TROY – Dr. Robert Pullen, dean of the college of arts and science, and Dr. Allen Dennis, associate dean, have appointed Dr. Bryant Shaw chairman of the University’s History department.

“We are pleased that Dr. Shaw has agreed to serve as chair of the department. He has been an asset to the University since he joined the faculty and will further enhance the department’s tradition of quality education,” Dr. Pullen said.

Dr. Shaw, a resident of Montgomery , joined the University’s faculty in 2001 after a 29-year career in the United States Air Force, including a stint as acting chairman of the Department of History at the United States Air Force Academy and as academic dean of the Department of Defense’s Africa Center for Strategic Studies.

Dr. Shaw is an internationally-recognized authority on Africa , especially in the training of African nations’ military forces along the lines of those of western democracies.  For the past three years, he has served as director of the Troy University General Studies Program, and won the 2004-2005 Ingalls Award for Excellence in Classroom Teaching.  For the past year, he has served as acting chair of the Department of History.

In addition to his current duties at TROY, which include teaching courses on African history, Western Civilization, U.S. history, historiography and disease and history, Dr. Shaw assists the Department of Defense on issues concerning the military and democracy and HIV/AIDS in Africa.

Dr. Shaw received his doctorate in history from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, where he received a Fulbright-Hayes Fellowship for research on the military history of the Belgian Congo . He is a Fellow of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Seminar XXI Program on Foreign Politics and International Relations.