Elisabeth Davis believes in student engagement. “Students drive class discussions, and I always learn so much from them,” she says. “I want students to be a stakeholder in their education.”
Davis approaches each class session with a sense of joy and wonder, committed to making learning a joyful experience for her students.
She also partners with students in her upper-level writing intensive courses when drafting her research. “They are so helpful when I am revising for clarity and content,” she adds.
Academic History
- Ph.D., History, University at Buffalo, 2020
- M.L.S., University at Buffalo, 2022
- M.A., History, Temple University, 2014
- B.A., History, Shippensburg University, 2012
Courses Taught at Transy
- United States to 1865
- United States from 1865
- Women’s History
Areas of Research and Specialization
- American history
- Women’s history
- Indigenous studies
- Religious studies
Recent Publications
Women Religious and Native American Boarding Schools 1847-1918, Lexington Press (in progress).
“‘Back Under the Jurisdiction of the Rev. Provincial’:The Dominican Sisters and the Limitations of Female Agency in the Nineteenth Century Catholic Church in the Midwest,” Ohio History 130 1 (Spring 2023): 9-25.
“‘To keep the Catholics intact’: The Catholic Experience at the Carlisle Indian Industrial School, 1883-1918.” U.S. Catholic Historian (Fall 2022): 1-20.
“‘It Was About Time for Our Children to Learn How to Read’: Ruby Duncan, Operation Life, and the West Las Vegas Library,” Libraries: Culture, History, and Society 6 2 (Fall 2022).
“A Softness, Slyness and Low Cunning of the Mulatto”: Mother Theresa Maxis Duchemin, Gender, and the Schism of the Sisters, Servants of the Immaculate Heart of Mary. Pennsylvania History: A Journal of Mid-Atlantic Studies 89 2 (April 2022): 249–272.
“‘A Promise of Obedience’: The Oblates of Providence and the Catholic Hierarchy,” U.S. Catholic Historian 38 1 (Winter 2020): 93-112.
“The Disappearance of Mother Agnes Spencer: The Centralization Controversy and the Antebellum Catholic Church,” American Catholic Studies 130 2 (Summer 2019): 31-52.