Dr. Joel Sipress

About 

Joel is a guitarist whose proudest moments include the live outdoor performance of the Who’s Tommy LP that he participated in on the UW-Superior campus. He currently serves on the Duluth, Minnesota City Council.

Professional Background

Joel Sipress has taught at the University of Wisconsin-Superior since 1994, with a focus on U.S. and Latin American History. He is a passionate believer in the transformative power of learning and encourages his students to think in deep and meaningful ways about the big questions in the field of History. His ultimate goal is for students to become empowered to make their own sense of the complex and oftentimes troubling world that we live in. He received his Ph.D. in U.S. History from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill where he studied the relationship between race and class in the construction of the modern political system of the American South.

Research Interests

As is befitting his role as a faculty member at a public university campus that emphasizes excellence in undergraduate education, the primary scholarly focus of Joel Sipress has been in the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning. He is co-editor of the Debating American History series published by Oxford University Press, which makes available course materials to support argument-based undergraduate History courses – courses in which students are asked to consider the merits of rival scholarly positions on important questions in the field and to argue for their own conclusions on the basis of historical evidence. He has also published a series of articles exploring late nineteenth-century Louisiana politics with an emphasis on the relationship between race and class in the construction of the one-party system that dominated southern politics for most of the twentieth century.

Awards & Honors

2012, Maryellen Weimer Scholarly Work on Teaching and Learning Award.  

2011, Award granted for article, “The End of the History Survey:  The Rise and Fall of the Coverage Model.” (with David J. Voelker) Journal of American History 97 (March 2011)  

1999-2000, University of Wisconsin System, Wisconsin Teaching Fellow  

1997, University of Wisconsin-Superior, Teaching Performance Award  

Most Recent Degrees

1993 - Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.) - United States History - University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill - Dissertation/thesis topic: "The Triumph of Reaction:  Political Struggle in a New South Community, 1865-1898."

1989 - Master of Arts (M.A.)  - United States History - University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

1986 - Bachelor of Arts (B.A.) - History - Princeton University