Sean P. Cunningham, Ph.D.

Associate Dean for Administrative Affairs

Sean P. Cunningham is Professor of History and Associate Dean for Administrative Affairs for the College of Arts & Sciences. From 2014 to 2023, he served as Chair of the Department of History. He teaches broadly in twentieth-century U.S. history, while specializing in the history of modern American political culture. His geographic emphasis is on the Sunbelt, Texas in particular.

Cunningham has authored three books: Bootstrap Liberalism: Texas Political Culture in the Age of FDR (University Press of Kansas, 2022), which won the Texas Tech University President’s Book Award (first place) in 2024; American Politics in the Postwar Sunbelt: Conservative Growth in a Battleground Region (Cambridge University Press, 2014); and Cowboy Conservatism: Texas and the Rise of the Modern Right (University Press of Kentucky, 2010), which also won the Texas Tech University President's Book Award (first place) in 2012.

As a university administrator, Cunningham serves on TTU’s Strategic Enrollment Management Council and its Strategic Planning Committee, is Chair of the University Athletics Council, and is also Chair of the Editorial Board for Texas Tech University Press. In 2022-23, he assisted with the curation of the Texas Tech Museum's Centennial Celebration exhibit on the history of Texas Tech athletics, and co-edited the university's official centennial celebration book, 100 Years, 100 Voices. Additionally, Cunningham has served as a "Chair Mentor" for the university's National Science Foundation (NSF) ADVANCE Grant, was a member of the Provost’s Faculty Success Task Force and Advisory Committee (2017-22), is Title IX Liaison for Academic Affairs, and, from 2018 to 2021, helped coordinate a program known as "Civil Counterpoints" - a campus conversation series designed to model and stimulate thoughtful, professional, and respectful dialogue on volatile issues of contemporary interest.

In addition to his responsibilities as a university faculty member and administrator, Cunningham serves on the Board of Directors for Humanities Texas – the state's affiliate to the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) – as well as the Historical Advisory Board at TX4T, a non-profit organization that provides social studies teachers and students in K-12 schools with access to evidence-based historical content and best-practices pedagogy resources related to the teaching of Texas history. He is also a member of the Alliance for Texas History.

Finally, Cunningham is also a decorated teacher. A three-time winner of the Mortar Board "Apple Polishing Award"(2008, 2023, 2024), he received the university's "Integrated Scholar Award" in 2021, in recognition of "faculty who dedicate themselves to a course of lifelong learning and advance Texas Tech's role in educating, serving, and inspiring others to do the same." In 2020, he was elected to membership in the university's prestigious Teaching Academy. Additionally, Cunningham has won the President's Excellence in Teaching Award (2013), the Professing Excellence Award, presented by University Student Housing (2012), the Department of History's Distinguished Faculty Award (2010 and 2008), and was named the College of Arts & Sciences winner of the Texas Tech Alumni Association's New Faculty Award (2010). Finally, before joining Texas Tech's faculty in 2007, Cunningham was awarded the Calvin A. VanderWerf Award in recognition of his selection as the outstanding Graduate Teaching Assistant at the University of Florida, where he earned his Ph.D.

Prior to his graduate work in Gainesville, Cunningham completed his B.A. in Public Relations from Texas Tech University in 1999, before earning his M.A. in History and his M.Ed. in Higher Education, also at Texas Tech, in 2002.

Field:

• History: Modern American Politics and Political Culture

Books:

• Bootstrap Liberalism: Texas Political Culture in the Age of FDR (2022)
• American Politics in the Postwar Sunbelt: Conservative Growth in a Battleground Region (2014)
• Cowboy Conservatism: Texas and the Rise of the Modern Right (2010)