Katherine Scott Sturdevant
M.A., San Francisco State University
Katherine Scott Sturdevant is a passionate historian and a compassionate teacher.
She has practiced "public history" (history projects beyond teaching) with its varied
applications since her doctoral program in the same. She has taught college-level
history for over 35 years. As a native San Franciscan, she has always been dedicated
to diversity, equity, and inclusion. As someone who overcame speech anxiety to teach
and be a frequent speaker for organizations, she has gently encouraged students to
overcome their own fears. As a well-published writer and editor, she also helps students
improve their writing skills without pressure. She turned away from memorized testing
because she prefers students to learn to recall history from its fascination not by
rote memorization. A frequent comment about Kathy is "she makes history come alive."
Pikes Peak State College, Senior History Faculty
Pikes Peak Community College, past Adjunct Faculty, Chair of Social Sciences; Chair of History; History State Discipline Chair
University of Colorado, Colorado Springs, Honorarium Faculty, History: US, Women’s, Colorado History
Colorado College, Visiting Faculty, History and Southwest Studies
Historical Editor/Review Editor, Annals of Iowa, Iowa State Historical Society
Review Editor, Journal of the Southwest, University of Arizona
Review Editor, The Public Historian, University of California, Santa Barbara
Long-time member and Chair, Curriculum and Instructional Practices Committee
Numerous search-and-screen committees for faculty, staff, and administrators and numerous ad hoc committees on issues & projects; PPCC Retention Committee, Advising Task Force, Teacher Education Transfer Program, Center for Excellence in Teaching and Learning
Content Consultant, 1994-7, Colorado Department of Education, Elementary/Secondary Social Studies
Founding Chair, Board of Directors, Ira Sturdevant House, Waverly, Iowa (Historic Restoration Project) achieving 501c3 status; receiving state grants, creating Sturdevant Southwest Historic District and placement of both house and district in National Register of Historic Places; achieved Emerging Site status in Silos and Smokestacks National Heritage Area
Trained by Institute for the Editing of Historical Documents from NHPRC (National Historical Publications and Records Commission)
Annual Grant Evaluator, National Historical Publications and Records Commission
First Faculty Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Award, PPCC, 2017
Rockefeller Foundation Scholarship for Public Historical Studies, UC Santa Barbara, annual during PhD program
PPCC Faculty of the Year Award, 2004
NISOD (National Institute for Staff and Organizational Development) Teaching Excellence Award 2004
Colorado Education Association "Shining Star" Award, 2004
National Education Association Finalist, Teacher of the Year, 2004
Horace Mann /NEA Award for Teaching Excellence (first for Higher Ed), 2004
National Foundation for the Improvement of Education Teaching Excellence Award (first in Higher Ed), finalist, 2004
Certificate of Appreciation for Commitment and Dedication to CCC Online
Apple Core Award, for serving as “the Heart and Soul of PPEA and your Local Association, Pikes Peak Community College Faculty Association,” 2001-2002
Helen Hunt Jackson Fellowship, Colorado College Southwest Studies, 3 annual awards
Association of Professional Genealogists, honored as one of top 10 articles, “Writing Analytical Book Reviews”
U.S. History I & II (multiple formats including learning communities, ITV, Online); US History Since 1945; Colorado History; US Women's History I & II;; History of the Pikes Peak Region; Native American History; American Environmental History; American Family History and Genealogy; History of the American Southwest; History of the Civil Rights Movement; The Civil War; The Vietnam War; African American History; Immigration in American History (Note: Some of these used to be regular offerings, some "Special Topics," some built around PBS Ken Burns's Series, some Annenberg Documentary Courses, but all PPCC.)
Learning Communities Team-Taught with COM Faculty Stephen Collins
US History 1 with Public Speaking
US History 2 with Advanced Public Speaking
US History since 1945 with Group Communication
Bringing Your Family History to Life through Social History (Betterway Books)
Organizing and Preserving Your Heirloom Documents (Betterway Books)
Selected Scholarly Articles, Chapters in Anthologies, Editing
“Sacrifices for Service: Amache Voluntarism, Missionary Martyrdom, & Legendary Memory” and “Singing for Unsung Heroes: Kathy Stegner Odum, Teacher to Amache Nisei Youth,” in Military Matters: Defense, Development, and Dissent in the Pikes Peak Region, Pikes Peak Library District (2020)
“Manifest Destiny Comes to the Great American Desert: How Expansionist Legends Fared in the Rocky Mountain West” in Myths & Mysteries of the Rocky Mountain West, PPLD (2016)
“Still Rising from the Ashes: The Victor Miners Union Hall” in Enduring Legacies & Forgotten Landmarks: The Built Environment of the Pikes Peak Region, Pikes Peak Library District, (2017)
"Hidden Hero at the Printing Press: Emma F. Langdon and Miners’ Rights" in Remarkable Rascals, Despicable Dudes, & Hidden Heroes of the Pikes Peak Region, Pikes Peak Library District, (2018)
“Provocateur Marshall Sprague: ‘Supreme teller of fascinating tales about people and events in Colorado Springs history’ in Poets, Professors, and Provocateurs. PPLD (2019)
“The Quaker Trail: Moral Infiltration, Disintegration, and Revival in the Pikes Peak Region” in Iron Rails, Wagon Trails, & Snail Mail, Pikes Peak Library District, (2020).
