Republic of Korea
Dr. Robert Swartout, Jr. Biography
Robert R. Swartout, Jr., is Professor and Chair of the Department of History, Carroll College, Helena, Montana, where he has taught both United States and East Asian history since 1978. Professor Swartout was born in Portland, Oregon. He received both his bachelor's and his master's degrees from Portland State University and his doctorate from Washington State University. Since 1998 he has served as an Honorary Consul in Helena for the Republic of Korea.
His publications include Mandarins, Gunboats, and Power Politics: Owen Nickerson Denny and the International Rivalries in Korea (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1980); Montana Vistas: Selected Historical Essays (Lanham, MD: University Press of America, 1982); Naval Surgeon in Yi Korea: The Journal of George W. Woods, with Fred C. Bohm (Berkeley: University of California, Institute of East Asian Studies, 1984); An American Adviser in Late Yi Korea: The Letters of Owen Nickerson Denny (University, AL: University of Alabama Press, 1984); The Montana Heritage: An Anthology of Historical Essays, with Harry W. Fritz (Helena, MT: Montana Historical Society Press, 1992); Korea's Amazing Century: From Kings to Satellites, with Mel Gurtov and James F. Larson (Seoul: Korea Fulbright Foundation, 1996); and Montana Legacy: Essays on History, People, and Place, with Harry W. Fritz and Mary Murphy (Helena: Montana Historical Society Press, 2002).
Dr. Swartout served as a U.S. Peace Corps volunteer in Korea from 1970 through 1972, and was a Fulbright Senior Scholar in Korea during 1986-87 and 1994-95. He has been a visiting professor on numerous occasions in Korea, teaching at Korea University, Yonsei University, Ewha Women's University, and Hankuk University of Foreign Studies.
He was co-recipient of the first Burlington Northern Outstanding Teacher Award at Carroll College in 1985, and received Carroll's Outstanding Teacher Award for Research in 1997. He has served as a member of the Original Governor's Mansion Restoration Board in Montana and is currently a member of the Board of Editors for Montana, the Magazine of Western History. In 2006, he received the Outstanding Educator's Award from the Montana Historical Society Board of Trustees.
