Patrick Nugent Email & Phone Number

I am an urban, environmental, and public historian of twentieth-century America. My research investigates the intersections between place, race, environment, and urban planning. My current book project, “The Greenlining of Staten Island: Ecological Preservation and Racial Segregation in Postwar New York City,” is under contract with the University of Chicago Press. As Director of Civic Engagement, I seek to bolster community and civic engagement initiatives across Washington College's campus and beyond. Building on the College’s long history of civic engagement, I work together with others to foster a vibrant campus-wide culture of community engagement focused on transformative learning and reciprocal collaboration. Partnering with faculty, staff, students, and community members, I have helped to develop several initiatives, including:• Chesapeake Heartland: An African American Humanities Project (2019-Present), a Mellon- and NEH-funded collaboration with local organizations and the National Museum of African American History and Culture to preserve, digitize, and make accessible four centuries of African American history on the Eastern Shore (https://chesapeakeheartland.org/)• The Washington College Makerspace and Entrepreneurship Center Initiative (2023-Present), an inclusive planning effort to develop a community-shared space for hands-on learning and collaborative innovation (https://www.washcoll.edu/live/news/tedco-makerspace-grant.php). • The National Home Front Project (2016-2020), one of the nation’s largest oral history collections focused on WWII civilians (with over 300 interviews in total) that worked with students and remote partners to capture the memories of men, women, and children whose lives were changed by the global conflict (nationalhomefrontproject.org).