By Dr. Raymond Hebert
Thomas More University
Part 65 of our series “Retrospect and Vista II”: Thomas More College/University, 1971-2021
History as an academic field has always been an integral part of the Humanities and whatever core curriculum was mandated for all students in both the liberal arts and Catholic intellectual traditions. As noted in Part 38 of our series, Sr. M. Albert Murphy and Sr. M. Philip Trauth, both Sisters of Notre Dame, were the founders of the History Department at Villa Madonna College. According to Tom Ward, they “embodied the Department of History at VMC/TMC for decades.” He added that “their most outstanding contribution to the college was that between them they taught many generations of history majors and future historians and attorneys both at VMC and TMC. Just as they had been close in their lives their deaths were less than a month apart.”
1960s History faculty. Back: Fr. Ed Baumann; Fr. Anthony Deye; Fr. Paul Tenhundfeld. Front: Sr. M. Philip Trauth; Sr. M. Albert Murphy; and Ms. Nancy Bruns. (TMU Archives)
Also part of that talented team of women in the department was Villa Madonna College graduate Nancy Bruns, who had been an outstanding student and Woodrow Wilson scholarship recipient. Eventually, she held two masters degrees, and was an outstanding teacher who specialized in freshman and sophomore level classes. Nancy was much beloved by students for her teaching prowess and her leadership of the college’s Phi Alpha Theta International History Honors’ Lambda Sigma Chapter in the early years after its founding in 1966.
It is a prime example of the current department’s respect and appreciation for this talented group of founders that, each year in May at the Senior Awards Convocation, the most talented graduates are remembered with awards in their honor: 1) the Sr. M. Albert Murphy, SND Award (for the outgoing president of Phi Alpha Theta); 2) Sr. M. Philip Trauth, SND, Award (for the highest overall GPA for a graduating History Major); 3) Rev. Anthony Deye Award (for civic engagement); and 4) Nancy Bruns Award for departmental/institutional intangibles (i.e., service as departmental work study administrative assistants).
Two additional awards were later established by Dr. Paul Tenkotte during his tenure as department chair: The Tenkotte/Meier Award for international understanding, and the Dr. Raymond G. Hebert Adjunct Faculty Member of the Year Award.
Early 1970s History faculty. Left to right: Dr. Frank Bremer; Sr. M. Philip Trauth; Sr. M. Albert Murphy; Fr. Paul Tenhundfeld; Ms. Susan Court DeFalaise; Nancy Bruns; and Leroy Hill. (TMU Archives)
Since the Villa Madonna College years, an upper-division, three-semester seminar sequence has been the linchpin experience for all history majors. The emphasis in each of the three classes has always been on critical thinking/solid research/open dialogue and, above all, extensive writing assignments and multiple oral presentations. As it has evolved, in the last two decades, the sequence features three classes: Historiography I that introduces the most important schools of historians/approaches to the writing of history; Historiography II that asks the students to dissect in depth multiple “Problems” in History; and the History Senior Seminar, with its focus on one or two topics in depth and on the completion of a local history research project. The final class of the trilogy requires students to produce an oral presentation, as well as a 20-30 page research paper, many published over the years in the Northern Kentucky Heritage magazine.
Two diocesan priests were also part of the History faculty in the late Villa Madonna/early Thomas More College years, Rev. Anthony Deye and Rev. Paul Tenhundfeld. Two adjuncts in those same years were Leroy Hill and Rev. Edward Baumann, both of whom would play an important role in the founding of the Saturday and Evening Division of TMC after the move to the Crestview Hills campus in 1968.
