MacGonagle Serves as Global Scholars Director
In the fall of 2022, Dr. Elizabeth MacGonagle, associate professor of history and African and African-American Studies, was named the director of Global Scholars. Professor MacGonagle is the is the only professor to teach the Global Scholars Seminar twice and is a steadfast mentor, reviewer, and supporter of the Global Scholars program. She replaces Dr. Megan Greene, professor of history, who had been the director since 2017.
“I am thrilled that Dr. MacGonagle has agreed to direct the Global Scholars program,” said Dr. Charles Bankart, KU’s senior internationalization officer. “Her contributions to this program over the years as a seminar leader and as an active and engaged mentor to our scholars have had significant positive impact. In addition to her academic qualifications, she brings a deep commitment to this work as a faculty member and true passion, qualities that she shares with Professor Greene, who has done a tremendous job building this program by bringing in extraordinary faculty members to serve as seminar leaders and mentors over the years. We are deeply indebted to Dr. Greene for her leadership of this program, and I am excited to see where Professor MacGonagle takes Global Scholars moving into the future.”
A global scholar herself, Dr. MacGonagle’s research focuses on the process of identity formation in African and diasporic settings. Her work crosses historical, geographical, and theoretical boundaries to examine linkages among nation, culture, and ethnicity. She has received grants from Fulbright, Fulbright-Hays, the Social Science Research Council, and the American Philosophical Society, among others, to support research in Africa, Europe, Latin America, and the Caribbean. She speaks Portuguese and Shona (Ndau), a Bantu language spoken by nearly 1.5 million people in central Mozambique and southeastern Zimbabwe, and has studied Kiswahili and French.
Dr. MacGonagle won the prestigious KU George and Eleanor Woodyard International Educator Award in 2022. The selection committee cited her 8-year tenure as the director of the Kansas African Studies Center, where she built research networks and secured more than $3 million in federal grants, as one of her greatest accomplishments. Additionally, Dr. MacGonagle regularly offers classes on modern Africa and African history and has co-created new courses on the history of sexuality and gender in Africa and the liberation of southern Africa. Her mentorship and support of students from diverse backgrounds, dedication to securing funding for students to research and study abroad, and efforts to bring African students and scholars to KU makes her uniquely qualified to lead Global Scholars.
“As both my seminar instructor and mentor in the KU Global Scholars program, Professor McGonagle transformed my academic trajectory with her knowledge of and passion for the past histories and living memories of the African continent,” said Alex Cateforis (2017 Cohort). “Moreover, Professor McGonagle’s kindness, dedication, and patience in and out of the classroom shines just as bright as her passion and knowledge in her field. I’m happy to know that KU Global Scholars is in great hands going forward.”
Along with Global Scholars, Dr. MacGonagle is continuing her work in supporting underrepresented students’ international travel with a grant through the State Department’s Increase and Diversify Education Abroad for U.S. Students (IDEAS) Program. She and Dr. Luciano Tosta, associate professor of Spanish & Portuguese and director of the Center for Global & International Studies, received the competitive grant to develop a hybrid study abroad program, which is KU’s first such program. The program will explore the interconnections among race, history and health in Africa and the African diaspora. By focusing on Nigeria, Cuba and Brazil, students will examine how the enslavement of Africans in the Americas explains health and social disparities in those countries. The program’s themes, location and hybrid format were designed to attract a demographic of students traditionally underrepresented in study abroad programs.