“’Instant Civilization’: The Engineer of ‘Progress’ and the Magic Early Years of Colorado Springs” in Nice, Naughty, & Notable: Colorado Springs at 150, Pikes Peak Library District, (2021).
“Daughters & Fathers: Secret Family Tradition Informs Sand Creek” in Massacre, Murder, and Mayhem in the Rocky Mountain West, Pikes Peak Library District, [also, co-editor of volume]
“Crossing the Denial Divide: Arid West Lessons from the Waldo Canyon and Black Forest Fires,” in Disasters in the Pikes Peak Region, Pikes Peak Library District
“Baby Boom” and “Greatest Generation,” Encyclopedia of Family Studies, 2016.
“Thanksgiving,” “Ethnic Foods,” and “Grandparents’ Day,” in Encyclopedia of the Social History of the American Family, 2014.
“Big Bill Haywood,” “Colorado Labor Wars,” “Western Federation of Miners,” Dubofsky, ed. Oxford Encyclopedia of American Business, Labor, and Economic History, 2013.
“Abigail Adams,” “John Adams,” “Rodgers and Hammerstein,” Rubin and Casper, eds., Oxford Encyclopedia of American Cultural and Intellectual History, 2013.
Co-Editor, Doctors, Disease, and Dying in the Pikes Peak Region, Pikes Peak Library District, 2013.
“Photographer Laura Gilpin: Colorado’s “Highly Individualistic Eye”1891-1979” in Film and Photography on the Front Range, Pikes Peak Library District Regional History Series, 2012.
Co-Author, "Frederick Douglass and Abraham Lincoln on Black Equity in the Civil War: A Historical-Rhetorical Study," in ASALH Black History Bulletin, Sept. 2010.
Co-Editor/Co-Author, Extraordinary Women of the Rocky Mountain West, PPLD, 2009.
Co-Author, “The History and Rhetoric of the NAACP: The Origins,” Black Hist. Bulletin, 2008.
“John Harper, Deported Miner: The Cripple Creek Strike as Family History,” in The Colorado Labor Wars: Cripple Creek, 1903-1904, A Centennial Commemoration, PPLD, 2006.
Co-Editor/Author, "The Black Family," Special issue Black History Bulletin, 2021.
Author, “Colorado Gold Rush,” “Exodusters,” “Women’s Voting Rights,” and Co-Author, “Immigration and Migration,” Sage Encyclopedia of Politics in the American West, 2013
Co-Editor, Rush to the Rockies: The Pikes Peak Gold Rush of 1858, Pikes Peak Library District, 2013.
Author, “Keeping people in touch is very important right now”: Facebook Reports on the Waldo Canyon Fire from PPCC” in Rearrange: A Creative Nonfiction Online Journal of PPCC, 2012; also the basis of WCF exhibit, Colorado Springs Pioneers Museum 2013.
Educational Editor, Space and Humanity: A Historical Encyclopedia. ABC-Clio, 2010.
Co-Editor/Co-Author, Legends, Labors and Loves: William Jackson Palmer, 1836-1909, PPLD, 2009.
Co-Editor/Co-Author, “To Spare No Pains” Zebulon M. Pike & His 1806-1807 Southwest Exped., PPLD, 2008.
Editor/Co-Author, Sundays in Tutt Library with Frank Waters, Colorado College, 1988
Speaker/panelist, national conferences, Western History Association, Org. of American Historians, Western Assoc. of Women Historians, Higher Learning Commission, Assoc. for Documentary Editing, Nat’l Genealogical Society, Federation of Genealogical Societies, Assoc. for Study of African Amer. Life & History, Society for the Study of American Women Writers
Regular (Volunteer) Instructor, PILLAR (Peak Institute for Lifelong Learning) on history topics. PILLAR developed from PPCC Senior Programs in which I participated for years before that program closed. I usually teach 1-2 classes for them each term.
Organization of American Historians
Western History Association
Colorado Women's Hall of Fame (selection committee, nominator)
Colorado Historical Society
Iowa State Historical Society
Association for the Study of African American Life and History
Association for Documentary Editing
U.S. Social History
Family History and Genealogy
Women's History
Black History
Native American History
American Immigration History
Western History
Colorado History
Pikes Peak Region History
California History
American & British Literature