Department of History and World Cultures
The Department of History and World Cultures offers a bachelor degree and several minors. These programs help students understand an increasingly diverse world by fostering the study of the human experience globally and historically. Students will prepare for a wide variety of careers, becoming proficient in critical analysis, research, and oral, written, and digital communication.
College of Liberal Arts and Social Sciences
The College of Liberal Arts and Social Sciences offers students a traditional liberal arts education to meet the needs of the 21st century, allowing them to compete for a variety of careers in an increasingly complex and evolving world.
Degree Programs
What better place to study history than in the city that gave birth to both the Confederacy and the Civil Rights Movement? AUM’s bachelor’s degree in history program will give you insight into the world and the forces and events that shaped it, taught by one of the most accomplished history faculties in the Southeast. A number of internships are available to get practical experience for the job market.
For more information please contact:
Dr. Lee Farrow, Room LA 345, (334) 244-3392, [email protected]
AUM Historical Review
The AUM Historical Review is a student-edited journal sponsored by the Department of History at Auburn University at Montgomery. Submissions may include papers on world history, U.S. history, or Alabama history. Movie and documentary reviews, book reviews, articles on historic sites, interviews, and oral histories are also welcomed. The journal publishes the work of AUM students, regardless of major or classification.
Apply Now
Through its various departments, the AUM College of Liberal Arts and Social Sciences offers a variety of resources to give students the necessary knowledge and skills to be profoundly competitive. Join us and apply to AUM, where learning matters most. It’s why we learn-and why we teach.
Faculty & Staff
Lee Farrow
Chair; Distinguished Research & Distinguished Teaching Professor
Lee Farrow
Chair; Distinguished Research & Distinguished Teaching Professor | College of Liberal Arts and Social Sciences
Dr. Lee A. Farrow was born in New Orleans, Louisiana, and is a first-generation graduate. She specializes in Russian History and has published a number of articles and books over her 25-year career at Auburn University at Montgomery. Some of her publications are Alexis in America: A Grand Duke’s Tour, 1871-72, Seward’s Folly: A New Look at the Alaska Purchase, and The Catacazy Affair and the Uneasy Path of Russian American Relations. She also has given many public lectures on various aspects of Russian history and literature. She has served in various administrative positions, including as Associate Dean and Director of a teaching and learning center. She is in her fifth year as Chair of the Department of History and World Cultures.
Paul Fox
Senior Director, Clinical Assistant Professor
Paul Fox
Senior Director, Clinical Assistant Professor | College of Liberal Arts and Social Sciences
MA, PhD, Auburn University
Bio: Dr. Fox joined the AUM family in fall 2016. He serves as Director of the Warhawk Academic Success Center (WASC) and is a member of the History Department. His passion for teaching and helping students inside the classroom led him into the arena of student success and retention. Assisting students achieve their academic goals and become lifelong learners motivates his work.
Outside of the WASC, Dr. Fox is an historian of seventeenth and eighteenth century Britain with a focus on Scottish ecclesiastical politics. Prior to coming to AUM, he taught at Kennesaw State University, Columbia State Community College, and Auburn University.
Patricia Brannon Barragan
Senior Lecturer | College of Liberal Arts and Social Sciences
P. Brannon Barragán is a Distinguished Lecturer of Spanish at Auburn University at Montgomery, where she has taught since 2012. With over a decade of experience in language instruction, she has taught a wide range of courses, including beginner through advanced Spanish, Spanish for Healthcare Professionals, and Spanish for Legal Professionals.
In addition to her work at AUM, Brannon teaches Spanish virtually through Alabama’s ACCESS Virtual Learning program and serves as a Subject Matter Expert, reviewing and rewriting curriculum for online Spanish courses. Since 2016, she has also been an AP Spanish Language and Culture Exam Rater with the College Board.
Brannon holds a Master of Arts in Linguistics with a specialization in Second Language Acquisition, ESL, and Hispanic Linguistics from the University of Texas at El Paso, as well as dual Bachelor of Arts degrees in Spanish and Political Science from the University of North Carolina at Asheville. Her teaching career spans university, high school, and community programs, including ESL instruction, Spanish enrichment programs, and language teaching in both the U.S. and Mexico.
She is passionate about making language learning engaging and accessible, often incorporating music and culture into her instruction to connect with students in meaningful ways.
Michael Burger
Professor | College of Liberal Arts and Social Sciences
Named Mississippi Humanities Teacher of the year when he taught in that state, Michael Burger teaches advanced courses in ancient, medieval, and early modern Europe at AUM. He is the author of Bishops, Clerks, and Diocesan Governance in Thirteenth-Century England: Reward and Punishment (Cambridge University Press, 2012) and books with the University of Toronto Press: The Shaping of Western Civilization (2 volumes, third edition, 2024); Reading History (2022); as well as editing Sources for the History of Western Civilization (2 volumes, third edition, 2024). His articles have appeared in Law and Liberty as well as specialized historical journals. He earlier served AUM as Dean of the School of Liberal Arts and Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences. He once lived in what had been a twelfth-century chapel, which is probably the only interesting thing about him.
