Steven H. Corey

Steven H. Corey, PhD, is Professor and Chair of the Department of Humanities, History, and Social Sciences at Columbia College Chicago.

Dr. Corey joined the faculty of Columbia College Chicago in August of 2012. He holds a PhD and an MPhil in History from New York University, and an MA and BA in History from The University of Rhode Island. His research and teaching interests are in urban, environmental, and cultural studies, public history, social history, and public policy. While completing his doctorate on the history of solid waste management in New York City, he served as research curator for the noted exhibition Garbage! The History and Politics of Trash in New York City (Gottesman Exhibition Hall, The New York Public Library, 1994-1995).

Prior to Columbia College Chicago, Dr. Corey served as Professor and Chair of the Department of Urban Studies at Worcester State University (WSU) in Worcester, Massachusetts, and also taught History at The University of Rhode Island and Yeshiva University in New York City. At WSU, he earned a reputation for innovative, student-centered pedagogy, receiving that institution’s highest faculty honor, the George I. Alden Award for Excellence in Teaching, in May of 2012. His scholarship on inquiry-based education was also recognized by the American Historical Association in 2011 when it awarded him with the William Gilbert Award for the Best Article on Teaching History for “Pedagogy and Place: Merging Urban History and Environmental History with Active Learning,” published in the January, 2010 edition of the Journal of Urban History.

In addition to other peer-reviewed articles and scholarly works, Dr. Corey is co-editor (with Dr. Lisa Krissoff Boehm) of The American Urban Reader: History and Theory (Routledge, 2011), and co-author (with Dr. Elizabeth Fee) of Garbage! The History of Politics and Trash in New York City (New York Public Library, 1994), which won the Katherine Kyes Leab & Daniel J. Leab Exhibition Catalogue Award for Excellence from the American Library Association in 1996. He is currently working with Dr. Krissoff Boehm on a new volume entitled American’s Urban History (Routledge, forthcoming).

Dr. Corey’s expertise on waste management and urban affairs has resulted in numerous interviews for—and appearances in—cable, TV, and radio programs, as well as newspaper and magazine articles. He remains actively involved in public history and public policy issues and recently served as an exhibition historian for Got Food? Creating a Hunger Free Community (Worcester Historical Museum, 2007-2008) and an expert legal witness for the State of Rhode Island advocating greater public access to the Rhode Island shoreline.

A resident of Oak Park, Illinois, Dr. Corey enjoys cycling, hiking, body surfing, urban gardening, stand-up comedy, traveling, and taking students on field trips to historic and environmentally significant sites.

Contact Dr. Corey:

Mail:
Dr. Steven H. Corey
Columbia College Chicago
Department of HHSS
600 S. Michigan Ave.
Chicago, IL
60605

Phone:
312.369.7844

Email:
scorey@colum.edu