Outstanding Adjunct Faculty Award Recipient, Richard Blackmon, Ensures Students Reach Academic Potential

DECATUR, Ga. — Richard Blackmon’s interest in history can be traced back to his hometown, Georgia’s oldest city, with its scenic and story-steeped town squares and fortifications.

“When I was young,” he said, “my parents would take me to the many historical places in Savannah, and it really appealed to me, especially the forts in and around the city!”

Now a history instructor, Blackmon’s specialty is military history, with particular interest in the American Civil War, Southern history, historic preservation, African American history and more.

Blackmon has taught at Perimeter College since 2017, at the Clarkston and Dunwoody campuses and now online. He is the recipient of the 2025 Outstanding Adjunct Faculty Award.

“His commitment to ensuring students reach their academic potential is unparalleled,” said Marc Zayac, associate professor of history at Perimeter. “Richard consistently prioritizes the success and well-being of his students, including those with diverse needs, such as Access & Accommodations Center students, working professionals and those facing personal challenges.”

To engage students with a hands-on experience after the extended isolation of the COVID pandemic, Blackmon led a two-year project documenting the Civil War earthworks that were built by Union and Confederate troops to create strategic vantage points during the Battle of Utoy Creek in the Atlanta Campaign. The project mapped the earthworks that still exist more than 160 years later in Lionel Hampton- Beecher Hills Nature Preserve and Cascade Springs Nature Preserve. Blackmon and his students mapped approximately 2 miles of earthworks and provided significant preservation recommendations to the City of Atlanta via a 120-page report.

“What Richard created with his students,” said Zayac, “amounted to a sort of history lab that allowed students to experience topics outside the purview of his class lectures … Students participated not only in the fieldwork, but also photography and documentation, as well as research in primary sources. The students received firsthand experience in the historian’s craft.”

Students in Blackmon’s classes recognize the opportunities he affords them.

“You helped inspire me to challenge myself intellectually,” said Neba Neba, a former student, “ … HIST 2110 was the first time I learned about historical events in an exhaustive and collaborative manner that enabled me to think about the future in terms of the past … Your history class was certainly among the most captivating courses I took at GSU, and I still recall your unique and warm approach to instruction, which positively impacted me.”

“You are an amazing teacher,” said history student Tamara Thompson. “You were always available to answer questions … Your course boosted my confidence.”

Blackmon said his approach to teaching was inspired by one of his own instructors.

“I had a great professor instill in his grad students that as a historian, teaching and publishing (which implies research and writing, of course) is a symbiotic relationship,” Blackmon said. “They infuse each other. The best professors, in his eyes, were those that successfully combined each. By teaching, students’ questions and ideas infuse your research; symbiotically, your research findings should infuse your lectures to the students. I took his words to heart and do my best to intertwine both my research and teaching.”

Story by Christy Petterson

Photo by Bill Roa