Equally important in that same period for the transitional 1970s was Dr. Francis Bremer, who had come from the Northeast with a PhD from Columbia University. He had boundless energy. While he did much for the department and the institution during the 1970s, none of it was as important as his authoring and coordination of a large Humanities grant that brought outstanding speakers to campus and allowed him to sponsor a major conference on campus featuring one of the leading historians in the world at the time, Dr. Christopher Hill from Oxford University. Later in the 1970s, Dr. Bremer left Thomas More College and accepted a position at Millersville University in Pennsylvania, where he had an illustrious career as a published author and speaker worldwide as one of the experts on Puritanism in America. Part of his legacy was a mentorship of another young faculty member from the Northeast, Dr. Ray Hebert, who arrived from Washington DC in August of 1975 to become the replacement for Fr. Tenhundfeld, who would leave college teaching soon after to focus on priestly duties in the Diocese of Covington.
Anniversary of Sr. M. Philip’s 25th year as a VMC/TMU faculty member. Back: Fr. Deye; Mr. Hill; Dr. Carl Trocki; Dr. Dan Beattie. Front: Dr. Ray Hebert; Sr. M. Evelynn Reinke; Sr. M. Philip; Fr. Paul Tenhundfeld. (TMU Archives)
Dr. Hebert, using a formula learned from Frank Bremer, organized a worldwide conference on campus in February 1978 as part of the universal academic celebration of the 500th birthday of the college’s patron, St. Thomas More. This Quincentennial Conference attracted speakers from around the world who joined this weeklong gathering of scholars and experts. As a follow-up, with input from a number of the attendees, the Albion Press of Appalachian State University offered to publish the Proceedings of the Conference, Quincentennial Essays on St. Thomas More: Selected Papers from the Thomas More College Conference, edited by Michael J. Moore. Now in his 48th year with Thomas More University, Dr. Hebert is the longstanding “patriarch” of the department.
During the early 1980s, as Sr. M Philip was phasing out of her teaching and chairmanship duties and moving to her new role as full-time College Archivist, Dr. Hebert served as department chair from 1981–1987. Two additional professors were hired full-time: Dr. Carl Trocki, a Southeast Asian specialist, and Dr. Daniel Beattie, an Americanist. The team was successful in expanding the number of majors to the largest number since the peak pre-Northern Kentucky University (NKU) years. They also made changes in the curriculum to include more choice in upper-division offerings, as well as the development of a new freshman offering called “The Craft of History.”
Providentially, it was during the mid-1980s that a new core curriculum was approved by the Faculty General Assembly that appreciated the importance of a worldwide emphasis on globalism emerging at the time. Cincinnati was increasingly attracting companies from around the world anxious to take advantage of the city’s central location geographically, as well as its growing airport, the Cincinnati-Northern Kentucky International Airport (CVG), just 15 minutes from Thomas More College. The new core required two sections of the History of World Civilizations (HIS 101 and HIS 102). This requirement has remained in place for decades following, necessitating the department’s careful efforts at hiring PhD’s committed to keeping the department’s offerings varied and strong, as well as its standards high.
Dr. Paul Tenkotte, in a visit to the diocesan archives after the death of Sr. Mary Philip Trauth. To his right is a portrait of Sr. M. Philip, founder of both the Archives of the Diocese of Covington, as well as the TMU Archives.
During the decade of the 1980s, an innovative Pre-Law Associated Degree Program was initiated with input from Thomas More Alumni, as well as NKU’s Chase College of Law. By the late 1980s and the early 1990s, the department was honored with Dr. Hebert’s assuming the position of Vice President for Academic Affairs (VPAA) and Dean of the College. Three new hires (all Thomas More alumni) would play major roles in taking the department to another level: Dr. John Cimprich, who taught from 1985 until his retirement in 2015; Dr. Paul Tenkotte, who served from 1987 until 2009 (and was the college’s founding Director of International Studies); and Dr. Erwin Erhardt III, whose full-time service spanned the years from 1990 until 2014 (and who was Pre-Law Adviser/Mock Trial Team Faculty Director).
