Benowitz, Jean-Paul
Assistant Director of Academic Advising
Director of Momentum
Adjunct Professor of History
Baugher Student Center No. 218
One Alpha Drive
Office: (717) 361-1110
Mobile: (717) 599-6462
Electronic Mail: Benowitzj@etown.edu
Elizabethtown, Pennsylvania 17022
EDUCATION:
Ph.D. Candidate (ABD), History, Temple University, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania (2012)
Major Fields: U. S. Twentieth Century Political History, International Relations, American Social History
Minor Field: American Religious History
M.A., History, Millersville University of Pennsylvania, Millersville, Pennsylvania (1993)
B.S., History, Eastern Mennonite University, Harrisonburg, Virginia (1991)
Certifications: Certified to teach Social Studies in the public schools of Virginia and Pennsylvania
TEACHING, ADVISING, COLLEGE ADMINISTRATION, RESEARCH:
Fields of Interest:
Twentieth Century American political history with an emphasis on presidential history and particularly the Roosevelt, Kennedy, and Johnson administrations. American domestic and foreign policy since 1928. American historical biography. American culture, Americana, and American studies. The impact of religion on American history, culture, and politics. The intersections of French and American history. The impact of French culture on the founding and development of America.
Courses Taught:
Elizabethtown College, Elizabethtown, Pennsylvania (1993-present)
Hist 111 American Biography
Hist 202 U.S. History Since 1877
Hist 376 The American Presidency
FYS 111 The 1960s: Triumph and Tragedy
FYS 100 Discovery: America Now
Rel 250 Citizenship and Conscience
WGS 105: Sex and Gender in Society
First Year Seminar Library Instruction
Lebanon Valley College, Annville, Pennsylvania (1998-2010)
DSP 324 The American Presidency: Power and Character
AMS 111: Introduction to American Studies
AMS 229: Culture and Conflict in Modern America the 1960s
DSP 390 Twentieth Century Viet Nam Civilization
DSP 322 The Twentieth Century World
AMS 223: American Thought and Culture
Hist 125 United States History to 1865
Hist 126 United States History since 1865
The American Presidency, Daniel Fox Youth Scholars Annual Summer Institute
Pennsylvania State University Harrisburg, Middletown, Pennsylvania (2000-2010)
AMS 325/PUBL 325: American Political Culture
AMS 406: Contemporary America: Campaigns and Elections
AMS 454.1 American Parties and Politics
Hist 012 History of Pennsylvania
Hist 003 American Nation: Historical Perspectives
Hist 020 American Civilization to 1877
Hist 021 American Civilization since 1877
Eastern Mennonite University, Harrisonburg, Virginia (1990-1991)
Hist 301 Interdisciplinary History of Nineteenth Century America
Posc 202 International Relations.
Director of Educational Programming for the Masonic Villages: Senior Historians, Elizabethtown College, Elizabethtown Pennsylvania (1996-2010) Administered an educational program for retired people involving developing an annual curriculum, creating and teaching Elderhostel, writing recruitment literature, processing registration, organizing a public lecture series and a public book review series both featuring local college/university faculty, planning and promoting educational trips abroad and nationally, teaching courses on history and public policy.
