Peter Coogan

ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR OF HISTORY EMERITUS

For much of his career at Hollins, Peter Coogan was one of the most sought-after faculty members for speaking engagements at schools, civic groups, and other organizations in Southwest Virginia. And with good reason: Coogan drew upon his expertise in presidential leadership and other facets of modern American and world history to present entertaining and thought-provoking lectures such as “Myths of the Second World War,” “The War in Vietnam,” and “Presidential Character and Leadership in the 20th Century.” “…historians like Coogan look beyond legend,” the Danville Register & Bee reported following his presentation on the “Presidential Character” topic to students at Chatham Hall in 1996.

Community audiences were getting a taste of what undergraduate and graduate students had enjoyed since Coogan joined the Hollins faculty in 1988: incisive explorations of topics ranging from the Cold War and America’s rise to power to foreign relations and national security policy designed to enlighten, prompt debate, and probe conventional wisdom.

“Studying under Peter Coogan and [Associate Professor of History] Rachel Nuñez in the history department inspired a curiosity to learn about and question the world around me and the world that existed before me,” said Meika Downey ’17, who went on from Hollins to pursue a Master of Arts in history at Virginia Commonwealth University. “Academically, professionally, and personally, my time at Hollins was a transformative experience and informed who I am now. Perhaps the most important and transferable skills with which I emerged were the abilities to think critically and communicate orally and in writing. The academic rigor with which Professors Coogan and Nuñez taught their classes also invariably prepared me for graduate school.”

When asked in what ways her Hollins experience had influenced her since she graduated, Megan Stolz Rogers ’09 stated that among other benefits, “I learned in one of Professor Coogan’s classes that it’s important to bring something of value to the conversation, rather than talking simply for the sake of talking.”

One of Coogan’s lasting contributions to Hollins began in 2006, when he and other academic division representatives were tasked with identifying an aspect of student learning and not only developing a plan to improve it, but also to launch an initiative that would actually be transformative for Hollins students.

“The first thing that struck us was that all our so-called ‘signature’ programs, such as internships and study abroad, were closed to first-year students—there was nothing specific for them to help them get going,” Coogan recalled in a 2013 interview for Hollins magazine. “We also figured out our first-year students were coming out of high school needing help with writing and thinking. What made sense to us was a program that focused on the first-year experience.”

Coogan and his colleagues developed the idea for the university’s first-year seminar program (FYS), and it proved to be an outright success: Hollins’ scores in a number of National Survey of Student Engagement categories improved dramatically. As noted in the Quality Enhancement Plan that Hollins completed for the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools Commission on Colleges, “These seminars [emphasize] not just the traditional skills of research, writing, and verbal communication, they also [seek] to improve students’ passion for learning, their ability to learn collaboratively and to make connections between ideas across disciplines, and their abilities to solve problems actively and creatively.”

At its inception, Coogan served as codirector of FYS and even taught one of the seminars, History Rocks. Among his students over the years was Aditi Sharma ’21, who came to Hollins from Nepal. Adjusting to the new environment, speaking English all the time, and missing her family were at times stressful, and she credits Coogan and the seminar with boosting her confidence.

“Professor Coogan and that class encouraged me to speak out. I’m very vocal now about a lot of things. My high school friends wouldn’t recognize me. I was so timid then and in the shadows. In [Professor] Coogan’s class you were obliged to talk, and once that started happening, my confidence grew. History Rocks really helped me, and I can’t thank him enough.”