Her publications include a book, The Early American Daguerreotype: Cross-Currents in Art and Technology, published by MIT Press in 2016, and numerous articles and book chapters focused on the functions of photography and technology as means of capturing historical phenomena. She has held numerous fellowships at the Smithsonian, the Museé de Art Americain in Giverny, France, and at the American Antiquarian Society in Worcester, Mass.

Hilary N. Green earned a Ph.D. in History from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill; an M.A. in History from Tufts University; and a B.A. in History with minors in Africana Studies and Pre-Healing Arts from Franklin & Marshall College. She currently holds an appointment as the James B. Duke Professor of Africana Studies at Davidson College. She is the author of Educational Reconstruction: African American Schools in the Urban South, 1865-1890 (Fordham University Press, 2016), Unforgettable Sacrifice: How Black Communities Remembered the Civil War (Fordham University Press, 2025) and the co-edited volume The Civil War and the Summer of 2020 (Fordham University Press, 2024) with Andrew L. Slap.  In addition, she is the Chief Reader for the AP US History exam and the co-series editor with J. Brent Morris of the Reconstruction Reconsidered, a University of South Carolina Press book series. 

Ian Isherwood is a graduate of Gettysburg College, Dartmouth College, and the University of Glasgow, where he completed his Ph.D at the Scottish Centre for War Studies. He specializes in modern British history with a focus on the history of war. He is the author of the book Remembering the Great War (IB Tauris, 2017) and his articles and book reviews have appeared in War and Society, First World War Studies, War, Literature and the Arts, The Journal of Military History, and War in History. He is currently working on two books that are under contract: an intimate history of a Kitchener volunteer battalion (8/Queens), and a book on the politics of American war commemoration. At Gettysburg College, Dr. Isherwood serves with distinction on the Interdisciplinary Studies committee and has served as Assistant Director of the Civil War Institute and as chair of the Civil War Era Studies program. He is a member of the International Society of First World War Studies, The Society for Military History, and is an elected Fellow of the Royal Historical Society (FRHistS).

McKinley E. Melton is Associate Professor and Chair of Africana Studies at Rhodes College in Memphis; before moving to Rhodes Professor Melton spent twelve years on the faculty of Gettysburg College, where he served as the inaugural Paxton Endowed Teaching Chair and as an Associate Professor of English. He earned his Ph.D. from the W.E.B. Du Bois Department of Afro-American Studies at the University of Massachusetts Amherst and his undergraduate degrees in English and African & African-American Studies from Duke University. Dr. Melton’s research and teaching focus primarily on 20th and 21st Century Africana literatures, with a particular emphasis on contemporary Black poetics. He teaches a range of courses that are designed to engage the intersections of social, political, and cultural movements as part of a critical approach to Africana literature and culture.

Tim Orr is Associate Professor of History at Old Dominion University in Norfolk, Virginia. He earned his PhD at the Richards Civil War Era Center at Pennsylvania State University after majoring in Biology and History at Gettysburg College. He is the author of several essays about the Army of the Potomac, editor of Last to Leave the Field: The Life and Letters of First Sergeant Ambrose Henry Hayward (2011), and co-author of Never Call Me a Hero: A Legendary American Dive-Bomber Pilot Remembers the Battle of Midway (2017). For eight years, he worked as a seasonal park ranger at Gettysburg National Military Park. He has appeared on several television shows, including Who Do You Think You Are? (TLC), Battle of Midway: The True Story (Smithsonian Channel), and The Greatest Events of World War II in Colour (Netflix). Professor Orr is the recipient of several grants, fellowships, and awards to recognize the high quality of his scholarship and his work as a teacher.

Jill Ogline Titus is interim director of the Civil War Institute at Gettysburg College and co-coordinator of the college’s Public History minor. She is the author of Gettysburg 1963: Civil Rights, Cold War Politics, and Historical Memory in America’s Most Famous Small Town (University of North Carolina Press, 2021) and Brown’s Battleground: Students, Segregationists, and the Struggle for Justice in Prince Edward County (UNC Press, 2011), which was a finalist for the Library of Virginia Literary Award. Her articles and reviews have appeared in Journal of Southern History, The Public Historian, History News, and Journal of the Civil War Era. Her next project is an investigation of civil rights and Black Power across the supposed north-south divide, as expressed in northern host programs for southern black students in the 1960s. At Gettysburg College, she teaches courses in modern American history, public history, African American history and historical memory, and oversees many of the college’s public history initiatives. From 2007 to 2012, she was Associate Director of the C.V. Starr Center for the Study of the American Experience at Washington College in Chestertown, Maryland. Prior to joining the staff of the Starr Center, Titus worked seasonally for the National Park Service. She received her Ph.D. in History from the University of Massachusetts in 2007.

Carolyn Sautter is Director of Special Collections and College Archives at Gettysburg College. She has been at Gettysburg College since 2005. She earned her undergraduate degree in history at the University of Notre Dame and earned a Master's in Library Science at Rutgers University.

Amanda Martin’s day job involves juggling the many responsibilities associated with managing no fewer than three academic departments at Gettysburg College—the departments of Public Policy, Philosophy, and Religious Studies. She’ll be lending her considerable talents to us this summer to help manage the work of ensuring that this workshop runs smoothly. Please contact her if you have questions about accommodations, logistics, or other concerns related to getting to, and staying in, Gettysburg.