Courses Taught:
Three Women: One War; Spring 2010
Dual Colossi; Reagan and Thatcher; Fall 2009
In the Beginning: The Millennium and Magna Carta; Summer 2009
Julia Child; Spring 2009
Andrew Jackson; Fall 2008
Inside the White House: Past and Present; Summer 2008
Carnegie and Frick; Spring 2008
James and Dolly Madison, Fall 2007
William Shakespeare; Summer 2007
Abraham Lincoln; Spring 2007
Women in Colonial America; Fall 2006
America and Manifest Destiny; Summer 2006
Presidential Marriages: U. S. Presidents and First Ladies; Spring 2006
My Mother Told Me…U. S. Presidents and Their Mothers; Fall 2005
A Brief History of American Culture; Summer 2005
George Washington; Spring 2005
Pennsylvania East and West: The Johnstown Flood and John Wanamaker, Fall 2004
How Do We Understand History? Summer 2004
Charles Augustus Lindbergh; Spring 2004
John Adams, Fall 2003
Frank Lloyd Wright, Summer 2003
Huey Long, Spring 2003
Harry S. Truman; Fall 2002
America’s Very Worst Presidents; Summer 2002
Winston and Clementine Churchill, Spring 2002
The Roosevelt Women; Fall 2001
Alexander Hamilton and Aaron Burr; Summer 2001
A Modern Greek Tragedy: Lyndon and Lady Bird Johnson; Spring 2001
The American Revolution and Women in Colonial America; Fall 2000
The Greatest Generation; Summer 2000
John D. Rockefeller: The Octopus; Spring 2000
Theodore Roosevelt: The Strenuous Life; Fall 1999
Presidential Assassinations; Summer 1999
The Anabaptist Groups of Lancaster County; Summer 1999
The Kennedys: The Perils of Power and Prosperity; Spring 1999
Classic Films Discussion; Fall 1999
Benjamin Franklin: Enlightenment and Revolution in America; Fall 1998
The Anabaptist Groups of Lancaster County; Summer 1998
Thomas Jefferson’s America/Lewis and Clark; Spring 1998
Katherine Graham; Fall 1997
Theodore and Franklin Roosevelt: Comparison and Contrast; Fall 1997
The Second American Revolution: The United States and the 1960s; Spring 1997
No Ordinary Time: Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt; Spring 1997
The Unfinished Journey: America Since The Second World War; Spring 1997
The Anabaptist Groups of Lancaster County; Fall 1996
The American Presidency and Pennsylvania Politics; Fall 1996
The Anabaptist Groups of Lancaster County; Summer 1996
Advising:
Assistant Director of Academic Advising, Elizabethtown College, Elizabethtown, Pennsylvania (2010-Present) develop and implement training programs in developmental advising for faculty and staff, develop and implement programs to promote peer advising, coordinate efforts in advising with academic departments and college offices, develop and implement programs to assess the impact of academic advising services and other campus advising efforts on student learning and success, develop an advising information clearinghouse, including maintenance of the Student Academic Advising Handbook and the First Year Advisor’s Handbook, address advising questions and problems of individual students and advisors, develop and implement programs for probationary and Academic Standing Committee contract students, direct select, and implement intensive Advising first year seminar for developmental students, teach 2-3 first year seminars per year, assist with the coordination of the Early Warning system on campus. Serve on the Campus Wellness Network, Academic Standing Committee, Orientation Committee, Enrollment Management Committee and Retention sub-committee.
Faculty Advisor for First Year and Transfer Students, Elizabethtown College, Elizabethtown, Pennsylvania (2010-Present) serve as the academic advisor to first year students, undeclared/undecided students, transfer students, and international students. Develop and implement programs for undecided/exploring students, and intensive advising students.
Director of Orientation/Advising Program: Momentum, Elizabethtown College, Elizabethtown, Pennsylvania (2010-Present) created and administer a pre-orientation program for first generation, first year students with an interdisciplinary approach to introducing students to the liberal arts curriculum and the academic expectations of college life. Develop and implement advising programs for diverse student populations including ALANA students, transfer students, at risk students. Supervise the Momentum Advisor/Mentor.
Faculty Advisor for The Liberal Arts Residence, Elizabethtown College, Elizabethtown, Pennsylvania (2010-Present) created and administer a Living Learning Community for Liberal Arts majors/minors. Organize a faculty lectures series, plan and lead field trips, implement the common read program “Open Book.” Faculty Advisor for the service learning group of this LLC: TOMS Club.
Faculty Advisor for The Canterbury Club Episcopal Student Union, Elizabethtown College, Elizabethtown, Pennsylvania (1998-2005) faculty advisor and founder coordinated Episcopal clergy to celebrate Holy Eucharist on campus, planned and led field trips, service learning projects, discussion groups, educational sessions.
