Ryan Dearinger: On Doing History Differently

Reported By: Sierra Reisman

Photographed By: Yolanda Diaz

Ryan Dearinger, a well-known and loved member of the George Fox University (GFU) history department, was named undergraduate professor of the year for the 2023-24 academic year. He only joined the GFU history faculty in 2021, but he is now a pillar of the department. Though he has had to navigate through significant professional changes, he has become a fixture in a GFU history education.

Dearinger has a few key areas in which he strives to teach history differently. For one, the Be Known promise is central to his approach. He believes that the classroom should be a safe space both intellectually and personally and stated that “it is [his] job to inspire students to aspire.”

Dearinger also wants students to explore history in creative ways and focuses on using an “uncoverage” approach, which prioritizes in-depth exploration of key issues. Finally, Dearinger’s new approach to teaching history is a critical one. He shared that “history is meant to be studied” and that “too often college histories have celebrated the past, which is the opposite of studying it.” For Dearinger, “[t]he very nature of history is critical.”

Dearinger’s teaching is all about making history relevant. This teaching method allows students to engage with the past in meaningful ways and sets them up to be lifelong students of history. His goal is “to approach the strangeness of the past and practice intellectual hospitality, to welcome strangers from the past into the class and [to] value the voices of even those we disagree with.”

As a professor and a historian, Dearinger is immensely passionate about history education: “History is a window into the past, but it can also hold up a mirror to the present.” Dearinger has simple advice about what makes a professor a quality educator: “be vulnerable, embrace your vulnerabilities and understand that there’s no imaginary line that separates professors and students.” Dearinger believes in forging meaningful connections with students, and he shared that the classroom should be a space to feel “both safe and empowered.”

In one of his classes, Dearinger asks students to define the job of a historian. He shared his own answer to this question as well: “The job of a historian is to tell stories about the past. Their stories are based on evidence, but in addition to that, historians tell meaningful stories that force us to rethink history and the human experience.” With regard to his own historical research, Dearinger is interested “in telling stories that critique the way history has been done before.”

Dearinger has several projects on the horizon, including books and articles, that relate to his focus areas in immigration history, labor history, and the American West. And as Dearinger makes it a goal to present at two conferences a year, he is always researching and working on something new.

He expressed excitement at how the history discipline has been changing as historians broaden both the scope of their research and the ways in which they convey their findings with wider audiences. “ [I have] a lot of hope for the future, even in the midst of a fraught historical period. The study of history gives us a blueprint for how to create a better future.” He is “hopeful for the next generation of historically well-informed, aware [and] civically minded human beings.”