Proposing a Business and History program
30 March 2015 – Robert Pomeroy
Tag cloud from Centre for Regulation and Market Analysis conference in Adelaide, South Australia. Image credit: University of South Australia
Some nineteen categories of public history programs are now offered. Many offer skills and knowledge useful for specialized businesses (archival practices, business histories, publishing). None prepare history students for general business careers. Business and History is designed to fill this void by linking historians’ methods to solving problems common to private enterprise.
Broader in scope than a course on historiography, the proposed program deals with collecting, organizing and verifying evidence, analyzing data, and presenting informed, logical conclusions in a business setting. Untraditional sources include press reports, media commentary, Internet blogs, and hearsay. Tight deadlines are routine.
Five units supplement Business and History’s instruction in historical methods. They introduce accounting and finance, quantitative analysis, information management, marketing, and communications. All are key to students’ understanding of the business case studies included as part of the program. The proposal concludes with recommendations on staffing, business contacts, and career advice. A bibliography and information on aspects of the program’s content are also attached.
Business and History addresses a significant quandary faced by history students who value the study of history but lack clear career goals, have no intention to teach, and have vague plans for graduate study in areas such as business, law, or journalism. Chances are such students have neither been exposed to classroom instruction on how to apply their learning in a business setting, nor have they received meaningful help from campus career services.
Business seeks literate, numerate employees, able to reason and apply substantive knowledge. Business and History instruction meets these requirements and prepares students to employ reason, place events in time, judge cause and effect, and present fact-based conclusions.
A trial Business and History program could be introduced as a senior undergraduate History Seminar, or an addendum to an existing Public History program. Once developed, it can then be offered as a stand-alone graduate history program.
The Serenus Press is publicizing this proposal on its website and will be contacting individual history departments nationally for comments and participation. We urge the National Council on Public History to join in developing Business and History.
~ Robert Pomeroy, a history graduate (Stanford ’57), followed a career in finance. During this time, he joined in organizing the National Council on Public History. On retiring as Project Analysis Advisor to the Inter-American Development Bank, he organized and served as publisher of the Serenus Press, promoting the study of history and its uses on non-academic settings.