Cameron University professor Dr. Sarah Eppler Janda will be inducted into the Oklahoma Historians Hall of Fame on Thursday, March 20, during a ceremony at the Oklahoma History Center in Oklahoma City. Instituted in 1993, the Oklahoma Historians Hall of Fame is the highest honor awarded by the Oklahoma Historical Society. This honor recognizes distinguished and long-term contributions to Oklahoma history through demonstrated excellence.
“Dr. Sarah Eppler Janda has distinguished herself as one of the foremost Oklahoma historians working today,” says CU President Jari Askins. “As an educator, she demonstrates her commitment to student success on a daily basis. As an author, she brings astute perspectives to distinctive topics. As a historian, she presents in-depth research and expertise that accurately reflect the events that she is documenting. She is well-deserving of this stellar honor.”
A native of Blanchard, Janda joined the CU faculty in 2001. She is the author of “Beloved Women: The Political Lives of LaDonna Harris and Wilma Mankiller,” “Pride of the Wichitas: A History of Cameron University” and “Prairie Power: Student Activism, Counterculture, and Backlash in Oklahoma, 1962–1972.” She co-edited “This Land Is Herland: Gendered Activism in Oklahoma, from the 1870s to the 2010s” with Patti Loughlin.
Janda and Loughlin recently co-authored “Making Oklahoma: A History,” a high school textbook. The text is the culmination of five years of painstaking work that will be available for the 2025-2026 textbook adoption cycle. As a native Oklahoman who teaches Oklahoma history and helps train future social studies teachers, Janda said it has been deeply rewarding to provide a textbook that chronicles the state’s rich history, with particular emphasis on the 20th and 21st centuries.
Janda’s commitment to researching and writing about the history of Oklahoma has expanded to other areas of historical work as well. Janda and fellow historians Heather Clemmer, Sunu Kodumthara and Patti Loughlin founded Redbud Historical Consulting last year. The four Oklahoma historians recently completed their first historic preservation project, drafting the nomination form to get the Johnson Family Home in Lawton listed in the National Register of Historic Places. This new company is one of the only Oklahoma-based consulting firms engaged in this type of work.
An active member of the Western History Association, the Coalition for Western Women’s History and the Berkshire Conference of Women Historians, Janda has served on multiple boards, including the University of Oklahoma Western History Collections Dale Society Board of Trustees, the OSLEP Advisory Board, the Faculty Advisory Council to the Oklahoma State Regents for Higher Education, The Oklahoma Council on History Education Advisory Board and the “Western Historical Quarterly” editorial board. Most recently, she joined the editorial board for “The Chronicles of Oklahoma.”
Janda’s impact on students and student learning has been recognized with CU’s highest faculty honor, the Harold and Elizabeth Hackler Award for Teaching Excellence. Last month, she was inducted into the Cameron University Alumni Association Faculty Hall of Fame.
She has twice served as chair of CU’s Faculty Senate and served a two-year term as president of the Cameron chapter of the American Association of University Professors. As much as Janda enjoys researching and writing about Oklahoma history, she said there is nothing more meaningful to her academic career than the privilege of teaching history to students at Cameron University.
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