GW history department targeted by conservative media after curriculum change was announced

Related Link Market Forces, Not Ideology, Drive Colleges to Cut American-History Requirements (National Review)

History professors received critical phone calls and emails over winter break after the department unexpectedly made news for removing its U.S. history requirement.

Two months after the history department announced requirement changes, conservative media agencies criticized the fact that history majors would no longer be required to take U.S. history courses. Faculty said the media coverage following the announcement was unexpected because other universities have made similar changes without backlash.

The history department made the changes to add flexibility to the curriculum, which faculty members said they hope will attract more majors to the shrinking department.

Conservative sites like The College Fix, The Blaze, Breitbart and the National Review picked up the story. Kellyanne Conway, a GW Law School alumna, Trump campaign manager and soon-to-be White House counselor, criticized the change in a tweet late last month, linking to a Fox News article.

Multiple outlets, including Fox News and the National Review, claimed that the modified requirements are contrary to George Washington’s intentions for the University.

“He wanted the American university to be an American university,” Ian Tuttle wrote for the National Review. “The American university should cultivate leaders with a devotion to their nation, not an intellectual loyalty to an abstract notion,” Tuttle wrote.

Katrin Schultheiss, the chair of the history department, said she was taken aback by the public reactions to changes in degree requirements. Schultheiss said she received responses ranging from extreme anger to genuine curiosity, with some individuals mistakenly believing that the department had removed U.S. history courses altogether.

“I got some emails where some people were like, ‘We understand that the GW history department is eliminating American history.’ I got several responses like that and I, of course, had to write them right back to clarify,” Schultheiss said. “It’s also astounding to me that almost none of the complainants bothered to go on the website and see what courses are offered." ...