Robert L. Beisner University of Chicago

A historian of American foreign relations, Professor Beisner taught at American University for thirty years. He is the author of Twelve against Empire: The Anti-Imperialists 1898-1900 and From the Old Diplomacy to the New, 1865-1900 and the winner of the Nevins and Dunning Prizes. Beisner was editor in chief of the two-volume bibliographic Guide to the Foreign Relations of the United States (2nd edition). He has also just published Dean Acheson: A Life in the Cold War.

Roger H. Brown Harvard University

A member of the active faculty for over thirty years, Professor Brown is a historian of early America whose books include Republic in Peril: 1812 and Redeeming the Republic: Federalists, Taxation, and the Origins of the Constitution. He founded the university’s Friends of the AU Library and still teaches courses on early America

Valerie French UCLA

A historian of Greece and Rome, ancient childhood and parents, and Alexander the Great, Professor French is the author of pioneering articles on childcare in the ancient world. She is coauthor (with Allan Lichtman) of Historians and the Living Past. A former associate dean of the College of Arts and Sciences and director of AU Summer Programs, French is the recipient of numerous teaching awards, including the College of Arts and Sciences award for Outstanding Teaching and the American University award for Outstanding Teaching.

James A. Malloy Ohio State University

A historian of Russia and Eastern Europe, Professor Malloy’s early research on the Zemstrov Reform in Tsarist Russia led to a series of important journal articles. Much of his later work focused on U.S.-Soviet space exploration, including a monograph, U.S.-U.S.S.R. Space Negotiations and Cooperation, 1958-1965. For almost two decades, Professor Malloy advised and led American University’s chapter of Phi Alpha Theta, the history honorary.

In Memorium Charles C. McLaughlin Harvard University

A historian of American urban history and culture, Professor McLaughlin served as editor in chief of the massive project, The Papers of Frederick Law Olmsted, the pioneering landscape architect who designed New York’s Central Park and park projects in many U.S. cities. He supervised the publication of the first several volumes of the series and wrote and annotated much of the material himself. McLaughlin also edited Olmsted’s Walks and Talks of an American Farmer in England.

Bernice Johnson Reagon Howard University

A historian of African American history and culture, Professor Reagon has published many books and articles, including We’ll Understand It Better By and By: Pioneering African-American Gospel Composers; Black People and their Culture: Selected Writings from the African Diaspora; We Who Believe in Freedom: Sweet Honey in the Rock, Still on the Journey; and You Don’t Go, Don’t Hinder Me: The African American Sacred Song Tradition. She is the artistic director of Sweet Honey of the Rock, the renowned and Emmy-nominated African-American women’s a cappella ensemble she founded in 1973. She is curator emeritus at the Smithsonian Institution and has won the Charles E. Frankel prize; the Presidential Medal; the George F. Peabody Award for the radio series, Wade in the Water; and a MacArthur Fellowship.

Photo: The Quadriga on the Brandenberg Gate, Berlin, Germany.