As a Twentieth Century Americanist, Dr. Jensen's teaching and research investigates the confluence of several historical forces in recent American history: presidential leadership and Cold War civil rights reform; the African American pursuit for civil rights; war or even the threat of potential Cold War conflict and how that shaped the country; the omnipresent influence of the American south on domestic, foreign policy and military affairs of the United States; and the rise of conspiracy, conspiratorial rhetoric and the power it wielded in American society. As a scholar, he has presented his research on several different occasions and has authored over a dozen book reviews for H-War (H-Net), The Journal of Military History, The Journal of Southern History and The Strategy Bridge.
In the last seven years, Dr. Jensen produced three different volumes that highlight his scholarly interests. His most recent work, The Racial Integration of the American Armed Forces: Cold War Necessity, Presidential Leadership, and Southern Resistance (Kansas, 2023), examines the intersection of these forces as it applies to the racial desegregation of the American military during the volatile years of the Cold War. As opposed to past studies that largely discuss the situation from the viewpoint of the trials and tribulations of African American military personnel or those within the burgeoning Civil Rights Movement who were desperate to use the armed forces as a social and political laboratory, he examines the topic from that of the perspective of the necessity of waging the Cold War, how that motivated, in part, American presidents to act. But his work also demonstrates how American southerners were fearful of the military becoming a Trojan horse for racial reform within their own region and therefore knitted together Lost Cause beliefs with Cold War conspiratorial ideology to knit together a challenge against the changes underway in the American Armed Forces.
Prior to this, Jensen published with Dr. Matthew Stith (University of Texas at Tyler), Beyond the Quagmire: New Interpretations of the Vietnam War (2019). An edited volume, Beyond the Quagmire offers new interpretations of various subjects involving the American War in Vietnam and includes, but is not limited to, discussions over race, the environment, the War on Poverty, memory, geography, politics, gender and the role of women in the war. Within this study, he penned a chapter on the often-criticized Project 100,000, a Lyndon Johnson War on Society era program originally designed to aid the American poor through Cold War military service.
In 2016, Dr. Jensen produced The Routledge Handbook of the History of Race and the American Military (2016; paperback 2018), which is comprised of twenty essays exploring various aspects of race and the American military. In that collection, he authored a chapter on Harry S. Truman and Executive Order 9981, which began the racial transformation of the American military during the early throes of the Cold War.
Lastly, Dr. Jensen is also a former West Point Seminar Fellow, whose research has been generously supported by grants from Embry-Riddle, the Dwight D. Eisenhower Foundation, the Ridgway Foundation, the Lyndon B. Johnson Foundation and Harry S. Truman Library Institute.
Ph.D. - Doctor of Philosophy in History, University of Arkansas
PROFESSIONAL TALKS
CONFERENCE PARTICIPATION
[Chair and Commentator] “Fraternization and Emulation in the WWII Era”, The Society for
Military History Annual Meeting, 2025
[Chair and Commentator] “African American Contributions in Three Wars”, The Society for
Military History Annual Meeting, 2023
[Online] Roundtable with select authors of Beyond the Quagmire, “1970-71: Nixon, Discord, and the US Withdrawal from Vietnam”, Vietnam Center & Sam Johnson Vietnam Archive, Texas Tech University, 2021
[Chair] “The Citizen-Soldier”, The Society for Military History Annual Meeting, 2019
“War as a driving force of History. 19th and 20th Centuries.” The 14th Conference of the Spanish Association of Contemporary History, Alicante, Spain, 2018
“The Tragedy of the Triumvirate: Project 100,000 ”, “Waging Peace” Conference, Dale Center for the Study of War and Society, The University of Southern Mississippi, 2016
“‘It is without question our shining opportunity’: The Perplexing Perception of Project 100,000”, The Society for Military History Annual Meeting, 2015
INVITED LECTURES
“What is Leadership?” Guest Speaker, Army ROTC Ball, Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University, Prescott, AZ, 2022
“What is History?” Scholarly Speaking, Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University, Prescott, AZ, 2017
“On the Prowl: The Black Panthers of the 761st and their Crusade in Europe”, Faculty Research Presentation, Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University, Prescott, AZ, 2014. Available online at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MP0RFgwv3mY
Fellow presentation, “Two Sides of the Same Coin: The Red Menace, Truman, Southern Segregationists, and the Desegregation of the Armed Forces”, West Point Summer Seminar, USMA, 2012
MANUSCRIPT REFEREE AND ACADEMIC JOURNAL REFEREE
Cambridge University Press
The University Press of Kansas
The University of North Texas Press
The University of Massachusetts Press
Arkansas Historical Quarterly
The Journal of Military History
TEXTBOOK ADVISOR
I have reviewed textbooks for Bedford/St. Martin’s, Cengage, MacMillan, Pearson, and Oxford University Press.
*The above is a truncated list for a complete list, please email.
Professional affiliations:
The Society for Military History
Army Historical Foundation
The Southern Historical Association
TEACHING AWARDS
Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University, Student Government Association, Faculty of the Semester, Fall 2013
FELLOWSHIPS, GRANTS, AND RESEARCH AWARDS
Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University, College of Security and Intelligence, Researcher of the Year, 2015-16
Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University, Faculty Development Fund Grant, 2013-2014, 2015, 2016
Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University, Internal Research Grant, 2013-2014
United States Military Academy (West Point), West Point Summer Seminar Fellow, 2012
Harry S. Truman Library Institute, Research Grant, 2010
Lyndon B. Johnson Presidential Library, Moody Research Grant, 2008