Florida Conference of Historians Archives

Saint Leo University faculty are transforming the lives of students and making significant contributions to their fields of study. Take a look at some of the most recent accomplishments from our faculty.

Dr. Daniel DuBois, assistant professor of history, is serving as the 2022-2023 president of the Florida Conference of Historians. The organization is dedicated to promoting scholarship and collegiality among historians teaching history in Florida’s colleges and universities. In February, Saint Leo University hosted the group’s 2022 annual meeting at University Campus. The conference featured panel and individual presentations on a wide variety of topics from state, national, and international history. Additionally, DuBois was recently selected as one of only 20 participants from hundreds who applied nationally for a weeklong summer workshop on teaching American Civil War history, led by Dr. Gary W. Gallagher, author and professor emeritus at the University of Virginia.

Dr. Kathryn Duncan, professor of English, is the author of Jane Austen and the Buddha: Teachers of Enlightenment, a work of literary criticism recently released by McFarland Books. Duncan was inspired by a realization that the popular English novelist Jane Austen and the religious teacher and thinker had ideas in common about human nature and happiness. Duncan became a faculty member in the English Department in 2001.

Dr. Phillip Neely Jr., director of the Doctor of Criminal Justice program, recently published a book entitled, When the Watcher Becomes the Watched: The New Policing. Released by Paramount Publisher, the book delves into how technology, such as the cameras worn by police officers, has fared at law enforcement agencies and examines if its use has been effective. Prior to becoming a faculty member at Saint Leo, Neely worked in law enforcement for 21 years, serving in progressively responsible leadership and field positions at local agencies.

Dr. Matthew Tapie, associate professor of theology and director of the Center for Catholic-Jewish Studies, is co-editing a new series at The Catholic University of America Press, entitled Judaism and Catholic Theology. The Judaism and Catholic Theology series aims to further Catholic theological reflection on Judaism and the Jewish people for scholars, the lay faithful, and interreligious leaders. The first of several books in the new series was published in February 2022. Additionally, Tapie is co-editing a collection of 14 essays on the challenges of theological dialogue for the Catholic University of America Press. The essays were originally presented at the Center for Catholic-Jewish Studies’ online symposium in 2021.

Gianna Russo, assistant professor of English and creative writing, recently published a new book of poetry entitled, All I See is Your Glinting: 90 Days in the Pandemic. The book features poems and photographs that document each day of the last quarter of 2020 during the pandemic, capturing the small and meaningful moments of daily life. The book is available through Madville Publishing. Russo, who was named the inaugural Wordsmith of the city of Tampa in 2020, will wrap up her work in the role at the end of 2022.

Dr. Moneque Walker-Pickett, professor of criminal justice, was selected as one of 38 American Council on Education (ACE) Fellows for the 2020-2021 class. The ACE program is the longest-running leadership development program in the United States and offers participants interactive learning opportunities and visits to campuses and other higher education-related organizations. Walker-Pickett joins other ACE fellows from institutions such as Georgetown University, Purdue University, Ohio State University, the U.S. Air Force Academy, and more.

For many Americans, the mention of U.S. Civil War studies brings to mind names of battles and generals, or stirs memories of Lincoln’s speeches. But a Saint Leo University senior and budding historian has earned recognition for a different study, a work of social history that examines the lives and torments of everyday women who lived through America’s war with itself.

Samantha Tyler, a University Campus student, presented findings from her senior thesis “From the Ground Up: Women of the Civil War” in a national meeting. She traveled to New Orleans in January to make a presentation at the Phi Alpha Theta (national honor society) convention for historians. It was the first time a Saint Leo student had done so. A scheduling conflict prevented her from also appearing at the Florida Conference of Historians to deliver her presentation on lesser-known perspectives on the war.

Tyler’s work does discuss the influence of the famed author Harriet Beecher Stowe and the fiery words of African-American leader Sojourner Truth. But the famous women appear in Tyler’s work within the broader context of understanding the emotions and attitudes of everyday Northern women, Southern white women, and former slaves and freed African-American women. Tyler combed women’s letters, journals, and other personal writings—in addition to Stowe’s best-selling book Uncle Tom’s Cabin and Truth’s famous “Ain’t I a Woman” speech—to reach her conclusions. “The stories that those diaries and personal papers provide help us see that the simplistic views of women that dominated the antebellum era, and that have been repeated by historians since, do not tell the whole story,” Tyler’s introduction states.

For instance, the papers she found revealed to her much more starkly the actual brutality of slavery than did more widely published works she had read, Tyler said. She found white women in the South who developed a personal hatred of the opposing side, arising from the battles that took place in their towns and fields, the seizure of land, livestock, and homes by the Union Army, and the widespread destruction ordered by Union General William Tecumseh Sherman. Meanwhile, Northerners who were more distant from battlefields were not affected in the same way, physically, or as deeply emotionally in their feelings toward Confederate troops, Tyler observed. But Northerners who went to the conflict as nurses—if they came from the middle class or more prosperous backgrounds—might actually be criticized by family members for venturing beyond the social norms of the day, rather than earning heightened respect from their relations for their bravery, compassion, or sense of duty. Common to all the women, Tyler said, was the deep fear that the men closest to them would be killed or maimed by the war.

This vein of American history is incredibly rich, Tyler decided, though it has not been studied much. Tyler’s conference presentations partly address the void, while also pointing toward her hopes for the future.

Tyler so loves “learning about our world and American history” that she will make history and teaching her career. She has always enjoyed the support of her parents in her endeavors; her dad, in fact, is an Air Force veteran who involved the young Samantha in military history long before she ever thought of history as a possible college major. Tyler hopes to secure a high-school teaching position in Florida after her graduation this spring; she plans also to earn a master’s degree in American history through an online program at Fort Hays State University in Kansas. Eventually, Tyler, said, she would like to teach at the college level.