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History Graduate Student Association

History Graduate Student Association (HGSA)

Welcome to the HGSA at Western!

The History Graduate Student Association plays a key role in the graduate community at Western. We act as a liaison between the Department of History and graduate organizations across campus. The HGSA plans social events, network opportunities, and assists professional development opportunities within the department. The HGSA holds bi-monthly meetings to discuss department concerns, plans, and ideas. Membership is free. All graduate students enrolled in the Department of History are considered members of the HGSA.

Our Constitution

Join us for our annual graduate conference
Spaces and Places: Exploring Physical and Conceptual Environments of History

Friday, March 6, 2026

These diverse environments are not a neutral backdrop for historical processes but are instead an
active force, structuring power, facilitating conflict and exchange, cultivating identities, and
mediating memory. They can be sites of communication and cooperation just as easily as they
can divide and separate. Human history is intimately tied to its innumerable environments, be
they material or social, ecological or imagined. We welcome submissions from graduate students
of all disciplines who engage with the topic of spaces and places in a historical context and
explore how these environments can construct, constrain and illuminate the past.

Possible topics include:
• Built environments and material worlds
• Liminal spaces such as frontiers, borders, ports and other contact zones
• Conceptual or symbolic spaces in history: utopias, dystopias and imagined futures
• Natural and ecological spaces, climate change and environmental exploitation
• Imperialism, power and control over space
• Places of memory (i.e. museums and historic sites): designation, construction and
maintenance

Both works in progress and submissions outside this theme will also be considered. To apply,
please submit an abstract no longer than 250 words and a brief 150-word academic biography to
hgsagradconference@gmail.com by January 4, 2026

Select Committees and Groups

The HGSA holds elections each fall and spring. There are a number of committees affiliated with the HGSA that are open for members to join.

HGSA Social Committee
HGSA Conference Committee
Society of Graduate Students (SOGS)
Undergraduate History Society liaison
Department Graduate Committee
Department Advisory Committee
Teaching Assistants' and Postdoctoral Associates' Union (PSAC 610)

McCaffrey Speakers Series

The McCaffrey seminars are a lecture series held once a month in the history department and offer graduate students the opportunity to share their research. Upper year graduate students are encouraged to apply in the summer before the school year begins in the fall. The HGSA elects a student in the spring term each year to organize the seminar series with the department.

Executive Positions - 2025-26

Co-Chairs: Huanyu Li and Scott MacGregor
Secretary: Hazel Scott Pankratz
Treasurer: Kim DelMedico
Social Committee Chair: Hannah Brett
Graduate Committee Representative: Rose Giles
Public History Representative: Beth Zentner
EDIDA Committee Representative: Huanyu Li
Advisory Committee Representative:

Social Media Coordinator: Hannah Brett
Undergraduate Liaison: Erin Case
PSAC Local 610 Departmental Stewards: Hazel Scott-Pankratz
SOGS Councillors: Rylee Brooks, Huanyu Li
McCaffrey Seminar Series Coordinator: David Seston