Siena College Appoints Director of the Center for Revolutionary Era Studies

Jennifer Dorsey has been appointed Director of the Center for Revolutionary Era Studies at Siena College. She will be responsible for cultivating the existing partnership with Saratoga National Park and developing new partnerships with Revolutionary Era sites of the Capital Region.

Dorsey is eager to work in collaboration with the Siena community, local interest groups and the international community of Revolutionary Era scholars to raise awareness of the Capital Region’s significance in the history of America’s independence. She will also oversee a certificate program for students and the history department’s annual teachers’ workshop on the American Revolution. “In my short time here, faculty and staff, students and even alumnae, have approached me to express their pride in this Center, and I know that in the next few weeks, I will meet many museums professionals and federal, state and local officials who are equally invested in the Center’s success. I can honestly say that with so much enthusiasm and energy, the work of directing the Center will be a very rewarding experience for me.”

About Jennifer Dorsey
Before assuming her current position, Dorsey held teaching positions at Arizona State University and DeSales University. She is an expert in Early American history and her scholarship focuses on the African American experience in post-Revolutionary America. In the summer of 2005, she participated in the National Endowment for the Humanities’ sponsored seminar “Roots: African Dimensions of the History and Culture of the Americas” at the University of Virginia. In 2003, she was awarded the National Historic and Public Records Commission's post-doctoral Fellowship in Documentary Editing. Her post-doctoral fellowship brought her to the University of North Carolina-Greensboro where she worked with Professor Loren Schweninger, 1999 Pulitzer Prize award nominee and director of The Race and Slavery Petitions Project. Presently, Dorsey is finishing a book-length study of former slaves in post-Revolutionary Maryland that will be published by Cornell University Press.

About Siena College/Saratoga National Historic Park Partnership
Siena wants to do its part in elevating interest in the Saratoga National Historic Park, site of the decisive 1777 Battles of Saratoga in the Revolutionary War. The vision for this partnership includes increased cooperation between the battlefield and the college that would result in new courses, regional conferences, historical workshops and more. The educational programs at Gettysburg battlefield will serve as a model for the program.