History Faculty

Carling Beninger

B.S. (Hons.) (Valley City State University), MA (Trent University), PhD (University of Saskatchewan)

Room N3314, New Westminster campus

Tel: 604 527 5866

Room A3175, Coquitlam campus

Tel: 604 777 6113

Email: beningerc@douglascollege.ca

Carling Beninger is a settler historian whose research and teaching interests include Canadian history, settler colonialism, Indigenous education, and Indigenous activism. She teaches courses on Canadian, global, and Indigenous history. 

Before joining Douglas College as faculty, Dr. Beninger was the Visiting Assistant Professor in Indigenous History at Memorial University of Newfoundland, contract faculty in Canadian History at Douglas College, and the Olive Dickason North American Indigenous History Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of Alberta.  

Dr. Beninger is currently revising her manuscript, based on her PhD dissertation, “From Assimilation to Reconciliation: The Evolving Indigenous-Church Relations of the Anglican, Presbyterian, and United Churches of Canada, 1946-2015,” for publication. Her current project, based on her post-doctoral research, “Closing Down the Indian Residential School System: Parent and Community Activism in First Nations Education in Treaty 6 and 7 Territory in Southern Alberta, 1950s-1970s,” investigates the period in which the federal government’s First Nations education policy shifted from segregated residential schools to educating First Nations children in integrated provincial and territorial schools with non-Indigenous children in a process called school integration. Her research examines parent and community activism during a time when Indigenous leaders across Canada were demanding control of education.

Cedric Bolz

BA, BC Teacher Cert, MA (SFU), PhD (UVic)

Room N3314, New Westminster Campus

Tel: 604 527 5866

Email: bolzc@douglascollege.ca

Cedric's main research interest lie predominantly in German and European history with particular emphasis on post-World War Two Allied Reconstruction and especially the housing policies of the Krupp Steel Firm in the Ruhr Valley.

He has published: "From Garden City Precursors to Cemeteries for the Living - Contemporary Discourse on Krupp Housing and Besucherpolitik in Wihelmine Germany" in Urban History (Cambridge U) and "Krupp Housing and the Search for the Ideal German Home" in German Studies Review. 

Most recently Cedric has contributed the article: "Constructing the Official Other" to the Reaching the Summit - Reimagining the Summit Series in Canadian Cultural Memory bricolage project and published the book: The September He Remembers - Josef Kompalla and the 1972 Summit Series.

Cedric began his teaching career at the BC high school level and subsequently gained extensive post-secondary teaching experience at: UBC, UVic, SFU and KPU.

He teaches World, Early Modern as well as Modern European, World War Two and African History at Douglas College.  Currently he is developing two third-year courses: one on Modern Germany and a second on the Holocaust. 

Anyone who knows Cedric will attest that he is a big fan of soccer, especially Borussia Dortmund.

Julian Brooks

BA (UVIC), BEd (UBC), MA, PhD (SFU)

Room N3315, New Westminster campus

Tel: 604 527 5210

Email: brooksj@douglascollege.ca

Julian Brooks’ professional interests and training are in imperialism, global empires, international relations, statecraft, and genocide studies. His research has focused on nationalism, humanitarian intervention, and peacekeeping in the Balkans and the Middle East. He also likes to dabble in popular mysteries and sports history.

Julian began his teaching career with three years of teaching English as a Second Language in Europe and later taught social studies and history in the British Columbia public-school system. He has taught history at the post-secondary level since 2009 and has been at Douglas College since 2014. Julian teaches several survey courses in World History and specialized courses on the Modern Middle East, Greek Civilization, and World War One. In his ongoing efforts to engage and inform students, Julian employs a variety of mediums in his teaching, including comics, music videos, poetry, literature, feature films, performance art, as well as tried and true printed primary and secondary sources.

When he’s not teaching, writing, or reading history, Julian can often be found hiking across urban, rural, and wilderness spaces to clear his head and to maintain a modicum of physical fitness. He is an advocate for parks and wilderness protection and advises friends, family, and anyone who will listen to detach themselves from technology for a few hours and go outside.

Julian also enjoys the pure distraction and intrigue of professional sports. He is a lifelong fan of the Vancouver Canucks and other cursed and/or underachieving sports franchises and has a modest collection of jerseys and baseball caps to prove it.

Gail Edwards

BA (British Columbia); MA (Dominican University, IL, Villa Schifanoia Graduate School, Florence, Italy); MLS (British Columbia); PhD (British Columbia)

Room N3312, New Westminster Campus 

Tel: 604 527 5206 

Email: edwardsga@douglascollege.ca

Gail’s teaching and research interests include Canadian social and cultural history, the histories of Indigenous peoples in Canada and settler colonialism, the history of childhood, the history of education, and histories of print culture.

