History department unveils new master’s program

In September 2023, the New York State SUNY System approved a new Master of Arts program in history to be implemented at Geneseo. The program will begin to accept applications on a rolling basis for the Fall 2024 academic year. According to Dr. Justin Behrend, professor of history and the department’s graduate program coordinator, the program started in response to a recorded increase in history majors at Geneseo.

“We were thinking about how we can meet our students needs [and when] we had those conversations, we realized that a lot of our students were going into secondary education to be social studies teachers, and in the state of New York Social Studies, teachers [have] to earn a master's degree, and that was a trend shift in our majors,” said Behrend. According to Behrend, ten years ago, approximately one-third of Geneseo students were history majors; today, the statistics amount to approximately two-thirds.

Behrend also noted that the program aims to exemplify the strengths of Geneseo’s current undergraduate curriculum, which centers around small class sizes, engaged, in-person instruction, and a variety of professorial interests. “We increasingly realize that we can provide a service to the students by offering them a master's program that builds off our strengths. We have excellent instructors in the history department. We have a very innovative history curriculum, and we believe that that's one of the reasons why our enrollment numbers have remained fairly steady even through the pandemic,” he said. 

The program is open not only to aspiring teachers, but to anyone with an interest in furthering their education at Geneseo. “It's open to anyone, you don't actually have to be a history major to be in this program,” said Behrend. “Most students will have taken history classes, but this is also a program for students thinking at all about academia. We also have a public history professional tract for those who are thinking about taking advantage of local opportunities within museums and archives, and other [historical] sites.”

In essence, the program is tailored to meet the needs of individual students—another perk of Geneseo’s small population. “We are centering advisement early on about career goals and aspirations, and then selecting courses as well as assignments and research projects that fit [students’] goals. The idea is to meet the students where they're at and help them get to the destination that they want to go,” said Behrend. 

This program will be just the fourth in Geneseo’s graduate catalog, the other two programs being a Master of Science in Accounting, a reading and literary education program, and an M.S. in adolescence education. The recent inclusion of this program—one focused more on academic enrichment than professional development—may be an indication of a gradual expansion of Geneseo’s academic environment to include more graduate-level scholarship. 

“I think [graduate studies] is an underserved area of Geneseo,” Behrend commented. “We focused a lot on undergraduate education for the past few decades, and that served us well in many regards, but there's another opportunity for graduate education. It is a bit odd that history is the one that's doing it [...] but again, if we think that it will be successful because this is organic, it's coming from the department [and] from faculty who want to offer this program students who we believe will benefit from it, and I think there's capacity at Geneseo to offer other graduate programs.” Geneseo’s emphasis on research, writing, and cognitive skills are all conducive to developing graduate-level students; for many students, the ability to attend a graduate program on that same campus will be of major consideration. 

While Dr. Behrend encourages current Geneseo students to look into the new program, he also emphasized early exploration of all post-graduate options: “I think students should look into the various options. [It] doesn't hurt to keep an eye out for what's around the corner, just to familiarize yourself [...] you want to look for how long [a program] will take, or how much it costs. What will be the benefit of going [to graduate school]? If you add all that up and you compare Geneseo to other master’s in history programs in the area and in the state, I think you'll find it to be a really good deal and a quality education,” he said.

Finally, Dr. Behrend added: “We are focusing on the strengths of Geneseo as a whole, and that's where we think better learning can take place.”

For more information on the program, visit the history department’s website, or email Dr. Behrend: behrend@geneseo.edu