The Historical Society  blog, edited by Eastern Nazarene College’s history professor Randall Stephens, has garnered an international award from the History News Network’s Cliopatria Group Blog .

Cliopatria named “Richardson’s Rules of Order ”, contributed by University of Massachusetts: Amherst historian Heather Cox Richardson, the winner of its Best Series of Posts for 2009. The blog is a series of entries for college history students, with gentle tips and advice on adjusting to the demands of higher education.

"Please remember that your professors are human and it's hard work to stand in front of a hundred pairs of eyes and talk for an hour," writes Richardson in one entry. “You don’t have to act like you’re watching U2, but do try to make it clear your heart hasn’t actually stopped beating.”

Cliopatria calls Richardson’s blog an “instructive, gentle, and eminently useful guide for college students in history classes… This series of posts will soon be finding its way onto syllabi in history courses across the country”.

The idea for the Historical Society blog came out of a National Endowment for the Humanities  sponsored planning conference organized by ENC history professor emeritus Donald Yerxa to discuss the future of the Historical Society and its two publications. Stephens started the blog in March of 2009. The blog features posts on a variety historical topics, conferences, teaching tips, video interviews conducted by Stephens, and more.