Gettysburg College has recently named Ian Isherwood ’00, Associate Professor of War and Memory Studies, as Director of the Civil War Institute and Director of the Civil War Era Studies (CWES) Program. Building upon the extraordinary legacy left by Peter Carmichael, Isherwood brings a unique historical perspective to the position, given his long-term contributions to the CWES and Interdisciplinary Studies programs, as well as the exceptional mentorship he has provided to Gettysburg students—many of whom have gone on to pursue careers in academia, education, security studies, the military, and in public history.
Long-time friends of CWI may recall that Ian Isherwood began his full-time career at Gettysburg College as Assistant Director of the Civil War Institute in 2012, where he taught in the CWES program and mentored students in the CWI Fellows program. In his time at CWI, Isherwood also worked to establish the Institute’s early digital history and social media presence and edited CWI’s blog, The Gettysburg Compiler. After shifting to a full-time faculty role in Interdisciplinary Studies in 2016, he spearheaded the creation of an innovative digital history project, The First World War Letters of H.J.C. Peirs. A collaborative effort in historical discovery, the project brought students, faculty, and librarians together in a joint effort to preserve a set of unique historical documents, learn more about the First World War, and share Peirs’s experiences on the Western Front with a wide audience.
From 2020 to 2022, Isherwood served as Director of Gettysburg’s First-Year Seminar Program. During the academic year 2022-2023, he was the Harold K. Johnson Chair of Military History at the United States Army War College, where he taught history in the Department of National Security and Strategy.
Dr. Isherwood is an active scholar in the field of First World War Studies and in the history of war more generally. He has published two single-author books: Remembering the Great War: Writing and Publishing the Experiences of WWI (2017) and The Battalion: Citizen Soldiers at War on the Western Front (2024). He is currently working on a book concerning the politics of commemoration from the Civil War to the Global War on Terror tentatively entitled Remembering America’s Wars. He is also a gifted battlefield interpreter who utilizes the varied landscapes of Gettysburg to pose vital questions about war and memory and is deeply committed to CWI’s mission of place-based learning. Isherwood will begin his term as CWI Director on August 25.