Supporting a new generation of students

Two History graduates from the Class of 2024 win prestigious awards.

Rhian Davies (BA 2024, History) has won a place to continue her studies in the USA through the highly competitive Kinder-BrANCH Fellowship, supported by the Kinder Institute for Constitutional Democracy at the University of Missouri, and British American Nineteenth Century Historians (BrANCH). The award includes a funded place on the MA scheme in Atlantic History and Politics in this new academic year plus a generous stipend for the year and return flights.

In a double for our History students, Alisha Stephenson (BA 2024, History) scooped the prestigious the Harriet Tubman Prize award for the best undergraduate essay or research project on nineteenth-century American history by Black, Asian, or Minority Ethnic students based in the UK. Honouring the fugitive enslaved woman, abolitionist, and activist Harriet Tubman, the eponymous prize has been designed to encourage more BAME students to consider postgraduate work in 19th century American history.

The two accolades reflect efforts at tackling obstacles to racial and ethnic diversity and inclusion in History departments in UK universities following discipline surveys and reports published by the British Association for American Studies (BAAS) and the Royal Historical Society.