Meet Our New History Chair

​We are thrilled to announce that Alison M. Parker is joining us as the new Chair of the History Department at the University of Delaware. Professor Parker is a scholar of women and gender, race, and the law in United States history. She brings a strong record of scholarship, administrative experience, and a passion for teaching to this appointment. Professor Parker recently completed a yearlong residency as an Andrew W. Mellon Advanced Fellow at the James Weldon Johnson Institute for the Study of Race and Difference at Emory University. While there, she worked on the manuscript of her third historical monograph, Unceasing Militant: The Life of Mary Church Terrell (forthcoming, University of North Carolina Press, John Hope Franklin Series in African American History and Culture). Her book examines the personal struggles, public life, and reform activism of Mary Church Terrell (1863-1954), the first president of the National Association of Colored Women and a co-founder of the National Association of the Advancement of Colored People. Unceasing Militant will contribute to a growing body of scholarship examining the unrecognized interconnections between the personal lives and public experiences of prominent black women. Professor Parker previously served as History Chair and as College Senate President at the College at Brockport, State University of New York. She is excited about joining the vibrant History department at the University of Delaware and hopes to build on its outstanding reputation to recruit and nurture a diverse community of scholar-teachers as well as undergraduate and graduate students.