Keith Krawczynski
Professor | College of Liberal Arts and Social Sciences
Keith Krawczynski is Distinguished Research Professor of History and Distinguished Teaching Professor of History. He is a native Texan, born and raised in San Antonio. He has earned three degrees in history from the University of Texas at San Antonio (B. A.), Baylor University (M. A.), and the University of South Carolina (Ph. D.). Before coming to AUM in 2000, “Dr. K” taught at the University of South Carolina at Aiken, the University of Dallas, and North Lake College (Irving, Tx). His areas of specialty include Colonial America, the American Revolution, African American History, American Labor History, and Alabama History. He has written numerous articles and several books on these historical topics. Currently, he is writing books on the history of polio in Alabama, Accidental Death in Colonial America, Alabama recipients of the Carnegie Hero Medal, the Dale Penthouse Restaurant fire of 1967, and the history of Camp Sheridan, a World War I training base stationed just outside of Montgomery. When not teaching and writing, he enjoys spending time with his wife and three children, banging his drums to heavy metal music, working out at the gym, reading science fiction, bowling, and cooking.
Andy Milstead
Lecturer | College of Liberal Arts and Social Sciences
Dr. Andy Milstead has taught Spanish at the college level since 2004 and has also worked in a variety of technology-related roles. He previously served as Director of Technology for the Modern Languages and Classics department at the University of Alabama and as Administrative/Technology Director for Samford University’s Language Technology Forum. He has led or co-led students on six study abroad trips to Costa Rica and one to Spain. Dr. Milstead has always valued the role of technology in education and consistently seeks to apply modern technologies to language learning. He is currently exploring ways to integrate modern AI systems into the language learning experience. When he isn’t teaching, Dr. Milstead enjoys computer programming (particularly web development) and kayaking local lakes and rivers.
Ben Severance
Professor | College of Liberal Arts and Social Sciences
A former lieutenant in the US Army, Ben Severance is a Professor of History at Auburn University Montgomery, a position he has held since joining the faculty there in 2005. He received his Ph.D. in 2002 from the University of Tennessee (Knoxville). His principal areas of research and teaching include the American Civil War, Nineteenth Century America, and U.S. Military History. Among his publications are three books: Tennessee’s Radical Army: The State Guard and Its Role in Reconstruction, 1867-1869 (University of Tennessee Press, 2005), Portraits of Conflict: A Photographic History of Alabama during the Civil War (University of Arkansas Press, 2012), and A War State All Over: Alabama Politics and the Confederate Cause (University of Alabama Press, 2020). Severance is also an avid reader of baseball history.
Wyatt Wells
Professor | College of Liberal Arts and Social Sciences
Wyatt Wells, a native of Nashville, Tennessee, graduated from Vanderbilt University with a BA in 1986. Six years later, in 1992, he earned a Ph.D. in American History from the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. After a year as an instructor at Chapel Hill, he took a position as an assistant editor at the Andrew Jackson Papers at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. He worked there three years, leaving in 1996 to be the Newcomen fellow in Business History at the Harvard Business School. The next year, he moved to Montgomery to teach at AUM. Wells has been here ever since, although in the 2001-2002 academic year he did serve as a Fulbright Fellow at the University of Hong Kong.
Wells’s research has focused on the intersection of government and economics and how the issues involved often spill across national borders. He has published five books and numerous articles on subjects such as the policies of the Federal Reserve during the economically turbulent 1970s, the effort of the United States to impose its ideas about antitrust on the rest of the world during and immediately after World War II, the financial crisis that reshaped Wall Street in the late 1960s and early 1970s, the Eisenhower administration’s policies towards public (electric) power, and the bitter debate in the United States in the 1890s over whether to base the currency on gold or silver. He has also produced broader studies on the history and character of capitalism and the performance of the U.S. economy in the decades after World War II. Wells has drawn on this expertise to create upper-level history classes at AUM such as “The World since 1945” and “The History of Money.”
Wyatt Wells is married and has three sons and a dog. In his spare time, he writes fiction.
Qiang Zhai
Professor | College of Liberal Arts and Social Sciences
Dr. Qiang Zhai received his M.A. degree from Nanjing University (1984) and Ph.D. degree from Ohio University (1991). He has been teaching courses on the history and culture of China, Japan, and Vietnam at Auburn University Montgomery since 1991. His primary field of research is the history of the Cold War in Asia. He has published several books on U.S.-East-Asian relations during the Cold War, including The Dragon, the Lion, and the Eagle: Chinese-British-American Relations, 1949-1958 (Kent State University Press, 1994), China and the Vietnam Wars, 1950-1975 (University of North Carolina Press, 2000). He is a co-editor of The Encyclopedia of the Cold War (Routledge, 2008). He was named a Distinguished Research Professor by AUM in 1997 in recognition of his scholarly contribution to the study of Cold War history.