Dr. John Cimprich, hired in 1985, had come to Thomas More, his alma mater, from Southeast Missouri State University, where he taught from 1980 until 1985. A published author, with two books on the American Civil War and a third now being written in his retirement, he was a major force in the department for most of the years that Dr. Hebert was serving as Vice President for Academic Affairs (1987–2001). Cimprich served as chair for multiple terms, taught several of the Historiography Seminar sequences and was club adviser during a series of award-winning years for the Lambda Sigma Chapter of the Phi Alpha Theta History Honors Society. His second book, Fort Pillow: A Civil War Massacre and Public Memory, was universally well-reviewed. In his words, “it examined the Fort Pillow Massacre and placed it in the context of the Civil War’s major themes” (John Cimprich, Encyclopedia.com). Dr. Cimprich retired in 2015 and was granted Emeritus Status soon thereafter.
Dr. Paul Tenkotte was hired in 1987 to replace Dr. Hebert in the department at a time when Dr. Bryant Card, the outgoing VPAA, also taught in the department part-time while serving as the original Director of the James Graham Brown Honors Program. Dr. Tenkotte had recently completed his PhD from the University of Cincinnati, having been the recipient of multiple prestigious fellowships and a protégé of the nationally recognized Urban American historian, Dr. Zane Miller. He was asked by Dr. Hebert to establish TMC’s first International Studies Program. In that capacity, he developed a thriving International Studies program (BA and AA degrees), as well as a study-abroad program that rivaled much larger institutions in our region, complete with an $800,000 endowment that he helped to raise. He created a successful, long-standing Summer English as a Second Language (ESL) program, as well as an academic year ESL program. In addition, active sister-school relationships were established and articulation agreements signed with universities in France, Germany, Japan, Puerto Rico, and Scotland.
TMU History department faculty, 2010. Left to right: Dr. Erwin Erhardt, Dr. John Spence; Dr. James McNutt; Dr. Jodie Mader; Dr. John Cimprich; Dr. Raymond Hebert; Patrick Eagan. (TMU Archives)
Dr. Tenkotte earned a summer fellowship to Japan, in preparation for teaching Asian history. He also led student tours to Europe, China, Japan, and Mexico, where a longstanding “alternative spring break” experience was launched by Dr. James Camp and Dr. Stephen Holler to work with poor migrants in Juarez.
As chair later, Tenkotte inaugurated a BA program in Political Science. In addition, for many years, he oversaw the department’s internships and cooperative education opportunities. These included placements worldwide, such as the acceptances of several TMC students into the very prestigious and competitive White House Internship Program. After Tenkotte’s departure for Northern Kentucky University for the position of Chair of History, Geography, Social Studies and Black Studies, each of these programs continued to flourish, as they still do today. He departed as a tenured full Professor with the department’s appreciation for his contributions. His academic publications are extensive, including The Encyclopedia of Northern Kentucky, which he began while at Thomas More College.
Dr. Erwin Erhardt, who had been an adjunct from 1984 until 1987, returned as a full-time faculty member from 1990 until 2014. Among Erhardt’s greatest strengths was his versatility, with teaching credentials in both History and Economics, allowing his Economic History upper-division offerings to be double-listed in History and Economics. He also contributed to the broadening of the department’s offerings, with his work as the Pre-law advisor, the Moderator of the Phi Alpha Delta Law Fraternity on campus, and the Faculty Coach for the department’s enormously successful Mock Trial Teams. While there were multiple attorney coaches over the years, Dr. Erhardt was the consistent champion among the faculty for the Mock Trial Program during his Thomas More years. Having been an adjunct in Economics at the University of Cincinnati previously, when he was offered a position full-time there in 2014, he accepted. Sadly, the Mock Trial Program went into a hiatus after his departure, although there is a hope of bringing it back in 2023, under the new Laws Program led by Dr. Robert Stern.
