Rod Macleod
Rod Macleod was born in Calgary May 11, 1940. His family moved to Turner Valley, Cremona, and Sundre, where he went to school. In 1959, he went to the University of Alberta where he spent a year studying physics before switching to history. After graduating in 1962, he spent a year in the Faculty of Education. He met his wife, Elaine, a Physiotherapy student at the University.After teaching at Queen Elizabeth High School in Edmonton for two years, he completed an MA in history at Queen's University (1967) and then went on to Duke University for his PhD (1971). He and his wife had two daughters while he was in graduate school. His PhD thesis on the early history of the North West Mounted Police was later published by the University of Toronto Press.
In 1969, he joined the Department of History at the University of Alberta where he taught until 2005. He served a term as Department Chair and later as Associate Dean of Arts. In addition to teaching the department's standard courses in World History, Canadian History, and Western Canadian History, he developed and taught new courses in Canadian Legal History and Canadian Military History. He supervised 12 PhD theses, 14 MAs, and 12 Honours theses.
He has published seven books (one of which, Prairie Fire: The 1885 North West Rebellion, co–authored with Bob Beal, was short-listed for the Governor-General's Award for non-fiction in 1985). He has published many articles and recently a number of web-based works including a history of Edmonton for Edmonton's centennial website and a history of the Loyal Edmonton Regiment for its museum website.
He has served on the editorial boards of the Canadian Historical Review, Prairie Forum, and the University of Alberta Press. He was a board member of the Canadian Historical Association, the Canadian Plains Research Centre, the Centre for Constitutional Studies, and the Legal Archives Society of Alberta. He is currently the Alberta representative on the Historic Sites and Monuments Board of Canada and is President of the Alberta Aviation Museum.
View the Oral History Interview with Dr. Macleod.