Tom Isern, University Distinguished Professor of history, has been published in the Social Science Journal. The article comprises his presidential address delivered last April to the annual meeting of the Western Social Science Association in Denver. Isern was the organization’s president in 2012-13.

The five-page lead article, titled “Agency, Complexity, Memory: A Scholarship for Western Places,” appeared in the March issue of the journal, which is the publication of the association.

“I don't generally get worked up about publication of a journal article, but this one is the source of some satisfaction to me,” Isern wrote on his Goodreads blog. “It comes from my sustained work with graduate students studying the history of the Great Plains. It presents a philosophy of historical practice and represents my best advice to them as they attempt to master (ironic verb) the literature. More than that, it conveys our mutual attempt not just to be current in the literature, but rather to advance thought about our historical experience on the plains – to foster ‘good history’ in the full sense of the term.”

NDSU is recognized as one of the nation’s top 108 public and private universities by the Carnegie Commission on Higher Education.