She is the co-author with Judith Saltman of Picturing Canada: A History of Canadian Children's Illustrated Books and Publishing (University of Toronto Press, 2010). Publications include “Reading Canadian: Children and National Literature in the 1920s,” in Children and Cultural Memory in the Texts of Childhood (Routledge, 2014), and “‘The Picturesqueness of His Accent and Speech’: Methodist Missionary Narratives and William Henry Pierce’s Autobiography,” in Canadian Missionaries, Indigenous Peoples: Representing Religion at Home and Abroad (University of Toronto Press, 2005). Her current research explores the intersection of children’s print culture and media with the history of storytelling and children’s programming in public libraries, focusing on complex and conflicted ideas about the relationship between Indigeneity, nature, modernity and national identity

Denis McKim

BA (Hons.) (Toronto), MA (Toronto), PhD (Toronto)

Room N3316, New Westminster Campus

Tel: 604 527 5208

Email: mckimd@douglascollege.ca

Denis McKim's teaching and research interests revolve around the (often interrelated) histories of Canada, the United States, and the Atlantic World.

Sally Mennill

BA (Simon Fraser), MA (Trent), PhD (UBC)

Room A3034, Coquitlam Campus

Tel: 604 777 6396

Room N3312, New Westminster Campus

Tel: 604 527 5206

Email: mennills@douglascollege.ca

Sally's areas of expertise include Canadian history and women's health history, specifically focused on pregnant and parturient women in post-WWII Canada. Her current research investigates birthing experiences and medical records in British Columbia. Recent publications include "Ideal Births and Ideal Babies: English-Canadian Advice Literature in the 1950s and 1960s" and "Fostering the Passive Maternal Experience: Language and Prescription in the What to Expect Series of Maternity Literature." Sally teaches Canadian history, health and medicine in history, and women's and gender studies. 

Jeff Schutts

BA (Boston), MA (Georgetown), PhD (Georgetown)

Room N3313, New Westminster Campus

Tel: 604 527 5060

Email: schuttsj@douglascollege.ca

Jeff Schutts brings a uniquely multifaceted world view into his classrooms. A graduate of Boston University (International Relations BA with distinction, 1986) and Georgetown University (MA in German and European Studies, 1997, & PhD in History, 2003), his academic training has been complemented by a rich variety of life experiences. These include service as a U.S. Army officer, activism in support of the international peace movement, involvement in the production of documentary films, and his own transnational status as an immigrant Canadian-in-training. This interest in cultural transfer and cross-disciplinarity is manifested in his PhD dissertation and current book project, Refreshing the Fatherland: The History of Coca-Cola in Germany, 1929-1961, a study of Americanization and Nazi consumer culture that reflects a historian's discipline in evaluating sources, the sensitivities of cultural theorists and the bottom-line pragmatism of political economists. Schutts' other scholarly interests include the function of militarism in modern societies (with research projects that investigate dissent within military ranks) and the role of popular historical films in shaping contemporary understanding of the past. Since moving to Vancouver in 1999, he has taught at Western Washington University, Kwantlen University College, the University of British Columbia, and Simon Fraser University, as well as his regular slate of courses in World and European History at Douglas College (H 1103, H 1104, and H 2202). His publications include, "'Die erfrischende Pause': Marketing Coca-Cola in Hitler's Germany," in Selling Modernity: Cultures of Advertising in 20th Century Germany, edited by Pamela Swett, Jonathan Wiesen, and Jonathan Zatlin (Duke University Press, 2006) and "Born Again in the Gospel of Refreshment" Coca-Colonization and the Re-Making of German Identity," in Consuming Germany in the Cold War, edited by David Crew (Berg, 2003), as well as a variety of reviews and encyclopedia entries. His documentary film projects include The Friendship Village (Cypress Park Productions, 2002) and Breaking Ranks (Screen Siren Pictures/National Film Board/Global TV, 2006).

Robin Wylie

BA (hons) (York), MA, PhD (Carleton)

Room N3316, New Westminster Campus

Tel: 604 527 5208

Email: wylier@douglascollege.ca

Robin Wylie completed an Honours Bachelor of Arts at York University in Toronto, a Master of Arts in Early Canada and a Doctorate in Modern Canadian History at Carleton University in Ottawa. His PhD thesis was on the Ontario Farm Progressives (Reform From Below? W.C. Good and Ontario Farm Progressive Challenge). Dr. Wylie also studied archival science at the University of British Columbia. Besides teaching Canadian history (from surveys to seminars on aboriginal Canada, rural Canada, and labour history) at the University of Saskatchewan and the University of British Columbia, Dr. Wylie has also worked in the heritage field as an historic research officer for the province of Ontario and as a project archivist for organizations like the Downtown Eastside Residents Association in Vancouver. His writings include historic site reports, archival fonds inventories, reviews in journals such as Labour/Le Travail, Historical Studies in Education and NeWest Review, and an article on the state of archival science research in Archivaria 39.

