Masters Alumni 1954-69

The Department of History at Western Michigan University honors its alumni. If you are listed on an alumni page, please contact us with career updates.

1969

Neil N. Browne

Scott Gibson

William K. Hachmann

Marilyn J. Hughes

James C. King

Dr. King earned his Ph.D from the University of Missouri where he continued to be employed as an assistant professor. He left in 1992 for the University of Wyoming where he currently works as a professor in the Department of Political Science.
Ph.D., Political Science, University of Missouri, Columbia (1983)
M.A., Political Science, Western Michigan University (1977)
B.A., Social Science Teaching, Michigan State University (1974)

Ronald A. Refior

John F. Riddick

Dr. Riddick served as a Professor of Library at Central Michigan University from 1979 until his retirement in 2004. He was the founding president of the North American Serials Interest Group in 1985. In 2006, he published The History of British India: A Chronology. His earlier works include Glimpses of India: An Annotated Bibliography of Personal Writings by Englishmen, 1583-1947 (1989),  Guide to Indian Manuscripts (1993), and Who Was Who in British India (1998).

M.A., History Western Michigan University (1966)
B.A. History, Western Michigan University (1964)

Dr. Daniel J. Yakes

From 1966 through 2008, Dr. Yakes taught courses in United States History, Michigan History, Physical Anthropology and Cultural Anthropology at Muskegon Community College. He also served as Social Science Department Chairman for many years. Dr. Yakes authored several publications including Logging the White: The White Lake Lumber Industry, 1937-1900 (2010) with Steven S. Demos, and A New Home in Michigan: The Mexican-American Experience in Muskegon (2010) with Connie Navarro . He is now retired.

Ph.D., University of Kansas (1990)
M.A., Western Michigan University (1969)
B.A., Western Michigan University (1964)

1968

Janice L. Brill

Jung K. Choi

Paul Joseph Collins

James P. Edmiston

Janice Fariborz

Dr. Sylvia D. Hoffert

Dr. Sylvia Hoffert retired as a Professor at Texas A&M University specializing in the history of women and gender. She is currently the lead researcher and interviewer on the Collective Memory Project "The First Lady and the East Wing." at Southern Methodist University. After earning her M.A at Western Michigan University Hoffert earned her Ph.D in 1984 from Indiana University-Bloomington. She went on to publish Private Matters: American Attitudes Toward Childbearing and Infant Nurture in the Urban North, 1800-1860 (1989), When Hen's Crow: The Woman's Rights Movement in Antebellum America (1995), A History of Gender in America (2003), and Jane Grey Swisshelm: An Unconventional Life (2004) as well as numerous articles in peer-reviewed journals.

Ph.D., History, Indiana University-Bloomington (1984)
M.A., History, Western Michigan University (1968)
B.A., History, Indiana University-Bloomington (1965)

John Patrick Kelly

Robert W. Ryan

1967

John Archart

Dr. Ellsworth H. Brown

Dr. Brown began a career in public history as Director of the Dacotah Prairie Museum in Aberdeen, South Dakota. Since the 1970s he has held the position of Director and/or President at four prestigious museums, libraries and archives, including the Tennessee State Museum, the Chicago Historical Society, the Carnegie Museums and Libraries of Pittsburgh, and the Wisconsin State Historical Society as of 2004. He has also served in leadership roles in over thirty museums and related institutions throughout the U.S., including the American Association of Museums and the Smithsonian Institute of Washington, D.C. In 2004 he received the WMU Alumni Achievement Award in History.

Ph.D, American and Canadian History, Michigan State University (1975)
M.A, History, Western Michigan University (1967)
B.A., History; English, Hillsdale College (1965)

Edgar J. Fredericks

Susan Sandra Huston

Dr. Tom Malloy

Ed.D., University of Massachusetts (1982)
M.A., History, Western Michigan University (1967)
B.S., Education, Fitchburg State College (1965)

1966

Edward Gorn

Dr. Adolph Grundman

Dr. Grundman retired in June 2011 after nearly thirty-five years at Metropolitan State University of Denver. During his tenure there, he headed the college's Honors Program, created the Interdisciplinary Legal Studies Minor, and organized several travel-abroad opportunities for students. During his years at MSU Denver he won several awards including the Distinguished Service Award in 2003 and the Golden Key Research Award in 2006.

Dr. Lynn Lindeman

Dr. Lindeman served in administrative positions including at the Oklahoma University, as the Academic Vice-President of the University of Guam, and as Dean at Bay de Noc Community College, Escanaba, MI before retiring and moving to Florida.

