Rate My Professor Susan Rugh

Susan S. Rugh is a professor of history at Brigham Young University, where she also serves as dean of Undergraduate Education. She earned a B.A. from Brigham Young University in 1974, an M.A. in American History from the University of Chicago in 1986, and a Ph.D. in American History from the same institution in 1993. Her career trajectory includes serving as an assistant professor at St. Cloud State University from 1993 to 1997, followed by positions at Brigham Young University as assistant professor from 1997 to 2002, associate professor from 2002 to 2009, and professor since 2009. Additionally, she was named associate dean of the College of Family, Home, and Social Sciences in 2008 and dean of Undergraduate Education in 2016.

Rugh's research interests encompass cultural history, particularly tourism in North America from 1914 to the present, as well as nineteenth-century family farming and rural communities in the Midwest. She is the author of Our Common Country: Family Farming, Culture, and Community in the Nineteenth-Century Midwest (Indiana University Press, 2001), Are We There Yet? The Golden Age of American Family Vacations (University Press of Kansas, 2008), and Family Vacation (Gibbs Smith Press, 2009), with No Vacancy: The Rise and Fall of Motels in America under contract with the University Press of Kansas. Notable publications include “Branding Utah: Industrial Tourism in the Postwar American West” (Western Historical Quarterly, Winter 2006), “Family Travel, National Parks, and the Cold War West” (University of Nevada Press, 2011), and “Selling Sleep: The Rise and Fall of Utah’s Historic Motels” (Utah State University Press, 2009). The article “Branding Utah” received the Michael P. Malone Award from the Western History Association and the Best Utah History Article Award from the Utah State Historical Society in 2007. Other honors include the Mayor’s Award in the Humanities (2006), the Mollie and Karl G. Butler Young Scholar Award (2003), a Visiting Fellowship at the Autry Museum of Western Heritage (2003), and multiple research grants from Brigham Young University and St. Cloud State University. Rugh serves on the editorial boards of History of Tourism and BYU Studies.