Rui Zhang

Room N3316, New Westminster campus

604 527-5208

zhangr28@douglascollege.ca

Elmiro Argento

BA (hons) (Calgary), PhD (Pennsylvania) 

A graduate of the University of Calgary (Hons BA, 1968) and the University of Pennsylvania (PhD, 1975), Elmiro Argento is a regular faculty member of the Department of History at Douglas College, where he has taught since 1993. He taught previously at Carleton University, the University of British Columbia and at Simon Fraser University. He teaches early modern European history, 19th-century European history, and 20th-century world history.

He has also taught 19th and 20th-century diplomatic history, the history of the 19th-century bourgeoisie, 19th-century revolutionary movements and modern European intellectual history. He is particularly interested in the politics of education in the late-19th and early-20th centuries, and the links between politics, labour markets and school systems; all the while deeply committed to exploring the meaning and relevance of history with his students.

Jacqueline Gresko

Faculty Emeritus

Jacqueline Gresko has taught at Douglas College since it opened in 1970. She has designed and taught Canadian, American and women's history courses. She was the elected Chair of Arts and Humanities, 1988-1991. She has served on a wide range of College committees with recent service on the Occupational Health and Safety Committee. Gresko directed the Fraser River Harbour Commission History Project, working with the Commission and Douglas and Kwantlen students, culminating in the publication of Fraser Port: A History in 1986. Gresko, born and brought up in New Westminster, attended the University of British Columbia where she received a BA Honours in History in 1969. In 1970 she completed her MA in Canadian Studies at Carleton University in Ottawa. Her thesis 'Qu'Appelle Industrial School: White 'Rites' for the Indians of the Old Northwest' became the base for several published articles. In 1999 she finished her PhD in Educational Studies at the University of British Columbia. Recent publications include:

"'The Serfs of the System": Oblate Brothers and Sisters of Saint Ann in British Columbia Schools, 1858-1920", Western Oblate Studies (4) 1996 "Roman Catholic Sisters and Japanese Evacuees in British Columbia", Journal of the Canadian Church Historical Society, Volume 38, No. 1 (April 1996) Dictionary of Canadian Biography entries on:  L.J. D'Herbomez OMI; Pierre-Paul Durieu OMI; Henry Holbrook; Joseph Hugonard OMI; William Henry Ladner; James M. McGuckin OMI; and Salomé Valois SSA.

Frank Leonard

Faculty Emeritus

BA (hons) (British Columbia), MA  (Toronto), PhD (York) Canadian and Asian History Frank Leonard earned both an Honours BA in History and a teacher's certificate at the University of British Columbia. After completing an MA in European and Russian History at the University of Toronto, he obtained a doctorate in Canadian History at York University. Besides working at Douglas, he has taught at Capilano College and the College of New Caledonia. He also served as a visiting scholar at Uppsala University in Sweden. Dr. Leonard published a revision of his dissertation, A Thousand Blunders: The Grand Trunk Pacific Railway and Northern British Columbia (UBC Press, 1996), which received a Regional Certificate of Merit from the Canadian Historical Association.

He reviews other books on railways for numerous journals in Canada and the United States. He has also consulted on several native land claim cases involving railways. His work has elicited interviews and invitations from across the province, and he has appeared on both radio and television to discuss railway matters. He has now extended his research concerning railway development to Washington State and presented a series of papers to international conferences.

Rhoda L. Friedrichs

In Memoriam

BA (hons) (Barnard), MA, PhD (Columbia)

Rhoda Friedrichs received her BA (hons) from Barnard College, and her MA and PhD from Columbia University. Her major area of concentration was in European medieval history, and her minor area was modern British history. She has taught at Brooklyn College in New York, in the UBC Arts I Program, in the Humanities program of the UBC Engineering Faculty, and has also offered a number of courses on specialized historical themes for UBC Continuing Education. Since 1989 she has taught at Douglas College, where she teaches courses in 20th-century world history, European history from 1500-1789, European history from 1789-1900, Europe in the early Middle Ages, and Europe in the high Middle Ages.

Friedrichs has published several articles in scholarly journals on subjects in medieval social and political history, and has also written a number of book reviews for Canadian, U.S., and European journals. She has presented papers at meetings of the Medieval Association of the Pacific, the UBC Medieval Workshop, the Vancouver Medieval Symposium, and the International Congress of Medieval Studies. She has served on the boards of the Medieval Association of the Pacific and the Society of Canadian Medievalists.