Ph.D., Ed.D., University of Oklahoma (1973)
M.A., History, Western Michigan University (1966)

William R. Mitchell

John W. Nott

Edward H. Schneerer

Ojars Andris Smits

Matthew Tomasiewicz

Mr. Tomasiewicz worked as a Public Education Teacher School Administrator until 1974. He then served as Administrator Lobbyist for the Ottawa Area Intermediate School District until 1992. He currently serves as the President and Consultant at Anchor Associates Inc. and has been a Trustee at Grand Valley State University since January 2011.

M.A., History, Western Michigan University (1966)
B.A., Western Michigan University (1964)

1965

Ruth Allen

Carol Zainfeld Becker

E. Gilman

Charles John Goodall

Dr. Michael H. Parsons

Dr. Parsons began his service to higher education in 1965 as an administrator at Oakland Community College, after various posts at other universities. Dr. Parsons served as a dean at Hagerstown Community College between 1972 and 2000. He was then appointed and served as Professor of Social Science until 2010 when he became an adjunct professor in the Community College Leadership Doctoral Program at Morgan State University. In 2011, he received the WMU Alumni Achievement Award in History.

Ph.D., Education, Western Michigan University (1971)
M.A., History, Western Michigan University (1965)
B.A., English, Western Michigan University (1963)
A.A., General Studies, Oakland Community College (1968)
A.A., Liberal Arts, Muskegon Community College (1962)

James M Rigterink

(Deceased January 2013)

In Suk Ro

George W. Shipman

Donald Stroup

William J. German

James A. Tolhuizen

Ruth G. Tydeman

1964

Dr. Patrick K. Bidelman

Dr. Bidelman enrolled at WMU in 1958 in order to play baseball, served as the History Department's first graduate assistant from 1962 to 1964, and then received an appointment to the faculty from 1964 to 1968. John Yzenbard, Dale Pattison, and Patrick were the department's first three "expansion" appointments. He stopped teaching in 2008 after fifteen years as an adjunct at the University of South Florida and the Ringling College or Art and Design. This hiatus came about as the result of a micro-business that he founded to produce small runs of his patented invention, sold as Pitch Safe.

Ph.D., Michigan State University (1975)
Early Modern and Modern French History, Modern British Social  and Diplomatic History, and Continental European History since 1500. Doctoral  Dissertation: The Feminist Movement in France: The Formative Years, 1858-1889.

M.A., Western Michigan University (1964)
European, Russian, and American History. Master’s Thesis: The Russian Revolution of 1905 as depicted by Contemporary American Reports, with Special Emphasis on the “Bloody Sunday” Incident of January 22, 1905.

B.S., Western Michigan University (1962). European and American History, Social and Political Science, and Physical Education.

Viola Gross

Robert A. Hageman

Tyrell Hughes

Ronald Eugene Kuiper

Keith Ross Speiran

Grace B. Walz

1963

James C. Duram

Phyllis Korzilius

Wayne C. Mann

After receiving his M.A., Mr. Mann was employed at Western Michigan University’s archives for over thirty years and retired in 1995. His worked tirelessly to add significant materials to the archives and made a lasting impact by donating his personal collection which consisted of materials dated as early as 1838. Early in his career, he was active in many organizations and was one of the founding members of the Kalamazoo Valley Genealogical Society. He went on to teach in public schools for eight years, six of them in Kalamazoo. Mann became professionally affiliated with WMU when he began serving in 1963 as an appointed, grant-based field representative for the Archives and Regional History Collections. The University appointed him head of both of those units just five years later. Over the years, he was a resource for many publications, including as a consultant for Leland Thorton's When Gallantry Was Commonplace (1986). He received many acknowledgements from authors for his contributions.

M.A., History, Western Michigan University (1963)
B.A., History/Social Science, Western Michigan University (1954)

(Deceased March 19, 2014)

1962

Dr. Cornelius Eringaard

After earning his Ph.D., Dr. Eringaard worked for Grand Rapids Community College from 1975 to 1993 serving as Administrative Assistant to the President and the Executive Vice President of Academic Affairs. In 2010, he was awarded with GRCC’s Emeritus Faculty/Administrator Award for his service to higher education.

Ph.D., Ball State University (1972)
M.A., History, Western Michigan University (1962)

1961

Donald E. Black

Robert C. Harris

William E. Lombari

Grace Rogers Mauzy

English Radicalism and Political Reform in the Nineteenth Century: A Study in Applied Philosophy (1961)

(Deceased January 1999)

1960

Kenneth John Van Dellen

Mr. Dellen retired in 1999 after forty years of teaching in Michigan and Illinois schools and, as of 2002, was the Director of Development at Lansing Christian and Illiana Christian Schools.

1959

Gerald L. Reagan

1958

Si Miller

1954

Fletcher Cooper