Department of History Receives Historic Gift

$1.8 Million Endowment for History

The Department of History is extremely pleased to announce the Department has received a gift of just over $1,800,000. The bequest comes from the estate of  M. Jean Farrell. Her husband, Richard T. Farrell was a faculty member in the Department from 1965 until his death in 1991.  The endowment will fund  “The Professor Richard T. Farrell Graduate Fellowship in American History.”

Professor Farrell specialized in the history of nineteenth-century America.  He served as Associate Department Chair from 1974 to 1990. To honor her husband’s commitment to his students and his academic field, M. Jean Farrell established an endowed fund through her will to support graduate fellowships to students whose academic focus is in the field of U.S. history. Richard T. Farrell previously endowed the Department of History’s annual Hoosier Clio Award for the best undergraduate History Honors Thesis written by a History major.

In his career, Professor Farrell also focused on the teaching of History and Social Studies in public schools. He was a public school teacher in Kokomo, IN before joining the History faculty at UMD. He also worked on curriculum issues with local school districts. He also served as a consultant to the U.S. Department of Education as  an adviser on Social Studies curricula, as well as the National Council of Social Studies, the Maryland Department of Education, and the Educational Testing Service. Additionally, Professor Farrell sat on the board of directors for National History Day, which brings high school students together to compete in history projects, and served as chairman of the College Park campus senate in 1988-89. He was also president of the faculty club from 1980-83 and chairman of the campus curriculum committee from 1985-87. At his death in 1991, Professor Farrell was chairman of the Council of University System Faculty (CUSF) and a member of the faculty advisory commission of the Maryland Higher Education Advisory Commission.

Obituary for M. Jean Farrell (2022)

Obituaries of Richard T. Farrell from The Baltimore Sun and The Washington Post (1991)