Taking History Beyond the Classroom

Shared authority has become a key tenet in the practice of public history, but how do we teach the idea of shared authority in the university classroom? In this co-authored essay by student and teacher, we unpackage how we have attempted to tackle this issue in a capstone undergraduate history unit called History Beyond the Classroom. The unit requires students to work with community organizations on an independent public history project that is of use to their partner-organization. In doing so, students not only begin to appreciate the historical skills they have learned throughout their degree, but also appreciate the work of public historians, become public historians themselves, and begin to understand history as a lifelong learning process.