Gregg L. Michel, Associate Professor of History, received a B.A. from the University of Chicago and an M.A. and Ph.D. from the University of Virginia. Dr. Michel's scholarly work focuses on movements for social change in post-World War II America, particularly in the 1960s South. He has published several articles and delivered numerous papers on this topic. His book, Struggle for a Better South: The Southern Student Organizing Committee, 1964-1969, examines the turbulent history of the bending progressive white student organizations in the 1960s South. He currently is completing a book entitled Spying on Students: The FBI, Red Squads, and Investigations of Student Activists in the Civil Rights Era South, which focuses on government surveillance of civil rights and anti-Vietnam War activists in the South.
His expertise in such content areas as the history of the civil rights movement and post-World War II southern and African-American history have helped to expand both the undergraduate and graduate program, and the diverse methodologies he employs in his research allows him to expose his students to a wide range of historical approaches, including the use of oral testimony to access the attitudes and beliefs of ordinary people in the past. Dr. Michel has taught Historical Methods for undergraduates and Introduction to History: Theory and Methods, a course which introduces students to the historian's craft through an examination of a variety of historical theories and methodologies. As a foundational course for graduate students, he seeks to expose students to numerous approaches to researching and understanding the past.