Education
- Ph.D., University of Virginia (2005)
- M.A., University of Virginia (1998)
- B.A., California State University, Fullerton (1982)
Courses
- World History to 1500
- World History since 1450
- United States History to 1877
- United States History since 1877
- Foundations of Civilization
- Modern European History
Biography
Bradford Whitener, Ph.D., graduated from California State University, Fullerton as a History Major, before taking a history teaching position in the Los Angeles Unified School District. After nine years teaching in LAUSD, Whitener began his Ph.D. program at the University of Virginia, studying Modern European Intellectual and Cultural History, focusing on Modern Germany. Whitener’s dissertation research focused on three competing conceptions of history in Nineteenth Century Germany. Whitener received a Fulbright Fellowship for his research in Munich, Germany in 1999-2000. And in 2003, Whitener received a year-long writing fellowship from the Erasmus Institute at the University of Notre Dame in South Bend, Indiana.
Before and since his graduation from the University of Virginia in 2005, Whitener has taught at the College of William and Mary in Williamsburg, Virginia (2001-2002), and at Lewis & Clark College in Portland Oregon (2005-2008) before coming to St. Mary’s University (2011-present). Whitener now teaches a number of courses for St. Mary’s History Department, including survey courses in United States History, World History, Modern European History, and the Foundations of Civilization core course.
In the Fall of 2016, Whitener launched the StMU History Media project, which offers students at St. Mary’s the opportunity to conduct deep and meaningful research into areas of interest to them, and compose professional-level narrative non-fiction writings worthy of being published on the project’s websites (www.stmuhistorymedia.org and www.stmuscholars.org). Since its inception, the project has attracted a number of St. Mary’s professors to join the project from disciplines across the campus, including Sociology, Political Science, Environmental Science, Communications Studies, Economics, Spanish, Physics, and Public History. The project won the Provost’s Teaching Showcase Prize of 2018, and Whitener and his colleagues have presented the project’s concept at numerous conferences.
Whitener loves the students and colleagues at St. Mary’s, and finds the friendly environment and academic atmosphere of the campus to be inviting and stimulating. But when you run into him somewhere on campus, be ready to hear about the most recent article he has just published from one of his students. He is so proud of what St. Mary’s students can accomplish, and he is honored to collaborate with so many of his colleagues.