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Philip Byers

Halbrook Chair of Civic Engagement

I Serve in...

History, Global & Political Studies Department

Education

• PhD, History, University of Notre Dame
• MA, History, University of Notre Dame
• MA, Higher Education & Student Development, ¾«¶«Ó°Òµ
• BA, History, ¾«¶«Ó°Òµ

Career Accomplishments

From 2020 to 2023, I was a postdoctoral research fellow at the University of Notre Dame's Cushwa Center for the Study of American Catholicism where I worked on personal research projects, contributed to the center's programming and events, and edited their semiannual magazine. From 2016 to 2018, I served as co-convener of Notre Dame's Colloquium on Religion and History, a weekly writing workshop comprised of both faculty and graduate students. And in summer 2019, I was blessed to participate in Notre Dame's multi-week IRISH Seminar hosted at the University of Oxford.

Featured Work

"The Problem of Expense': Lay Religion, Hoosier Patrons, and Philanthropic Logics in Midcentury America," in Gregory R. Witkowski, ed., Hoosier Philanthropy: A State History of Giving (Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 2022): 395-421.

"'We Are Doing Everything That Our Resources Will Allow': The Black Church and Foundation Philanthropy, 1959-1979," in Religions 9.8 (August 2018): 234ff.

I'm also presently working on a book manuscript, tentatively titled The Churches' One Foundation: Funding Faith in Postwar America.

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I graduated from Taylor in 2008 (and from the MAHE program in 2010) before working for several years in residence life in Saint Paul, Minnesota, and then going to graduate school in St. Louis and South Bend. I'm a devoted (some might say 'obsessive') uncle who loves: books; music (of all sorts, with a real soft spot for things choral); the national pastime, March Madness, and the English Premier League; birds; and grabbing a coffee with students.