Stephanie R. deLusé, PhD

Dr. Stephanie R. deLusé, an Arizona native, is a Principal Lecturer and Honors Faculty Fellow in Barrett, the Honors College at Arizona State University. In addition to one of her syllabi being selected by the Association for Integrative Studies as a model of good practice, her teaching has earned her honors including, among others, the Faculty Women’s Associations Outstanding Faculty Mentor Award (2019), Barrett’s Excellence in Teaching Award, ASU “Last Lecture” (2009), Featured Faculty Award (2006), and Outstanding Faculty Award (2005).

Born and raised in the Phoenix metropolitan area, Dr. deLusé appreciates the historical changes in the Valley of the Sun in a way only an Arizona native can. She’s watched Arizona State University change a great deal in her life as she roller-skated on campus in her youth and later completed three degrees there. She liked it ASU so much she accepted an invitation to stay and has served as a faculty member since 1999. Most of her life has been spent at ASU.

Her interest in history was built in a family that constantly studied historical texts and was further fueled by seven summers of traveling the U.S. by car in search of cemeteries, courthouses, and distant family members to help piece together family history. She continues that search, including using DNA tests. Her love for history is wide and deep in that she is a member of local historical societies, and her current teaching requires that she engage history from ancient to modern times from multiple cultures.

Before her current post, she served three years as Associate Faculty Director in ASU’s Leadership and Interdisciplinary Studies program, her academic home for eight years. While there, she lead study abroad programs to London and developed new courses such as “Theories and Applications of Organizational Studies” and “Diversity and Organizations”—courses she was asked to develop as models for other faculty members. She also developed her signature Senior Seminars of “Money & Meaning” and “Money, Medicine, & Morals,” in addition to teaching the core courses of “Foundations of Interdisciplinary Studies,” “Interdisciplinary Inquiry,” and “Applied Interdisciplinary Studies.” She also served as the Faculty Senator for Interdisciplinary Studies and the School of Letters and Sciences for 5 years, and served on university-level committees.

Prior to joining the Interdisciplinary Studies program, she was full-time in the ASU Department of Psychology where she earlier had earned her Masters and PhD. She also earned a Bachelor of Science degree from ASU in Communication (multi-focal emphases on interpersonal, organizational, and intercultural), with a minor equivalent in business. While she teaches other courses, like the Internship class, “Organizational Thesis,” and “Civilization and the Human Sense of Self,” her primary focus in Barrett Honors College is “The Human Event” sequence, which is a course that traces developments in intellectual, ethical, and social thought from ancient times to the Renaissance (in HON 171 in the fall) and from the Renaissance into modern times (in HON 272 in the spring) using original works from various times and regions of the world, rather than text books. She is a member of several professional associations and societies and was nominated to serve on the national board of the Association for Integrative Studies as their Director of Organizational Development.

As a demonstration of some success at being an interdisciplinarian, she is sometimes nominated for awards outside of teaching or her original fields of study. For instance, she was nominated for a Pushcart Prize for a creative non-fiction essay, as well as for inclusion in two well-regarded and competitive “Best of” annual anthologies—Best American Essays and Best American Spiritual Writing. Her writing appears in literary journals including Rougarou, Gemini Magazine, TRIVIA: Voices in Feminism, Wild Violet Magazine, The Griffin, Emrys, The Legendary, and The MacGuffin, popular press books (e.g., The Psychology of Survivor, The Psychology of Joss Whedon, and The Psychology of Superheroes), and academic journals including Honors In Practice, Issues in Integrative Studies, International Journal of Teaching and Learning in Higher Education, Family and Conciliation Courts Review, and Family Processes.

Dr. deLusé considers Arizona State University “home” and wanted to honor the efforts of those who helped build it with this book. She brings the intimate knowledge of an insider—who has played, studied, taught, and researched there—to the history of a place that promises to grow and change as much in the next 20 years as it did in the first 100.

Denise E. Bates, PhD

Dr. Denise E. Bates, an Arizona resident since 1998, is an Assistant Professor in the Leadership and Interdisciplinary Studies program in the College of Integrative Sciences and the Arts at Arizona State University. She is a Ford Foundation Fellow who authored Louisiana Coushatta Basket Makers: Traditional Knowledge, Resourcefulness, and Artistry as a Means of Survival, and Basket Diplomacy: Leadership, Alliance-Building, and Resilience among the Coushatta Tribe of Louisiana, 1884-1984, and The Other Movement: Indian Rights and Civil Rights in the Deep South,  and Goodyear: Images of America (Arcadia Publishing, 2010), and numerous essays in the Oxford Encyclopedia of Women in World History (Oxford University Press, 2008). Her work has also been featured in a documentary on Indian education, “Oowala: Life and Light, Understanding and Friendship Through Education” (Chunannee Media Films, 2001) and she has another book coming out called Interpreting the Indigenous South: Tribal Nations Confronting Race and Erasure in the U.S. Southeast.

Her interest in history was fostered at a very young age by a grandmother who devoted herself to documenting family history and exploring as many historical sites and cemeteries as she could locate. The value of knowing where one came from and the history of where one currently lives has left a lasting impression on her.

As a professional historian and advocate of community-based history, Dr. Bates is a member of the National Council on Public History and is currently engaged in a number of projects aimed at promoting the rich indigenous and pioneer history of central Arizona. She serves as Director of History and Research for the Centennial Historic and Educational Trail being developed at Estrella Mountain Regional Park, which is a collaboration between the Three Rivers Historical Society, Maricopa County Parks and Recreation, and the West Valley Arts Council. She was recognized by the City of Goodyear for her “Outstanding Effort and Commitment” to the community as a result of her involvement in drafting the “Ethics and Integrity Handbook for Elected and Appointed Officials, Employees and Volunteers for the City of Goodyear, Arizona” (2009).

Prior to coming to ASU in 2007, she was at the University of Arizona where she obtained her Master’s degree in American Indian Studies and Ph.D. in History. She served as the assistant editor for the Anthropology and Education Quarterly, an editorial board member for Red Ink Magazine, and a research team member for the U.S. Department of Justice’s STOP Violence Against Indian Women Discretionary Grant. At the University of Arizona she taught “Many Nations of Native America,” “U.S. History from Reconstruction to the Present,” “The Making of American Cultures: 1600-1877,” “Indians in U.S. History,” “The History of the New South,” “Women in U.S. History,” “World History to 1500,” “World History Post 1500,” and “History of the New West.”

Since joining the faculty at Arizona State University, she has been honored with a “Most Inspirational Faculty Member” award by the ASU Intercollegiate Athletics Board (2007). She also founded Kaleidoscope: A Newsletter for Bachelor of Interdisciplinary Studies Students and guided the research that contributed to the creation of the “Interdisciplinary Studies Network”. In addition to teaching the core courses in Interdisciplinary and Organizational Studies, she has developed two new senior seminars (“American Indians and Diversity in America” and “Using Integrative Thinking to Promote Change”), two core courses required for the Liberal Studies degree (“Dimensions of Liberal Studies” and the “Liberal Studies Senior Capstone”) and “Introduction to Project Management” for the Organizational Studies degree. She is also part of the first wave of faculty to help the university pilot a new online teaching platform.

She is delighted to have been given the opportunity to compile the history of Arizona State University and provide others with the understanding of the institution’s history. The photographs allow us to see the faces of those who came before and reflect on the university’s amazing development since its inception.