Nicholas AietaDepartment Chair
Biography
Joined Westfield State University in 2008
Education:
Ph.D., History, with Geography Minor, University of Nebraska (2007)
M.A., History, University of Connecticut (1993)
B.A., History, College of the Holy Cross (1992)
Courses Taught:
HIST120: The History/Social Studies Teacher
HIST131: U. S. History to 1865
HIST132: U. S. History Since 1865
HIST251: American Colonial History, 1400-1763
HIST255: Jacksonian America, 1815-1848
HIST270: Topics in US History (Including American Popular Culture and American Religious History)
HIST272: The American West
HIST332: Methods of Teaching History
HIST352: The American Revolutionary Era and the Early Republic, 1763-1815
HIST362: Native American History
HIST600: Readings: America, 1600-1815 (Graduate)
HIST605: Readings: America, 1815-1914 (Graduate)
HIST625: Research: United States before 1815 (Graduate)
HIST630: Research: United States 1815-1914 (Graduate)
Research Interests:
Current research projects focus on visual representation of Native Americans in print ephemera and missionaries in Native American communities. Other areas of interest: Native American history, American West, American Colonial History, Revolutionary America, The Early Republic, Jacksonian America, American Popular Culture, American Religious History, Pedagogy of History instruction
Selected Scholarship/Professional Activities:
- National Endowment for the Humanities Summer Institute, “On Native Grounds: Studies of Native American Histories and the Land,” at the Library of Congress, June 2017.
- Historical Journal of Massachusetts, Book Review of Cornelia Dayton and Sharon Salinger, Robert Love’s Warnings Searching for Strangers in Colonial Boston, June 2017.
- Professional development program workshop co-leader for the social studies department at Gateway Public School District, 2015-2017.
- Humanities Department Advisory Board Member, Lasell College, 2014-Present.
- Journal of American Ethnic History, Book Review of Linda M. Clemmons, Conflicted Mission: Faith, Disputes, and Deception on the Dakota Frontier, February 2016.
- History: Reviews of New Books, Book Review of Paul Escott Lincoln’s Dilemma: Blair, Sumner, and the Republican Struggle over Racism and Equality in the Civil War Era, February 2016.
- Currents in Teaching and Learning, Book Review of Donna Wilson and Marcus Conyers’ Five Big Ideas for Effective Teaching: Connecting Mind, Brain, and Education Research to Classroom Practice, Winter 2016.
- Reviewer for Oxford University Press project The American Indian Experience from Prehistory to the Present, by Donald Fixico, 2015.
- Reviewer for University of Wisconsin Press project Understanding and Teaching American Slavery edited by Bethany Jay and Cynthia Lynn Lyerly, 2015.
- External Program reviewer, History/Political Science Department, Worcester State University, 2015.
- Historical Journal of Massachusetts, Book Review of Benjamin L. Carp, Defiance of the Patriots: The Boston Tea Party & the Making of America and Rebels Rising: Cities and the American Revolution, Winter 2014.