Charles Dobbs named chair of Department of History

Charles Dobbs, professor of history, has been named chair of the Department of History at Iowa State University, effective July 1, 2006.

Dobbs, who will serve a five-year term as department chair, replaces Andrejs Plakans, who is retiring effective June 30.

A Ph.D. graduate of Indiana University with an emphasis in U.S. and East Asian history, Dobbs is also a graduate of Harvard University's Management Development Program. He holds a bachelor's degree from the University of Connecticut.

Dobbs' research and teaching interests including American diplomatic history, American military history and modern East Asian history. He is the author of three books, Nuts and Bolts: A Survival Guide for Non-Profit Organizations; The United States and East Asia, 1945-1985; and The Unwanted Symbol. American Foreign Policy, the Cold War and Korea: 1942-1950.

He has another book, Triangles, Symbols and Constraints: The United States, the Soviet Union and the People's Republic of China, 1963-1969, under consideration and a fifth publication, Trade and Security: The United States and East Asia, 1961-1969, in progress
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He is a member of the Organization of American Historians, the Society for Historians of American Foreign Relations and the Association for Canadian Studies in the United States.

While at Iowa State Dobbs has also served as assistant to the president. He previously worked at Metro State College in Denver.