Admissions Counselor, Elizabethtown College, Elizabethtown, Pennsylvania (1998-2000), author and editor of student recruitment literature for the Office of Admissions, as well as interviewing prospective students, faculty representative for promotional programs, summer and fall orientation.
HISTORICAL LIBRARY AND ARCHIVES:
Archives of the Mennonite Church, Goshen College, Goshen Indiana (1991-1993)
Menno Simons Archives and Historical Library, Eastern Mennonite University, Harrisonburg, Virginia (1987-1991)
The Young Center for Anabaptist and Pietist Studies, Elizabethtown College (1993-1996)
The Executive Committee of the Lancaster Mennonite Historical Society and 1719 Hans Herr House Museum, Lancaster,
Pennsylvania (1991-1996)
High Library and Archives, Elizabethtown College, Elizabethtown, Pennsylvania (2000-present)
Finkelstein Memorial Library and Local History Collection, Spring Valley, New York (1984-1991)
PUBLICATIONS:
Books:
Make Yourself at Home: Tabor Community Services: Housing and Financial Counseling; Forty Years of Rebuilding Lives and Community, 1968-2008 (Lancaster, PA: Tabor Community Services, Inc., 2009).
Journal Articles:
“Maintaining Mennonite Identity: The Old Order Mennonite Church in Pennsylvania and Virginia.” Pennsylvania Folklife. 46
(Winter, 1997) 71-82.
“Mennonites of Pennsylvania: A House Divided.” Pennsylvania Folklife. 46 (Autumn, 1996) 2-19.
“One Hundred Years of Old Order Mennonite Church Community.” Mennonite Historical Bulletin. 64 (October, 1993) 8-11
“The Old Order Mennonite Division of 1893: An Interpretation.” Pennsylvania Mennonite Heritage. 16 (October, 1993) 14-17.
THESES, DISSERTATIONS, UNPUBLISHED WORKS:
“James Wadsworth Symington: The Best Man.” Ph.D. diss., Temple University [forthcoming]
“Community and Conflict: The Structuring of the Old Order Mennonite Church in Virginia.” Master’s thesis, Millersville University
of Pennsylvania, 1993
“The ‘Dissatisfied Ones:’ Change and Adaptation Within the Old Order Mennonite Church of Virginia, 1901-1991.” Senior thesis,
Eastern Mennonite University, 1991.
RESEARCH AND COLLABORATIVE WRITING:
Kraybill, Donald and Hurd, James. Horse and Buggy Mennonites: Hoofbeats of Humility in a Postmodern World. University Park:
Pennsylvania State Press, 2006.
Kraybill, Donald and Bowman, Carl. On the Backroad to Heaven: Old Order Hutterites, Mennonites, Amish, and Brethren.
Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2001.
Keim, Albert N. Harold S. Bender 1897-1962. Scottdale: Herald Press with The Mennonite Historical Society, 1998.
Kraybill, Donald and Nolt, Steven. Amish Enterprise: From Plow to Profits. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1995, 2004.
LECTURES, CONFERENCES, PRESENTATIONS, PUBLIC BOOK REVIEWS:
“Alcott’s Pen, Prose, Men, and Martyrs: Louisa May Alcott’s Civil War Saga Lecture,” Elizabethtown Public Library, Saturday 29
October 2011, Elizabethtown, PA.
“President Wilson’s Six Months in Paris: 1919, Versailles, and the League of Nations,” Eighty-fifth Annual Meeting of the Woodrow
Wilson Birthday Association, Tuesday 28 December 2010, Camp Hill, Pennsylvania.
“Presidential Fashion: From Powdered Whigs to Pin Stripes, 220 Years of Executive Style,” Thirty-ninth Popular Culture and Thirty-
first American Culture Associations Joint Annual Conference, “Fashion Appearance and Consumer Identity,” New Orleans,
Louisiana April 2009.
