Stephen Sloan
Associate Professor of History, Director of the Institute for Oral History, Executive Director of the Oral History Association

PhD, Arizona State University
MA, Baylor University
BBA, Baylor University
Stephen Sloan leads the Institute for Oral History. He is also a professor in Baylor’s Department of History, specializing in U.S. history post 1941, environmental history, public history, and the American West. He holds a doctorate in public history and U.S. history from Arizona State University. Sloan organizes research projects, leads community oral history workshops, directs grants and contracts, and conducts field interviews. He has won several awards for his publications and projects, including the Elizabeth B. Mason Oral History Project Award for the “Survivors of Genocide Oral History Project” and the Oral History Association Book Award for the co-edited Listening on the Edge: Oral History in the Aftermath of Crisis.
His most recent publication is Oral History and the Environment: Global Perspectives on Climate, Connection, and Catastrophe. Other recent publications include a primary source reader edited with Julie deGraffenried, The United States in Global Perspective: A Primary Source Reader and Tattooed on My Soul: Texans Remember World War II edited with Lois E. Myers and Michelle L. Holland. He also has chapters in Christopher B. Bean’s Texas in World War II: The Home Front, Doug Boyd and Mary Larson’s Oral History and Digital Humanities: Voice, Access, and Engagement, and the forthcoming Handbook of World Oral History edited by Selma Leydesdorff and Mark Cave. He has also written journal articles for the Oral History Review and the Sound Historian: The Journal of the Texas Oral History Association. Sloan’s public history work locally includes the Waco History app and website and the Waco History Podcast.
He is active in the national and international oral history community, currently serving as the Executive Director of the Oral History Association, the principal membership organization for people committed to the value of oral history. He has also presented his research abroad at academic conferences in Liverpool, Prague, Guadalajara, Naples, Istanbul, Buenos Aires, Barcelona, Jyväskylä, and Rio de Janeiro.
Dr. Sloan’s program, the Institute for Oral History is one of the leading academic oral history programs in the world and is looked to for best principles and practices for the methodology. In 2023, the Institute received the Governor’s Award for Historic Preservation from the Texas Historical Commission.
In addition to offerings in oral history, Dr. Sloan teaches American Environmental History, US History since 1877, US in Global Perspective, The Cold War, and The Vietnam War. Learn more.