Migliazzo, Arlin C. 1951–

PERSONAL:

Born September 20, 1951, in South Gate, CA; son of Charles J. (a school district administrator) and Dorothy (a homemaker) Migliazzo; married August 27, 1977; wife's name Judith C. (an elementary schoolteacher); children: Sara Marie, Nathan Charles. Education: Biola University, B.A., 1974; Northern Arizona University, M.A., 1975; further graduate study at University of California, Irvine, 1977-78; Washington State University, Ph.D., 1982; University of Michigan, postdoctoral study, 1987. Politics: Independent. Religion: Protestant.

ADDRESSES:

Office—Department of History, Whitworth University, 300 W. Hawthorne Rd., Spokane, WA 99251; fax: 509-777-3711. E-mail—[email protected].

CAREER:

Biola University, La Mirada, CA, instructor in European and American history, 1977-78; Washington State University, Pullman, lecturer in American history, 1979-81; Judson Baptist College, The Dalles, OR, assistant professor of history and political science, 1982-83; Whitworth University, Spokane, WA, began as assistant professor, became professor of history, 1983—, department chair, 1987-88, 1991-97, 1998-99, 2002-03, 2005-06, director of faculty development, 2000-03. Pacific Lutheran University, instructor, 1981; University of Pittsburgh, lecturer aboard the ship the S.S. Universe, 1986; Spokane Community College, adjunct professor, 1988; Keimyung University, Fulbright Professor of American History, 1990; Presbyterian Academy of Scholars and Teachers, member, 2001—; workshop director; conference presenter; judge of history competitions; public speaker; guest on media programs. Spokane City-County Historic Landmarks Commission, member, 2004—; consultant to Museum of Native American Cultures.

MEMBER:

Conference on Faith and History, Southern Historical Association, South Carolina Historical Society, Eastern Washington State Historical Society, Phi Alpha Theta (chapter president, 1979-80).

AWARDS, HONORS:

Grants from Washington Commission for the Humanities, 1986, National Endowment for the Humanities, 1987, and Pew Charitable Trust, 1991; Lilly Fellows grants, 1995, 1996; Fulbright scholar in Korea, 1990; fellow, Weyerhaeuser Center for Christian Faith and Learning, 1999; grant from William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, 2002.

WRITINGS:

(Associate editor) Career Opportunities for Historians, 2nd edition, Washington State University Press (Pullman, WA), 1981.

(Editor) Land of True and Certain Bounty: The Geographical Theories and Colonization Strategies of Jean Pierre Purry, Susquehanna University Press (Selinsgrove, PA), 2002.

(Editor) Teaching as an Act of Faith: Theory and Practice in Church-Related Higher Education, Fordham University Press (Bronx, NY), 2002.

To Make This Land Our Own: Community, Identity, and Cultural Adaptation in Purrysburg Township, South Carolina, 1732-1865, University of South Carolina Press (Columbia, SC), 2007.

Contributor to books, including Indians, Superintendents, and Councils: Northwest Indian Policy, 1850-1855, edited by Clifford E. Trafzer, University Press of America (Lanham, MD), 1986; Models for Christian Higher Education: Strategies for Survival and Success in the Twenty-first Century, edited by Richard T. Hughes and William B. Adrian, Eerdmans (Grand Rapids, MI), 1997; and Called to Teach: The Vocation of the Presbyterian Educator, edited by Duncan S. Ferguson and William J. Weston, Geneva Press, 2003. Contributor of articles, poetry, and reviews to periodicals, including Korea Journal, South Carolina Historical, and Social Science Perspectives Journal. Associate editor for integrative pedagogical strategies, Fides et Historia, 1993-94.

SIDELIGHTS:

Arlin C. Migliazzo told CA: "I have realized for some time that we historians must be committed to a discipline that requires of its partisans a practiced schizophrenia. We recognize that our vocation proceeds from a commitment to render faithfully an accurate understanding of the past. At the same time we are fully aware of the fact that the past which we so much seek to know is gone forever, as is the vast majority of evidence verifying its existence.

"But while acknowledging the complexity of our task, historians cannot succumb to the cultural currents swirling through our own time that would have us believe that there is no ‘true’ history to uncover. To do so would not only compromise the integrity of our discipline; it would relegate our writing and teaching to impressive illusion—intriguing, and perhaps even entertaining—but ultimately offering only smoke and mirrors rather than our best take on the real thing. Sleight of hand might serve some well in other lines of work. It must remain anathema to historians.

"The distance between what actually occurred and why it did, on the one hand, and the fragmentary sources at our disposal to guide our attempts to recapture that which none of us directly witnessed, on the other, is where the historian must travel. Some may choose not to follow certain routes of inquiry, for the path is pot-holed, strewn with debris, and mucked up quite a little even where it is visible. But it does exist. And if we historians make only provisional journeys of reconnaissance along portions of its length, others will follow and edge closer to that far country of historical truth. We may never know the subjects of our inquiry as fully as we would desire, but just because we cannot know all of what really was does not mean we cannot know some of what was and is no more.

"As I reflect upon my years of teaching, research, and writing, I am most amazed that what always begins as an exploration into a place and time far removed from my own results in a deeper recognition of just how much we have in common with those who have gone before. I believe that what we learn of them and their life-ways connects us in space and time to the intrinsic humanness that binds us inextricably to them and to each other."