This spring, the UW-Madison history department will welcome a new professor. The position is for U.S. military history, a professorship that has been open for 15 years and is being filled just six months after a conservative journal said: ""Wisconsin doesn't actually want a military historian on its faculty.""
The search officially began in November—A-six weeks after ""Sounding Taps: Why Military History is Being Retired"" in the National Review Online claimed ""tenured radicals"" in departments across the country wanted to shut down military history programs. It also said UW-Madison's department let the $1.2 million used to hire the professor remain stagnant.
UW-Madison history professor and chair of the hiring committee, John Cooper, was quoted in the article as saying the department had no immediate plans to hire such a professor.
""[The article was] the ill wind that blew some good because it challenged us,"" Cooper told The Daily Cardinal last week. ""We said, ‘You don't think we're serious about it?'""
History department Chair David McDonald said the fact the search was authorized just six weeks after the article is merely coincidence and that he ""wouldn't attribute [the article coming out] as a direct correlation. It focused on an ongoing discussion. There is an undeniable coincidence that these events occurred.""
He said the department originally requested a search for a military history professor in spring 2005.
Gary Sandefur, dean of the College of Letters and Science, started the authorization process in early October 2006.
When asked if a professor would still be hired by spring if the article had not been published, he said, ""It's hard to say.""
The article also generated a flurry of discussion at several institutions across the country.
""After it came out, there was a lot of talk,"" said Mark Grimsley, an associate professor in history at Ohio State University, which boasts one of the most esteemed military history programs in the country. ""The article was misleading, and while military history is criticized by some professors, the fact that it's dying because of ‘tenured radicals' is far from true.""
Other factors played a role in the lengthy hiring process, but proceedings are now well underway. The applications for the high-profile vacancy are due in less than a week. The new hire will be an endowed chair—named after former UW-Madison professor William Hesseltine and his student, famous historian Stephen Ambrose, author of ""Band of Brothers"" and biographer of former presidents Dwight D. Eisenhower and Richard Nixon.
An endowed chair is a professor who has been sponsored by a person, fund or firm.
McDonald said there are at least five professors who are currently endowed chairs in the department.
Ambrose earned his doctorate degree from UW-Madison in 1963. He guest lectured two history courses at UW-Madison in the fall of 1996, four years after the retirement of Edward ""Mac"" Coffman, the highly respected military history professor who taught at the university from 1961-'92.
In November 1996, Ambrose donated $250,000, creating an endowment fund for a professor of U.S. military history. By the time Ambrose died in 2002, he gave a total of more than $500,000. With the help of more than 100 other donors, about $1.2 million currently sits in a UW-Madison account for the Ambrose-Hesseltine Chair in American History, according to Anne Lucke of the University of Wisconsin Foundation.
The $1.2 million was raised at the time the National Review article was published Sept. 25, 2006.
The article said in the second paragraph: ""The ostensible reason for the delay is that the university wants to raise even more money, so that it can attract a top-notch senior scholar. There may be another factor as well: Wisconsin doesn't actually want a military historian on its faculty.""
Now, the new professor will join a small crowd—there are currently less than 30 graduate military history programs at U.S. universities, according to the nationally acclaimed Society for Military History.
And, even though there is $1.2 million in the fund, it is still not enough to hire an endowed chair, so UW-Madison must match the amount.
Typically, $2 million is needed to hire an endowed chair, according to Grimsley.
The endowment is broken down to provide approximately $50,000 per year, and the university will provide a ballpark figure of $40,000 to $50,000 per year, Sandefur said.
Although it is common for the university to pay for part of an endowed professorship, actually receiving the money is rare, McDonald said.
Over the past eight years, UW-Madison has sustained more than $50 million in base budget reductions due to cuts from the state Legislature.
""If we had not sustained the cuts, the budget would be $50 million higher this year, and next year,"" said Tim Norris, administrative officer in the UW-Madison Budget Office.
The history department would like to hire five to nine new professors but due to shrinking funding within the entire university, it cannot do so, McDonald said. Sandefur added the department typically hires one new professor per year, and the military history professor is the only history department search that has been authorized.
Coffman emphasized the importance of military history, particularly for students living during the four-year Iraq war.
""It's an important topic, especially during a time of war,"" Coffman said. ""Knowledge is important, and [the class] is one of the best ways to teach students about the military world around them.""
Though he said he was slightly dismayed no one was hired for 15 years, he knows there are obstacles.
""Sure, it bothered me some, I would have hoped they would [have looked earlier],"" Coffman said. ""It's a great subject at a great university.""
