The Kendrick K. Kelley Program

Kendrick K. KelleyThe Kendrick K. Kelley Program in Historical Studies at Davidson College, is named after a Davidson alumnus who was killed in the Vietnam War.  Commonly known as the Kelley Program, this honors program provides a unique opportunity for outstanding history students to produce a significant piece of historical research and writing.

Kelley Scholars are chosen from among juniors who apply each spring to the Department of History for admission into the program for their senior year.  Once accepted, they participate in a year-long research and writing seminar which includes weekly group meetings, individual tutorials, readings in historiography, discussions of current research in the field, and lectures by department members and visiting historians. 

The program provides financial support for research and travel to collections for each student, and culminates in the writing of a substantial senior thesis of 80 to 100 pages.  Students are enabled to conduct in-depth research on a historical topic of interest to them and of significance within the wider community of professional historians.  Each thesis is expected to make a valuable and original contribution to historical research, based on primary sources and archival manuscript collections.

Past historical topics researched by Kelley Scholars as Kelley Theses include:

  • The Outbreak of the Peloponnesian War;
  • The British Response to the American Civil War;
  • German Response to the Armenian Genocide of 1915;
  • Land Tenancy in North Carolina in the 1930s;
  • American Responses to Indian Nationalism after World War II.
  • Elite Women's Search for Solitude in the Antebellum South.

Kelley Lecturers in the past have included the following eminent historians:

  • James McPherson (Princeton University)
  • Patricia Limerick (University of Colorado)
  • William Leuchtenberg (University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill)
  • John Gaddis (Ohio University)
  • Joseph Ellis (Mount Holyoke College)
  • William Jordan (Princeton University)
  • Nancy Hewett (Rutgers University)

The Department of History at Davidson College is deeply honored by the generosity of the family and friends of Ken Kelley.  The Ken Kelley Program in Historical Studies stands as a living monument to a gifted and self-sacrificing man who embodied Davidson values.  The program offers a remarkable opportunity for the very best students to challenge themselves as apprentices in the demanding and rewarding craft of historical research and writing.

For further information, contact the Department of History, Davidson College, Davidson, NC, 28036, or  samcmillen@davidson.edu.