“Woodrow Wilson: From Memoir to Motion Picture,” Eighty-third Annual Meeting of the Woodrow Wilson Birthday Association,
Sunday 28 December 2008, Camp Hill, Pennsylvania.
“Presidential Eats: Cultural Culinary Contributions on the White House and Society,” Thirty-eighth Popular Culture and Thirtieth
American Culture Associations Joint Annual Conference, “Food and Popular Culture: Food and Cultural Politics,” San
Francisco, California April 2008.
“The Senators Kennedy: Jack, Bobby, and Ted; Sixty Years of The Life and Work of The Kennedy Brothers in the United States
Senate,” Thirty-seventh Popular Culture and Twenty-ninth American Culture Associations Annual Conference, “Local
Culture of Boston III: Boston Arts, Literature, and Politics,” Boston, Massachusetts April 2007.
“American Popular Culture According to Saddam Hussein: While Guarding the Former President of Iraq, Five U. S. Soldiers Teach
and Learn about Popular Culture,” Thirty-sixth Popular Culture and twenty-eighth American Culture Associations Annual
Conference, “Biography III,” Atlanta, Georgia April 2006.
“D. W. Griffith and Mel Gibson: History, Movie Making, and Controversy,” Thirty-fifth Popular Culture and twenty-seventh
American Culture Associations Annual Conference, “Biography and Film,” San Diego, California March 2005.
“The Challenges of Defining the Realm of Modern American History,” 2004 Conference of The Historical Society, “Reflections on
the Current State of Historical Inquiry,” Session IIC “Revisionist Approaches to American Historiography,” 3 June 2004 Spruce Point Inn, Boothbay Harbor, Maine.
“The Big Daddy Complex and U.S. Presidents From The South,” Thirty-fourth Popular Culture and Twenty-sixth American Culture
Association Annual Conference, “Biographical Image of Big Daddy in Literature, Film, and Politics,” San Antonio, Texas April 2004.
“Eisenhower the Democrat? Reconsidering the American Presidency and Popular Culture of the 1950s,” Thirty-third Popular Culture
and Twenty-fifth American Culture Association Annual Conference, “Political Biography,” New Orleans, Louisiana April 2003.
“Jacqueline Kennedy and Lady Bird Johnson: Transition and Turbulence, Setting New Boundaries for the Role of First Lady,” Thirty-
second Popular Culture and Twenty-fourth American Culture Association Annual Conference, “Biography: Historical and
Literary Biography,” Toronto, Canada March 2002.
“ ‘Well I Remember…’James W. Symington, Eyewitness to a Turbulent World: The Challenges of Reconciling Oral History to the
Historical Record,” Annual Oral History Association’s Conference “Bearing Witness: Documenting Memories of Struggle and Resistance,” St. Louis, Missouri October 2001.
“Presidential Biography and the Art of Debunking: The Impact of Biography on the Historical Records and Political Process in
American Culture,” Thirty-first popular Culture Association and Twenty-third American Culture Association Annual
Conference “Biography: Historical and Literary Biography,” Philadelphia, Pennsylvania April 2001.
“Citizenship and Conscience: The Separation of Church and State with Regard to Military Conscription and Conscientious Objection
in United States History, 1776-1976, “Sixty-ninth Anglo-American Conference of Historians “War and Peace,” Institute of Historical Research School of Advance Study, University of London, July 2000.
“The Cultural Transformation of the White House from the Kennedys to the Johnsons, 1960-1969,” Thirtieth Popular Culture
Association and Twenty-second American Culture Association Annual Conference “The Sixties: The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly,” New Orleans, Louisiana April 2000.
“Revolutionary Religion: The Establishment of the Protestant Episcopal Church of North America During the American Revolution in
Pennsylvania,” The Pennsylvania State Service, The Washington Memorial Episcopal Chapel, Valley Forge, Pennsylvania September 1998.
