C-SPAN’s popular Lectures in History series brings audiences into college classrooms nationwide to hear lectures on topics ranging from the American Revolution to 9/11. On September 5, a film crew with C-SPAN was on UNC Pembroke's campus filming history professor Dr. Jamie Myers' class and her thought-provoking lecture on southeastern Native people in the 18th century.
“It was a tremendous honor to be a part of this series,” Myers said. “It’s particularly exciting for the university to be showcased given the topic that was discussed, and it seems like UNCP is a very appropriate place for those conversations to be recorded,” said Myers of UNCP which was founded in 1887 to train American Indian teachers. The lecture is part of her intro-level American Indian History to 1865 course.
C-SPAN has become very familiar with UNCP’s campus in recent years. Myers is the third history department faculty member selected for the Lectures in History series. A segment featuring Dr. Ryan Anderson––the recipient of the 2024 UNC Board of Governors Award for Excellence in Teaching––was recorded in the spring and will air on Saturday, Sept. 21, on C-SPAN’s American History TV. It will also air on C-SPAN 3 on Sunday, Sept. 29, and later as a podcast. Myers’ lecture is tentatively scheduled to air on October 12, at 8 a.m., 11 a.m., 8 p.m. and 11 p.m. on American History TV.
First aired in 2011, the Lectures in History series is part of American History TV, which features historical lectures, oral histories and other special history series. The history faculty at UNCP has built a strong reputation with C-SPAN, dating back nearly a decade when professor and department chair Dr. Jaime Martinez joined a Civil War panel discussion hosted by the Civil War Institute at Gettysburg College in 2013 and later aired on C-SPAN. Following her appearance, C-SPAN came to campus in the fall of 2019 and recorded Martinez’s lecture on the confederacy’s economic policies during the Civil War. 2019. Additionally, C-SPAN was on campus in 2018, filming the spring commencement and keynote remarks from U.S. Rep. Richard Burr.
Martinez, who teaches courses on the Civil War and reconstruction, said the university has benefited in many ways from the national exposure over the years.
“We love to be put in the same conversation with universities with fancier names that everyone in the country has heard of,” Martinez said. “It really demonstrates the strength of our faculty and our high expectations for our faculty and students. And I hope it can be a source of pride for the people who already love and support UNCP to have us appear in this national forum.”
In addition to future segments featuring Anderson and Myers, Martinez will again be featured in an upcoming Civil War series on C-SPAN. This summer, Martinez was a panelist at the Civil War Institute’s annual conference in Gettysburg, PA.
“When I’m speaking to parents of prospective students, I tell them we have the same academic credentials as faculty at any other university in the country,” Martinez said. “We expect that everyone here (UNCP) is a great scholar and has done the same level of work as at UNC-Chapel Hill or other larger schools. After graduating, we just followed a slightly different career trajectory because we focus much more on teaching here than at other institutions.”
