USU Eastern historian earns full professorship
For the first time in USU’s history, a professor not based on the university’s Logan campus has achieved tenure and promotion as a full professor, and the distinction has brought attention to USU educators.
Robert McPherson, a history professor at USU Eastern’s Blanding campus, received the promotion earlier this month after a lengthy application and evaluation process.
“It’s just a great feeling,” McPherson said of his promotion. “I appreciate everybody’s effort. I had a lot of help, and people in all the departments helped along the way. It’s a great thing to have accomplished.”
Joe Peterson, USU Eastern’s chancellor, said he participated in the review of McPherson’s works. Faculty members have four levels of promotion they can achieve – instructor, assistant professor, associate professor and full professor, which is the highest of the four, he said.
“How you move up those ranks is based on scholarship and how effective you are as a professor,” Peterson said.
Peterson said McPherson’s expertise on Native American culture and history is invaluable. McPherson has a degree in history and anthropology and has often had his work published.
“One of the reasons why he got the promotion is that he’s just a really, really good scholar,” Peterson said. “He’s got 10 books that he’s published, and he’s got dozens and dozens of articles. He writes and publishes all over the place. He’s just very, very prolific.”
Peterson said McPherson is currently working on an 11th book on Native American code talkers during World War II.
McPherson’s work has been recognized at USU’s Logan campus as well as USU Eastern. Liberalis, a publication produced by the College of Humanities and Social Sciences, featured McPherson in its winter edition.
The merger between USU and the College of Eastern Utah, Liberalis writer Kristen Munson stated, was envisioned as a way to combine two great institutions to bring higher education to all classes of people, and McPherson is making that a reality.
Peterson said McPherson has been teaching for a long time and gets better year after year. For USU Eastern, he said, it means the school is able to attract and retain faculty of the highest quality.
“For Utah State University,” he said, “it means that the university is committed to education in all of Utah, not just in Logan. They see the quality that occurs – the quality of instruction and the quality of scholarship that happens in places other than Logan.”
“I have great admiration for Dr. McPherson,” he said. “I’ve read his books, not all of them, but some of them, and he is a great scholar, a wonderful writer and a magnificent teacher.”
McPherson said the process of attaining full professor status is a stringent one, requiring close evaluation of the applicant’s works and materials as an educator.
“If you’ve had publications and so forth, that’s all evaluated – not only by a committee of people from your department and outside of your department, but also, they do a national evaluation,” McPherson said.
Peterson said applicants put together a portfolio of materials for review, and that portfolio includes evaluations from supervisors, a list of published works, samples of published works, materials from teaching, and course material the applicant has developed.
The portfolio is sent to anonymous judges within the applicant’s area who evaluate whether the applicant’s skill and scholarship qualify them for full professor status. Those evaluations go to the department head and from that point a central committee that evaluates all applicants.
“There’s a committee in Logan, there’s a committee in Price and Blanding, and along the way people will judge the merits of the application, and if it’s sufficiently meritorious, it’s approved,” Peterson said.
McPherson has been on the College of Eastern Utah’s teaching staff as well as the post-merger USU Eastern staff.
“I’ve actually worked for the College of Eastern Utah since 1977. I came on as a part-time teacher then. Then in 1978 I went full time working for the college, and excepting three years working on degree, I’ve taught down here for whole time.”
– ariwrees@gmail.com