Emily Arendt

Dr. Emily J. Arendt

Associate Professor, History, CLASS

Dr. Emily J. Arendt is a 2022 recipient of the Faculty Excellence Award for her commitment to innovative teaching, continued service to the university, and for her award-winning research in the field of Early America and culinary history.

Arendt challenges her students to think about the American past through different lenses, such as exploring in an upcoming history course the links between identity, food production, and consumption. She brings in featured guests and experts to enrich her instruction and provides hands-on learning, such as using period recipes to encourage historical thinking.

Arendt has also taken on a major faculty leadership role as the co-chair of the General Education Committee and has put in an incredible amount of hard work in preparing for meetings, working through assessment, and contributing to accreditation visits. She has also recently worked with the other co-chair of the General Education Committee, Melinda Tilton, to develop the “Interstate Passport” program. In addition to her service on the General Education Committee, Arendt oversees Phi Alpha Theta (the history club), gives lectures in the community, and supports the work of her colleagues in numerous ways, including serving on the history department’s scholarship committee, supporting Women’s and Gender Studies, and teaching honors and interdisciplinary courses.

Outside of her commitment to classroom and service, Arendt’s focus on research is impressive. Her recent article “Two Dollars a Day, And Roast Beef: Whig Culinary Partisanship and the Election 1840,” published in the Journal of the Early Republic was awarded the prestigious Ralph Gray Article Prize for being the best scholarly article of the year.

Arendt is a faculty member truly dedicated to her profession: she teaches students to think historically, contributes to MSUB and her discipline through service (much of which goes unseen), achieves scholarly success, and exemplifies the true spirit of faculty excellence.