Southern Illinois University

Eugene Trani, Ph.D., was appointed assistant professor of history at Southern Illinois University, Carbondale, in 1967. In 1971, he was awarded tenure and promoted to associate professor, and in 1975 was promoted to professor.

Trani’s teaching responsibilities included the survey course in American history, American diplomatic history and a freshman course on the contemporary world. At SIU, he supervised three doctoral students and 10 master's students, served on a number of other doctoral and master’s committees and was director of graduate studies in the Department of History during the 1971-72 academic year.

While on the faculty of SIU, Trani concentrated his research on American diplomatic and political history between 1890 and 1953. In support of his research, he was awarded a number of grants and fellowships, including summer research grants from SIU in 1970, 1972 and 1975; and grants from the American Philosophical Society in 1968 and 1972. With the support of a National Historical Publications Commission Fellowship in advanced editing of documentary sources in American history, he was a visiting research fellow at "The Papers of Woodrow Wilson" at Princeton University during the 1969-70 academic year. He spent the summer of 1972 doing research in Great Britain at the British Museum, the Public Record Office, the Beaverbrook Library and Oxford University. From September 1972 until August 1973, he was a fellow at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C. His appointment at the Woodrow Wilson Center was supported by a fellowship from the Center and a Younger Humanist Award from the National Endowment for the Humanities.

At SIU, Trani also served on a number of departmental, collegiate and university committees and was elected to the Faculty Senate during the 1974-1975 academic year. In the summer of 1969, he was visiting assistant professor of history at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee.