Campus Connection

Víctor M. Macías-González, a professor of Latin American History and Women’s Gender and Sexuality Studies, will receive the American Historical Association’s Equity Award. The honor cites him for successfully recruiting and keeping under-represented racial and ethnic groups in the history profession. He will receive the award at the association’s annual meeting in Atlanta, Jan. 7-10, 2016. Each year the association offers prizes honoring materials for and individuals who achieve scholarly and professional distinction. For 2015, the association recognized 38 winners from more than 1,500 nominations. Since 1896 the Association has conferred over a thousand awards. The names, publications, and projects of those who received these awards are a catalogue of the best work produced by the historical profession. Macías-González teaches courses on world history, Mexican and Latin American history, as well as classes on Hispanics in the U.S., Modern Spain, Women, Gender, and Sexuality in Latin America, and the U.S. Cold War. He is a specialist on the Mexican aristocracy and its material and social culture. “Dr. Macias-Gonzalez provides his students with comprehensive guidance through their educational experiences while requiring very high standards from those who study with him,” says Associate Professor John Grider, chair of the History Department. “His high standards are paired with a sincere concern for his students that goes beyond the classroom. He has a true interest in their success as students and in their future success once they leave UWL.” Macías-González has taken a specific interest in working with under-represented and first-generation students. He helped design UWL’s Eagle Mentoring Program in 2008, a retention initiative for under-represented, underprivileged second-year students in the arts and humanities. The program identifies promising students and provides them with peer mentors and opportunities to help them close the achievement gap. More than 90 percent of students in the program graduate. Of the 21 graduates who participated in Eagle Mentoring, 12 or 56 percent have completed or are currently enrolled in graduate and professional programs across the country. This isn’t the first national recognition for Macías-González. In 2013, he received the Wisconsin Professor of the Year Award. He earned a 2015 UW Board of Regents Diversity award in February. The American Historical Association is a nonprofit membership organization founded in 1884 to promote historical studies. Today, it’s the largest organization of historians in the U.S. with more than 13,000 members.