Rate My Professor Will Stoutamire

Stoutamire joined UNK in 2014 as the first full-time director of the G.W. Frank Museum of History and Culture, overseeing its reinvention with expanded programming, exhibits, and student involvement in museum operations until 2019; he also served as a graduate lecturer in history. Following a year as assistant professor and co-director of the Center for Public History at the University of West Georgia, he returned to UNK in 2020 as assistant professor, advancing to associate professor. His research focuses on early museums and preservation efforts in the American West, emphasizing the Antiquities Act's origins amid settler colonialism, Progressive-era nationalism, and regional identities; he is completing a book manuscript, Imagining Antiquity: A New History of the American Antiquities Act. Key publications include the C.L. Sonnichsen Award-winning “‘Every Yard Boasted a Metate’: Pothunting, Archaeology, and the Creation of the Museum of Northern Arizona” (Journal of Arizona History, 2022), “Past, Present, and Heritage” (2023), “Imagined Heritage: A Local History of Walnut Canyon National Monument” (The Public Historian, 2016), and National Park Service reports such as “Creating the Monuments” (2013). Awards include the University of Nebraska KUDOS Award and National Council on Public History New Professional Award (both 2016). He holds leadership roles as treasurer of the Mountain-Plains Museums Association, co-chair of the National Council on Public History’s Long Range Planning Committee, and member of editorial boards for The Journal of Arizona History and the American Association for State and Local History series; he also serves on the Center for Great Plains Studies Board of Governors.