Mark Higbee
Professor of History
Expertise: American political history; African American history; history of racism in the USA., Labor struggles since 1877, Racism in American higher education
About
Mark Higbee earned his PhD from Columbia University and has taught at EMU since 1994. His research is on the broad struggle to achieve the American promise of equality for all and on the resistance to that promise.
Professor Higbee joined EMU's history faculty in 1994 and is an active member of the EMU and Ypsilanti communities. He is passionate about learning and teaching history, and seeks to engage all his students – both those who profess a hatred of history and those who love it – in exploring the meanings of the past.
In 2009, Higbee accepted the request of EMU Provost Jack Kay to create a Reacting to the Past game on Frederick Douglass and slavery in American history. This task took a decade, but in June 2019, it was published by W.W. Norton in its RTTP series, as Frederick Douglass, Slavery, and the Constitution, 1845, with coauthor James Stewart. Even before publication, however, the game was used in countless classrooms across the country. Mark’s only disappointment with the Douglass game is that Jack Kay did not live long enough to see its success.
Education
- PhD, Columbia University