Dr. Jim McNutt. (TMU Archives)
In the same period, made possible when Dr. Tenkotte’s load was divided between History and the International Studies Program, long-time adjunct (early 1990s) Dr. Jim McNutt was added to the full-time faculty in 1999. He was tenured in 2004, promoted to full Professor in 2008 and became Chair of the Department in 2015. As a former Methodist minister, in his early years he also taught courses in Theology and had a particular expertise in the career of Martin Luther and the Protestant Reformation. In more recent years, he performed a great service in taking over the moderator position for the History Club/Phi Alpha Theta. His most impressive scholarly contributions were his papers taken from the chapters he wrote for standard works in Holocaust Studies on “Adolf Schlatter and Jewish Piety” and “The Bitter Legacy and Unlearned Lesson of Adolf Schlatter.”
Dr. McNutt was one of the scholars invited to an invitation-only conference at the United States Holocaust Museum in Washington, D.C. in 2006 and, later, he was one of the scholars invited to speak first at the 33rd Annual Scholars Conference on the Holocaust and the Churches, and later invited back for the 37th Annual Conference of the same group. As noted above, his work had also been featured among the participants at the highly acclaimed Holocaust Seminar at the U.S. Holocaust Museum, entitled “Complicity and Confession: Post-Holocaust Christian Interpretations of Guilt and Forgiveness” in May 2006.
Meanwhile, in 2001, both Dr. Hebert and Dr. Tenkotte returned to the department full-time from their administrative positions. Dr. Hebert served as chair from 2001 until 2008, and Dr. Tenkotte replaced him for a turning-point year in 2008–2009. With Tenkotte’s departure for NKU in 2009, the department hired Dr. Jodie Mader as Assistant Professor after her two short stints as Instructor at UC and UK during her graduate studies. Dr. Mader’s areas of specialization included Modern Europe, World History, Women’s History, Studies of War and Empire, and Modern British History. During her decade at Thomas More, she delivered multiple papers across the country in her research areas of the South African War and the Women’s Liberation Movement in the United States. Before departing for the University of Cincinnati during the pandemic, she had provided valuable contributions during her time as Chair (2019 –2021) and as institution-wide Faculty Development Director (2016–2021).
History department faculty with 2019 senior history students. Sierra and Hebert (both wearing suit coats) are pictured to the far left; Eagan (with bow tie), Mader, and McNutt are depicted at the far right. In-between the professors are senior history students. (TMU Archives)
Structurally, for many of those years, the new Political Science program became part of the department (History, International Studies, and Political Science) with Dr. John (JT) Spence becoming a major asset, highlighted by his interest in Study Abroad Programs and International Studies. Appropriately, when Dr. Hebert retired from the Cooperative Center for Study Abroad (CCSA) Board of Directors after 30+ years, he was replaced by Dr. Spence in 2018. Most recently, after a term as department chair, Dr. Jodie Mader accepted a position at the University of Cincinnati. Dr. Luis Sierra, as the newest full-time hire and after just a few short years, was asked to step up quickly to fill a number of positions: 1) to replace Dr. Mader both as Chair of the Department and as Director of Faculty Development, after having already agreed to direct the Study Abroad program as the founder of the restructured office named the Global Initiative Office (or GIO); 2) soon after, Dr Spence with his Political Science majors and International Studies programs were moved into a merger with the Philosophy program; 3) joining History in 2021 was the Law Program, resulting in a new name: Department of History and Legal Studies, with Dr. Robert Stern, Law Program Director and a PhD in the History of International Law from the University of Chicago, as the newest member of the department. Dr. McNutt, meanwhile, has announced his retirement for 2023.
Patrick Eagan, the department’s online expert, has done outstanding work in teaching and mentoring for those (including adjuncts) teaching with an extensive online presence. This was especially valuable during the first two years of the COVID-19 pandemic. Eagan, also a TMC alumnus, had been an outstanding student and a star intercollegiate baseball player, who even managed to study abroad in Ireland during his busy undergraduate career. After completing his MA in History from the University of Cincinnati, he returned to Thomas More to become a mainstay in the department’s freshman World Civilization program, while also teaching the required sophomore-level Medieval Civilization course. Not surprisingly, he has maintained his allegiance to Athletics by serving first as the Assistant Baseball Coach and more recently, in support of his wife, Lindsay (the Head Softball Coach), as the Assistant Softball Coach. His versality and familiarity with incoming athletes has been invaluable to the department, as well as the institution as a whole.