“Divisions and Revisions: The Establishment and Progression of the Old Order Mennonite Church, 1893-1993,” The Centennial Year
of the Old Order Mennonite Church, The Lancaster Mennonite Historical Society, Weaverland Mennonite Meetinghouse, Blue Ball, Pennsylvania March 1993.
Book Reviews: Presented at the Lebanon Valley College Faculty Book Review Summer Series Pennsylvania Chautauqua Mount
Gretna, Pennsylvania:
Jon Kukla, Mr. Jefferson’s Women. New York: Vintage Books, 2007. Summer 2010.
Thurston Clarke, The Last Campaign: Robert F. Kennedy and 82 Days that Inspired America. New York: Henry Holt and Company,
2008. Summer 2009.
Cordery, Stacy. Alice: Alice Roosevelt Longworth: From White House Princess to Washington Power Broker. New York: Putnam
Penguin, 2007. Summer 2008.
Brandreth, Gyles. Philip and Elizabeth: Portrait of A Royal Marriage. New York: W. W. Norton and Company, 2004.
Summer 2007.
Philbrick, Nathaniel. Mayflower: A Story of Courage, Community, and War. New York: Viking Press, 2006. Summer 2007.
Zacks, Richard, The Pirate Coast: Thomas Jefferson, The First Marines, and the Secret Mission of 1805. New York: Hyperion, 2005.
Summer 2006.
Melanson, Philip H. The Secret Service: Hidden History of an Enigmatic Agency. New York: Carroll and Graf Publications, 2002.
Summer 2005.
Marton, Katie. Hidden Power: Presidential Marriages Shaped Our History. New York: Anchor Books, 2001. Summer 2004.
Wead, Doug. All The President’s Children: Triumph and Tragedy in the Lives of America’s First Families. New York: Atria
Books, 2003. Summer 2004.
Clymer, Adam. Edward M. Kennedy: A Biography. New York: Pernnial, 1999. Summer 2003.
Angelo, Bonnie. First Mothers: Women Who Shaped the Presidents. New York: William Morrow, 2000. Summer 2001.
Jan Jarboe Russell, Lady Bird Johnson: A Biography of Mrs. Johnson. New York: Scribner, 1999. Summer 2000.
TEACHING AWARDS:
Student sponsored Faculty Award, Elizabethtown College, November 2005
Faculty Distinguished Scholar Award, Lebanon Valley College, October 2005
Faculty Service Award, Lebanon Valley College, May 2004
Faculty Appreciation Award, Lebanon Valley College, October 2004
Student sponsored Faculty Award, Elizabethtown College, March 2002
Who’s Who Among America’s Teachers 2006-2007, eleventh edition
Who’s Who Among America’s Teachers 2005-2006, tenth edition
Who’s Who Among America’s Teachers 2004-2005, ninth edition
Who’s Who Among America’s Teachers 2003-2004, eighth edition.
CERTIFICATIONS AND LICENSES:
Licensed Lay Reader and Eucharistic Minister, Episcopal Diocese of Central Pennsylvania
Certified Spinning Instructor, Specialized Athletic Training Achievement Ranking
Certified in Standard First Aid, CPR/AED Adult, The American Red Cross
BOARD OF DIRECTORS/TRUSTEES MEMBERSHIP:
Historic Harrisburg Association – Member Board of Directors and Chair, Education Committee.
Department of Higher Education for the Episcopal Diocese of Central Pennsylvania.
Christian Churches United – Member Board of Directors, Fund Raising Committee.
Saint Luke’s Episcopal Church – Vestryman
The Cathedral Church of Saint Stephen – Vestryman
PROFESSIONAL MEMBERSHIPS:
American Historical Association
Organization of American Historians
National Council for History Education
American Studies Association
Oral History Association
American Culture Association – Area Chair Local Culture
Popular Culture Association – Area Chair, Biography and Popular Culture
National Academic Advising Association