Spring Hallock Endowment Lectures To Spotlight World War II, Civil War

Staff Report

Columbus State University’s Hallock Endowment for Military Studies has announced its Spring 2025 lecture series lineup. Spring lectures in February and March will conclude the program’s World War II focus while also spotlighting local Civil War resources:

• Feb. 20: "Making Sense of the Battlefield: The Infantry Sensescape in Europe, 1943-45,” by Dr. Mary Louise Roberts, an American historian and author who is currently the WARF Distinguished Lucie Aubrac Progress and Plaenert Bascom Professor of History at the University of Wisconsin; 7 p.m. at 1304 Frank Brown Hall on the university’s RiverPark Campus.
• March 3: "Talking about Shipwrecked,” a co-hosted event at the nearby National Civil War Museum featuring Dr. Jonathan W. White, a Civil War naval historian, author and professor of American Studies at Christopher Newport University; 7 p.m. at the National Civil War Museum.
• March 13: "Divisions: The Untold Story of Race and America's World War II Military," by Thomas A. Guglielmo, an author, professor and chair of American Studies at George Washington University; 7 p.m. at 1304 Frank Brown Hall on the university’s RiverPark Campus.

Under Dr. David Kieran’s leadership, the Hallock Endowment lecture series has deepened Columbus State’s expertise in military history and the study of war, the military and U.S. culture. Since he joined the university’s faculty in 2023, lectures, symposia and panel discussions have examined the legacies of World War II, the Korean War and the Iraq War.

“Military history is American history,” said Kieran, the university’s Col. Richard R. Hallock Distinguished Chair in Military History and an associate professor in its Department of History, Geography & Philosophy. “As Columbus State students hear from leading scholars, policymakers and military leaders, they can better understand America’s role as a global superpower and the intricacies of global relations, economies and politics.”

Kieran noted that this semester's lectures will each focus on wartime from the soldier's perspective, including African American soldiers. The National Archives notes that, even during World War II, African Americans “repeatedly [battled] adversaries on two fronts: the enemy overseas and racism at home.”

That challenge did not quash their patriotism, and to that end, more than 2.5 million African American men registered for the draft and Black women volunteered in large numbers—the latter underscored by the recently released Netflix movie “The Six Triple Eight” about the first and only Women’s Army Corps unit of color to be stationed overseas during World War II.

The Hallock Endowment’s most recent year-long study of the 70th anniversary of the Korean armistice concluded with a two-week study abroad excursion to South Korea. Underwritten by Hyundai Motor Group, the trip allowed a dozen Columbus State students to visit several Korean War conflict sites, U.S. military installations, think tanks and consular offices highlighted in their classroom studies and Hallock lectures.

Kieran said he and other Columbus State faculty members already are planning the 2025-26 lecture series on the Vietnam War, the 50th-anniversary commemoration of which ends on Veterans Day 2025. He added that new internships and study abroad opportunities will be available so students “can deepen their military history studies, develop their professional skills and explore history careers outside the classroom.”