J. Ronald Spencer, Associate Academic Dean & Lecturer in History, Emeritus, taught courses in U. S. history (and occasionally American Studies) from 1968 to 2010. His primary interest is the antebellum and Civil War periods. Most of his courses combined lectures and class discussion. He also held a succession of administrative positions between 1971 and 2008: Dean of Students, Dean of Studies, Special Adviser to the President, and for 28 years Associate Academic Dean. Since retiring, he has published a book on the wartime diary of Gideon Welles, Lincoln’s secretary of the navy, and taught from time to time in Trinity’s Academy for Life-Long Learning and the University of Connecticut’s Adult Learning Program.

curriculum vitae

Selected publications:

• “A Connecticut Yankee in Lincoln’s Cabinet,” Connecticut Explored, Vol. 12 (Fall 2014): 20-25.
• A Connecticut Yankee in Lincoln’s Cabinet: Navy Secretary Gideon Welles Chronicles the Civil War. The Acorn Club in conjunction with the Wesleyan University Press, 2014.
• “Civil War Mobilizations,” OAH Magazine of History, Vol. 26 (April 2012): 7-12 (co-authored with Louis P. Masur).
• “The Causes of the Civil War,” in Encyclopedia of the United States in the 19th Century, ed., Paul Finkelman. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 2000.

Selected presentations:

• Moderator/panelist on “Lincoln: The Constitution and the Civil War,” Norwalk Community College, November 7, 2012
• “Lincoln, Slavery, and Race,” lecture in the Arts & Humanities Program for Physicians & Medical Interns, Winthrop-University Hospital, Mineola, NY, April 2009.
• “Religion, Race & Repressive Violence: The Dark Side of the American Dream,” lecture to Humanity in Action Fellows, U.S. Holocaust Museum, June 2000.
• “Charles Dudley Warner’s Nook Farm,” lecture at the Watkinson Library commemorating the 100th Anniversary of Mark Twain’s move to Hartford, 1974.