History and Geography

An Elon senior uses a top award to trace the evolution of organizations for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer students at Duke and UNC.

Five years before the start of the American Revolution, friction between Piedmont farmers and local court house rings who were tied to eastern North Carolina interests led to the Battle of Alamance on fields a few miles south of where Elon University today sits. That conflict stood as a defining moment for the Regulator Movement, and a new book by professor emerita Carole Troxler examines its roots and influence on the nation’s push for independence.

Clyde Ellis, professor of history, presented the results of his two most recent projects at conferences in Maryland and Oklahoma.

Kevin Boyle, David Crowe and Megan Squire have been selected as Senior Faculty Research Fellows for the 2012-13 and 2013-14 academic years.

Charles Irons, associate professor of history and geography, recently completed a yearlong sabbatical to study the segregation of Southern churches in the post-Civil War American South and how black Southerners endeavored to create churches independent of white control. His journeys took him to seven archives in three different states. He commandeered the Department of History’s microfilm reader. He completed more archival work and took more intellectual risks than he ever had in his career to date. And, he says, he expects the hard work to be well worth it.

Amy M. Johnson, an assistant professor in the Department of History and Geography, presented her research at the Harriet Tubman Summer Institute 2011: Slavery, Memory, and Citizenship conference hosted by York University in Toronto from August 21-27.

Ethan Moore, Coordinator for Elon's Collections and Instructor in General Studies, will have an article entitled "From Sikwa to Swine: The Hog in Cherokee Culture and Society, 1750-1840" published in the upcoming issue of the journal Native South.

People with disabilities have made significant progress raising awareness of public policy issues that affect them in recent years, advances that students in an Elon University interdisciplinary course learned this spring as they researched the history, culture and psychology of a population that is often overlooked.

An intern with Elon University’s Belk Library worked this semester in coordination with the N.C. Digital Heritage Center to digitize and publish online scrapbooks created by eight of Elon’s earliest students.

Honglin Xiao, an associate professor of geography, has coauthored a paper in the peer-reviewed journal Environmental Science and Policy.