The History Department would like to announce that it has hired Eric J. Morser as its new Early American historian. He will begin in fall 2009. Eric received his Ph.D. in History from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 2003, and has been a visiting assistant professor at the University of New Mexico, the University of Florida, and Shippensberg University. His work concerns state-building and the frontier in the early nineteenth century United States, and he has a new book coming out with University of Pennsylvania Press entitled, Frontier Visions and Urban Dreams: Capitalism and the State in the Making of a Midwestern City. In addition to our regular courses in early American history, Eric will be able to offer much needed courses on American Indian history and Environmental history.