Drinko Fellows receive a stipend and financial and clerical support from the Drinko Academy for two years. During those two years, Drinko Fellows conduct research, engage in creative production or work on special projects.
This year’s Drinko Symposium was attended by more than 170 faculty, staff, administrators and community members who gathered in the Don Morris Room of the Memorial Student Center for a formal dinner, a poster exhibit and a multimedia presentation by 28th Drinko Fellow Dr. Luke Eric Lassiter about his two-year project on “New Generation Change Agents in Appalachia.”
The symposium concluded with Drinko Academy Executive Director Dr. Montserrat Miller’s announcement that White is the 30th Drinko Fellow.
“Dr. Chris White is a consummate scholar,” said Miller. “He has a long and impressive record of community outreach and engagement, working over the course of more than two decades to bridge ideological, religious and other social and cultural divides.”
White teaches Latin American history, U.S. history, world history and courses on the war on drugs and the global south. He is originally from California but has called Huntington home since joining the Marshall University faculty in 2006. White earned his Ph.D. in history in 2005 and his M.A. in Latin American studies in 2002, both from the University of Kansas, and he earned a B.A. in Spanish education from Humboldt State University in Arcata, California, in 2001.
From 1994 to 1998, White served in the United States Marine Corps.
White has received the W. Page Pitt School of Journalism’s Outstanding Community Contributor Award, the Marshall University Distinguished Artists and Scholars Award and a Marshall International Innovation Grant.
He served as director of the Latin American studies minor at Marshall University from 2006 to 2011 and has led the History Department’s “Food Past/Food Present” series since its inception in 2019. White has authored four books, including “Creating a Third World: Mexico, Cuba, and the United States during the Castro Era,” “The History of El Salvador,” “A Global History of the Developing World,” and “The War on Drugs in the Americas.” He is co-editor, with Kevin Barksdale, of “Appalachian Epidemics: From Smallpox to COVID-19.”
White will present the results of his fellowship work at the university’s 2027 Drinko Symposium.
Next year’s symposium will feature the work of 29th Drinko Fellow Dr. Vicki Stroeher, a professor of music history and associate dean of the College of Arts and Media at Marshall University.