On March 4, 2025, two days following his 84th birthday, Professor Emeritus David Sloan died peacefully at home. His three children, Jennifer, Heather and Drew; their children; his partner, Merideth Boswell; as well as the present members of the Department of History; past colleagues and friends throughout the U of A community; and friends and relatives scattered around the country all mourn the passing and remember the full and active life of Sloan.

Sloan arrived at the U of A in the fall of 1967 along with four other newly minted assistant professors at an exciting, decisive and promising time for the Department of History. During the preceding year, the department, with the full support of the administration, developed a plan to expand its course offerings and rejuvenate a doctoral program which had been dormant for decades.

The arrival of Sloan and his cohort signaled the first step in the implementation of the project, and they were soon joined by specialists in Asian, Middle Eastern, African and Latin American history, as well as a Distinguished Professor in American history to lead the Ph.D. program. By the time of Sloan’s retirement in 2006, the promises of 1967 had become reality: expanded undergraduate and honors offerings, a stable graduate program with a variety of fields and a nationally recognized and award-winning faculty.

Fresh from the cozy seminar rooms of 10 or so doctoral candidates at the University of California at Santa Barbara, Sloan, with some reluctance and much trepidation, moved to lecture halls of 75 freshman and sophomore students at the U of A and found himself behind the lectern, responsible for a 50-minute lecture every Monday, Wednesday and Friday. He was not happy. Always the perfectionist in what he said and how he said it, Sloan was usually nervous and sometimes physically sick before walking into a classroom with a fresh composition written the night before. It didn’t help that he often shouldered both the normal concerns of a 26-year-old man and the enormous burden of the world’s problems as he moved about with a dark cloud over his head a la Pig Pen in the Peanuts comic strip. 

But no matter the method by which he overcame his doubts and generated the lectures, the results were uniformly excellent, praised by students and secretly envied by colleagues. Sloan was an award-winning teacher. Not only did he excel in his specialty, colonial and Revolutionary America, he also taught in the Honors H2P program, a position reserved for the very best classroom teachers in the university.

He also joined the U of A program in Italy for a semester, teaching students about the early developments of Christianity, and years later, he could comfortably navigate the issues of early Christian Gnosticism, citing original sources and contemporary commentators. Expanding his range further, upon retirement he volunteered as a guide at Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, an enjoyable teaching opportunity, ending only when hearing impairment prevented effective interaction with his students. That ended a 40-year career of teaching, during which time Sloan passed from doubt to confidence, from wariness to passion. He loved teaching.

When Sloan arrived at the U of A, he was a student of American colonial history; when he retired, he was an expert in Spanish colonialism, particularly the campaigns of Hernando de Soto in areas of the future United States. Sloan enjoyed the search, going to libraries and archival collections, getting into the motivations and goals of historical figures.

Traveling to Seville and London, as well as the Huntington Library in California and other institutions in the United States, he fed his curiosity and deepened his knowledge of the expanded field of early European intrusion into the Americas. The result included a solid collection of publications and, in addition, the enrichment of the materials used in his courses. More than the readers of articles in historical journals, the real beneficiaries of Sloan's research were his colleagues and, in particular, his students.

Perhaps the most challenging goal of the department’s plan for 1967 and beyond was the re-establishment of a high quality Ph.D. program.  Among the essential elements necessary for its success was effective leadership, and, during the last 20 years of his career, Sloan acted as graduate adviser in the Department of History. Sloan kept the essential records, communicated with the professors directing the students’ work and dealt with the inevitable issues inherent in graduate studies. With equal parts Marine drill sergeant, Cub Scout den mother and New Yorker editor, he helped guide students to advanced degrees or, in some cases, deftly directed them to endeavors more in tune with their abilities and interests. In all cases, honesty was the rule. And Sloan was an honest man.

Clearly, Sloan checked all of the requisite boxes of being a professor at the U of A: teaching, research and service.

But he added something extra to the department, that secret ingredient in the special sauce that every department requires to raise it above the ordinary, that enables it to stand out on a campus filled with sharp minds and sharp elbows. Sloan was at his best when dealing with words, and served his students and colleagues as a reviewer, editor and critic, offering to look over any proposal, essay or article that an author was willing to submit and possibly witness a beautifully wrought paragraph or an originally conceived idea examined, deconstructed and amended.

Sloan applied the same rigorous attention to form and content to proposals in committee meetings and pronouncements in the coffee room.  He was unique.

Michael O’Brien, another late colleague the Department of History, put it best when he wrote in 2006 that of all of us toiling away in the department, “David had the widest curiosity, the greatest intensity, the most competitive instincts, the gloomiest apprehensions, the sharpest wit and the finest critical mind.”

These are qualities not specifically rewarded by promotions, titles or pay raises. Some might argue that is best for the safety and sanity of the rest of us. But let us recognize these qualities now as we remember David Sloan by creating a new position for him: the Extraordinary Chair of History at the U of A.

Leaving behind the university, let’s conclude by remembering, albeit briefly, some of Sloan’s interests and skills. Following the example of his father, Bill, he became a skilled carpenter, evidenced most clearly by his cabin on Beaver Lake, finished with beauty and taste, marred only by an occasional blemish left by an errant hammer blow by an amateur who helped from time to time. The cabin frequently served as the venue for another of Sloan’s skills — fine cooking. Throughout his adult life, Sloan served up wonderful dishes, an endeavor that reached its greatest height in the kitchen of Merideth Boswell, in a culinary partnership that benefitted so many of his fellow faculty members.

When not building or cooking, Sloan enjoyed being outside, hiking the Ozark trails or floating the streams of Arkansas. He was a member and beneficiary of the Ozark Society. Sloan’s final hike with the society ended with his collapse on Fitzgerald Mountain; quick thinking and the application of CPR by president of the society Luke Parsch saved Sloan’s life.

Returning to the sanctuary of the campus from the Arkansas wilds, we find the intramural courts and fields that attracted the attention of Sloan and his fellow assistant professors. During those early years, under the leadership of Tom Kennedy, who held the volunteer and unofficial position of Athletic Director of the Department of History, the 1967 cohort, reinforced with a number of history students and a few “ringers,” entered every intramural competition offered at the university. From basketball to water polo, they competed, and in volleyball (Sloan’s favorite and most skilled sport) they excelled, winning the university championship. These were not “the playing fields of Eton,” but they were fields that bonded faculty in friendship that carried over into their professional and personal lives. No one would argue that common bonds are central in creating a productive work environment, but they don’t hurt. More importantly, those mutual bonds of trust and affection created best and fast friendships, lasting to the end of our lives. David Sloan was at the center of it. And we loved him.

— by David W. Edwards
March 21, 2025, the first day of spring