With a love for history from an early age, Dr. Andrew Slap was destined to become a professor. However, he didn’t realize his passion would become his career until later into his college years.  

Andrew Slap

“History was actually my third major in college,” Slap said. “I started off in economics and then classics. My interest was primarily the American Revolution and World War II. In my sophomore year I took a Civil War class with one of the most dynamic professors I have met, Stephen Oates. That course and a couple of seminars with Leonard Richards convinced me to focus on the Civil War era.”

Fast-forward to present day, and Dr. Slap finds himself at ETSU teaching courses on the American Civil War and Reconstruction, as well as being a published author.

Some of his works include: “The Doom of Reconstruction: The Liberal Republicans n the Civil War Era,” “Confederate Cities: The Urban South during the Civil War Era” and “This Distracted and Anarchical People: New Answers for Old Questions about the Civil War-Era North.”

Slap is currently editing “Oxford Handbook on Reconstruction.”

“I felt honored to be asked to edit such a book, particularly since most of the editors of Oxford Handbooks are at major research universities,” said Slap. “I hope this can help bring some of the recognition to ETSU that it deserves.”

Regardless of how much recognition he or ETSU gets from his publication, Slap views his teaching influence as the aspect of his job he admires the most.

“I think that the most important part of my job is that I am teaching the people who will become teachers in K-12 and shape future generations,” he said. “This year I will probably teach a hundred students in upper level classes. Let us just say one of them becomes a K-12 teacher. Over the course of thirty years, he or she will affect 30,000 people.”

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