Joseph Heiman, '25, Embodies Commitment and Academic Tenacity

Joseph Heiman — an Arizona Online student graduating with a major in history and a minor in Classics — is the recipient of the SBS Tenacity Award for fall 2025. This award recognizes a graduating senior in the College of Social and Behavioral Sciences who has persevered in the face of significant adversity to earn their university degree.

In the spring of 2025, Joseph suffered a serious health issue that landed him in the hospital and affected his ability to do the excellent work his professors had become used to. Worried that the quality of his work would suffer, Joseph emailed Ryan Kashanipour, assistant professor in the Department of History, immediately after returning home from the hospital, to reinforce his commitment to his academic work.

“Joey spent several months recovering and all the while, he engaged with the course material,” Kashanipour wrote. “He has always demonstrated a commitment to learning and intellectual development. I am most happy to nominate him for an award that matches his hard work and willingness to endure through dire circumstances."

Joseph’s other nominators echo Kashanipour’s sentiments, sharing their admiration for his strong work ethic, deep engagement with the material, and clear love of his studies.

Fabio Lanza — professor in the Department of History who taught Joseph in a class on Communist China — called Joseph’s written work “excellent,” his reading “careful and voracious,” and his comments “incredibly detailed.”

“Joseph is truly passionate about history, but not in a generic ‘history buff’ way,” Lanza wrote. “He always has probing questions about motives, developmental trends, and patterns of change.”

The last fall term before graduation, Joseph took the History Senior Capstone Seminar with Kevin Gosner, associate professor in the Department of History. As his topic, he chose the status of women in the People’s Republic of China. It begins with a lengthy discussion of Confucian ideas about women and tracks reform movements and new ideas in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

With the intellectual sophistication of a graduate student, Joseph highlighted major themes in through an interdisciplinary and comparative scholarship lens on the status of women, specifically rural women. In addition, while Joseph does not read Mandarin, he found traveler accounts and memoirs in English, using them as primary sources to weave into his analysis.

“Joseph (has) impressive attention to detail and a keen eye for differing interpretations,” Gosner said. “He’s written up the interplay of sources adroitly and seamlessly, creating a piece that is engaging from start to finish.”

As for how Joseph will use his perseverance, intellectual gifts, and commitment to distinction his plan is two-fold. 

"I intend to follow in the footsteps of those I hold in high regard and teach high school history," Joseph said. "I would also very much like to return to the U of A to earn my master's degree Library and Information Sciences." 

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