Meanwhile, while continuing to teach through 2020, Dr. Hebert also served Thomas More University in multiple capacities after leaving the office of the Vice President for Academic Affairs in 2001: 1) Director of the James Graham Brown Honors Program 2001–2007; 2) Department Chair for History, International Studies and Political Science 2001–2007; 3) Director of Gemini Dual Credit 2007–2016; 4) Executive Director, William T. Robinson III Institute for Religious Liberty 2016–present; and 5) General Editor, Thomas More University Centennial History Project 2021–2023.
Dr. Hebert (middle) with two adjunct faculty, Sharon McGee and David Lloyd. (TMU Archives)
Primed to be the new leader as the department moves into the next hundred years of the university’s existence is Dr. Luis Sierra, who replaced Dr. Mader as Chair in 2021. In a recent issue of Moreover magazine, on the occasion of both the publication of Dr. Sierra’s book LaPaz’s Colonial Specters and his well-received lecture for Northern Kentucky University’s 2020–2021 Six@Six Lecture Series on “The Grimke Sisters,” Dr. Sierra summarized well the department’s advice to students throughout its history: “Go to class and ‘no man is an island.’ When no man is an island you always, always, always need to be connected to other people and ensure that your personal relationships are just as important as your work. You need others and others need you” (Moreover, Summer 2021, p. 22).
Looking to the future, the department is proposing replacing Drs. Mader/Hebert with a new hire in 2023, and Dr. McNutt with a second hire in 2024. Above all, the goal is the continuation of a long tradition of success among History’s graduates and a steady flow of long-serving faculty with decades of commitment to Thomas More University.
It has always been important to Dr. Hebert in his five decades at TMC/TMU to perpetuate the memories of the legends who founded and established the History Department (Sr. M. Albert; Sr. M. Philip; Frs. Deye and Tenhundfeld; Nancy Bruns; Frank Bremer), but equally memorable have been the roles played in taking the department to loftier levels by the alumni who later joined the faculty and believed just as strongly in the traditions, skills, and departmental devotion to students that had preceded them: Cimprich, Erhardt, Tenkotte, Mader, and Eagan. Dr. Jim McNutt, a former adjunct, with his welcome sense of humor, and Dr. Luis Sierra, with his youthful energy and broad-based versatility, have rounded out the History component of the program as it moves into the institution’s second 100 years. Drs. Spence and Stern have also contributed immeasurably to a departmental unity and cooperation that would be envied at any institution in the country. Noticeably, as well, the department has been one of the pillars of the liberal arts component of the institution for its first 100 years, and there is every expectation that this hard-earned status will be continued during the next 100 years.
Dr. Raymond G. Hebert is a Professor of History and Executive Director of the William T. Robinson III Institute for Religious Liberty at Thomas More University. He has just completed his 46th year at Thomas More and, with that background, will now serve as the General Editor of the official history of Thomas More College/University from 1971-2021. With a projected title of RETROSPECT AND VISTA II, it will serve as the sequel to Sr. Irmina Saelinger’s RETROSPECT AND VISTA, the history of the first 50 years of Thomas More College (formerly Villa Madonna College). He can be contacted at hebertr@thomasmore.edu.
We want to learn more about the history of your business, church, school, or organization in our region (Cincinnati, Northern Kentucky, and along the Ohio River). If you would like to share your rich history with others, please contact the editor of “Our Rich History,” Paul A. Tenkotte, at tenkottep@nku.edu. Paul A. Tenkotte, PhD is Professor of History and Gender Studies at Northern Kentucky University (NKU) and the author of many books and articles.
