Bozeman Magazine

Montana State University will launch a book about the institution’s 125-year history with an Oct. 8 lecture and signing by the book’s author, history professor Robert Rydell.

 

“Democracy by Degrees: The 125th Anniversary History of Montana State University,” will also be available for purchase at the event, scheduled for 4:30 to 7 p.m. at the Hager Auditorium at the Museum of the Rockies. The book is priced at $34.95.

 

“For the second time, Dr. Robert Rydell has given light and life to Montana State’s dramatic contemporary history,” said MSU President Waded Cruzado. “Readers will find the book to be part of the celebration of MSU’s many successes as well as an invitation to think very hard about the future of ‘democracy’s colleges,’ as land-grant colleges are often called.”

 

Rydell, who collaborated in 1993 on “In the People’s Interest: A Centennial History of Montana State University,” with colleagues and fellow historians Jeffrey Safford and Pierce Mullen, said he hopes the new book will measure up to the standard set 25 years ago by his former colleagues and professors in the MSU Department of History and Philosophy in the College of Letters and Science.

 

“This new history draws on my own experience of teaching thousands of students over nearly four decades,” said Rydell, who has been an award-winning professor at MSU since 1980. “It is a history that does, I hope, what all histories do, namely, help us prepare for a future filled with possibilities that are contingent on decisions we make in the present with knowledge about the past.”

Rydell said while he kept copious notes about MSU’s last 25 years, he also conducted extensive interviews to fill in gaps and provide perspective. Rydell said he was aided by a group of dedicated graduate and undergraduate students who searched the university archives for photographs and records necessary to the project.

 

Rydell said that the book examines MSU’s trajectory of growth, its rapid rise to top-tier research and engagement status — “a stunning achievement” — while also pointing out the struggles the institution faced in the last quarter century.

 

Rydell has been recognized nationally for his trifecta of academic talents: teaching, writing and research. He is the author or editor of 10 books and 25 published articles and book chapters.

 

Rydell’s respect among his peers has resulted in a number of national and institutional awards including a national award from the American Popular Culture Association and selection as a curator for the world’s fair exhibit at the National Building Museum in Washington, D.C. He recently received the American Studies Association’s prestigious Mary C. Turpie Prize for his achievement in teaching, advising and program development. His work has been featured on NPR, C-SPAN and CNN.  He is featured in a documentary film on “human zoos” that is premiering later this month on the Arte Channel in Europe and that will be shown at MSU in October.

At MSU, Rydell has received the President’s Award for Outstanding Teaching and the James and Mary Ross Provost’s Award for Excellence in Teaching. He was co-principal investigator on four $1 million Teaching American History Grants from the U.S. Department of Education and helped establish Ph.D. programs in MSU’s history department as well as the American Studies Program. He is director of the MSU American Studies Program and the MSU Humanities Institute.

 

A native of Illinois who grew up in California, Rydell earned his Ph.D. in history at UCLA and his bachelor’s degree in history from the University of California, Berkeley. Until recently, when he moved to a new office near the Center for Western Lands and Peoples’ in Leon Johnson Hall, Rydell occupied the same small office in Wilson Hall that was famously stuffed with books and memorabilia necessary to his research, which includes a focus on world’s fairs and Buffalo Bill. It was there that Rydell worked on the new history book for two years while he also continued to teach, write and conduct research on other projects. 

 

Rydell said working on the MSU history reminded him that it is important for institutions to reflect on both where they have been and where they are going on the occasion of major anniversaries. It also reminded him of his passion for MSU and for the unfolding of history.

 

“It was a labor of love,” Rydell said.

 

For more information about the “Democracy by Degrees” book signing and lecture, go tohttps://www.montana.edu/calendar/events/27189.  To order the book from the MSU Bookstore, go to:http://www.msubookstore.org/merchdetail?type=6&MerchID=1481493#.W5qWv1VKiUk.