Learning from the past to preserve the future.
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Welcome to the Public and Environmental History Center
Established in 2007, the award-winning (PEHC) integrates research, education, and outreach in the best tradition of a land-grant university. The PEHC gets students out of the classroom and into the field to get the experience and connections they need for fulfilling careers after graduation.
Faculty and students collaborate with National Parks, state parks, CSU Extension, local Colorado communities, and other entities interested in connecting public audiences to their past to conduct historical research that directly informs current challenges in our world.
Our American West Program seeks to expose audiences to significant research, dynamic speakers, narratives of change and contestation, and the excitement of interdisciplinary dialogue on human-environment issues in the West.
Mission
The Public and Environmental History Center (PEHC) is a special unit of the Department of History in the College of Liberal Arts for research, teaching, and engagement at Colorado State University. The PEHC's values reflect and transmit those of our institution.
The PEHC is committed to doing community history and historic preservation through an alternative model for collaborative research and engagement grounded in place-based history and the environment, shared authority and reciprocity. Recovering histories of difference in partnership with public agencies, local historical societies, and students promotes shared community values, justice and democracy, and public dialogue. The PEHC upholds its mission in every component of its work, whether we are operating in the field or in the classroom.