Rashan Gary's Favorite Professor Has a New Job
You'll all remember Tyran Steward, the U-M history professor who was invited to take part in the Signing of the Stars (he appeared with Brad Keselowski). Professor Steward was cited by Rashan Gary's mom as being one of the main reasons Rashan fell in love with U-M.
Well, it appears Professor Steward has an interesting new position with the football department. It's listed on his LinkedIn page that he's the new "Assistant Director of Football Operations and Player Engagement" at U-M.
https://www.linkedin.com/in/tyran-steward-26b68b8
I don't know what this new position means, but I like that Professor Steward is the one who's filling in. In addition to landing us Rashan, the dude knows his U-M football history. He wrote his master's thesis on Willis Ward and the 1934 Michigan-Georgia Tech game, and he was featured prominently in the excellent documentary about it, "Black and Blue." Trailer:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VAxx5UzKqPA
Anyone know what this new position is all about? I love that we have a history professor filling it.
Hand wanted to be an engineer, but with the customary warnings that the demands of M's engineering program made it hard to balance with football, his other interest in Sports Management became a legitimate lure after being blown away with the Sports Management prof.
But his other interest in Bagman finances is what finally steered him to the SEC.
My father was a 1947 graduate of UM with a degree in history. He was always the guy you wanted on your Trivial Pursuit team....
mad respect...
was "Professor Needs a Raise." He's in the School of Kinesiology. He's ID'ed in this post by Ace from 2013:
Caution: Contains optimistic statements about Da'Shawn Hand
Here's Rosentraub's page at umich.edu
All hands on deck. It takes a village to sign the #1 unanimous recruit legally.
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I'm not ready to be a parent.
Sounds intense, hopefully you'll be done with that soon, maybe even toMORO. Either way i'm sure you are dominating the thesis like a GALANT professional. Hopefully you don't choke like Carson in the playoffs, they always said the big win was just outside Palmer's Grasp. Maybe when you're all done you can take a trip out to the Rockies, grab a hot Babe n ski. If it goes well she may even give you a Tonic & Neck drink and massage...
He isn't an Assistant Professor--according to his profile over at the History Department website, he's a lecturer.
https://lsa.umich.edu/history/people/faculty/tyrankai.html
Newly-minted PhD working what's basically an adjunct position, only a few minor publications... This looks to just be another way to pay the bills, or else a path out of the academy in an alternative job track since he apparently hasn't been able to lock down a tenure-track position.
Interestingly enough, he wrote his PhD dissertation on Willis Ward at Ohio State, with a Michigan alum (Kevin Boyle) on his dissertation committee.
This is obviously a great move for Steward. Tenure-track jobs are increasingly hard to come by, and I'm not sure if Michigan has a history of converting lecturers to the tenure track (my guess is no). This is something that could give him a more permanent place at the university, but it will also be great experience to move into an administrative position elsewhere if he wants.
ETA: Boyle's book Arc of Justice is excellent. Solid history and a real pleasure to read (not too many books have both of those qualities). I highly recommend it.
He's also moved on from OSU to Northwestern
Yep--and his first book (presumably based on his dissertation) was in labor history, which was Fine's field.
Just curious: are you a historian or in some way connected to academic history? I went to Michigan undergrad and then OSU for my PhD and now teach history, so I'm of course interested in this particular thread!
There's quite a pipeline from Michigan to OSU's history department.
I think I took Fine's course in spring 1993. I liked pretty much every professor I had, but he and Brad Perkins (who was also nearing retirement when I was there) were the two guys I remember the most. And I'm guessing you probably knew some of my TAs from the mid-90s. One of them was particularly helpful when I was applying for graduate school.
You're right about the Michigan-OSU pipeline. Besides Kevin Boyle I think we had at least two other faculty members with Michigan PhDs. We also had at least three grad students who had gone to Michigan, one of whom was the son of a Michigan faculty member.
I don't know if you know Kevin personally but he was a great mentor when I was at OSU. He wasn't my advisor but he did help when I was on the market and I was lucky enough to land a tenure-track position at a small liberal arts college.
Kevin is perhaps the kindest, while simultaneously incredible scholars I've ever met. It's a combination most in our profession simply don't have.
Wait, I didn't realize that you are also in history (though I remembered from earlier threads that you are in academia/higher ed). What's your connection to Kevin--was it at OSU. Northwestern, or elsewhere? I have a feeling that between you and Needs we don't have too many degrees of separation.
Don't think I remember Western Dave. The grad student I knew best was Warren R. (not sure if I should include last names here--what is the protocol?). He was great--I've run into him a few times over the years at the AHA; I think he teaches in Missouri. I think for Fine's class my TA was Eric M.
My field is U.S. foreign relations, fwiw.
Not that engineering is a chocolate fondue party, but once a problem's solved, it's on a path to become the de facto standard and the tech curve moves on. We don't use vacuum tubes in computers anymore.
History would be like, "Upon the invention of the auto mobile, there was a brief period of transportational prosperity that ended 47 years later when everyone decided to go back to riding fucking horses."
I'm not sure I get what you're saying here. Is it that people who study history adopt old views/technology? I don't think that's the case, and that really has nothing to do with the study of the past.
(I'm not mad [bro], I just didn't really get what you were saying about history and I'm honestly curious.)
History is cyclical. You'll read about some ancient philosopher or whoever who discovered some pretty nifty ideas on how to be a society when contemplating his navel or whatever and 3000 years later people are still doing the same things that annoyed said long-dead philosopher.
I don't think this really captures history as a field of study. It's debatable whether or not "people are still doing the same things" that they were doing 3000 years ago (I would say, generally, that we are NOT doing the same things because the world is very different now than it was 3000 years ago, or even 100 years ago).
But that is sort of besides the point. Perhaps it is true that people are doing the same things now that they did in the past--in other words, the story of human history is more about continuity than change. It would still be the historians' job to analyze and try to understand these continuities *in the context of their own time period.* That's why the written history of old events never ends--historians are always interpreting and reinterpreting those events in their own present.
Man, I don't know if that makes any sense--I think I just confused myself. Just go read Sam Wineburg or something--he's much clearer than I am!
There are no cool fictional historians except maybe Jack Ryan (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_Ryan_(character)).
Damn it! I'm still buying a whip.
interesting
I am just glad he didn't go to Clemson.
compelling story, great young (at that time) men, an outcome that is so honorable, and it doesn't hurt that the men's glee club is providing the sound track.
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Dude
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