Walk into Professor Timothy McNally’s classroom and you won’t just find students flipping through textbooks or memorizing dates. You will hear stories of revolutions, empires and ordinary people who changed the world.
For McNally, a professor at the Los Banos Campus of Merced College, teaching history is not about lectures; it is about connection. His love for history began in elementary school, when he would read about the Revolutionary War and get hooked by the stories.
That passion eventually turned into a teaching career that took him from Our Lady of Fatima School to Charleston Elementary to Los Banos High School and finally to the Los Banos Campus of Merced College.
McNally works to make history more than names and timelines. “If I am having fun, students usually are too,” he said. “I just try to stay engaged myself, and the students feed off that.”
Over the years, students have returned to share their successes, which Mr. McNally counts among his greatest rewards. He is especially proud of a project where students collected stories of local war veterans, later published in books.
“One girl interviewed a mother who lost her son in Vietnam,” McNally said. “The student told me she has never forgotten that moment, even years later. It was powerful.”
McNally’s favorite subjects to teach have shifted from the Revolutionary and Civil War eras to the mid-20th century, since students often connect with those decades through their parents’ experiences.
His list of admired figures is long, but Harriet Tubman stands out. “She was fearless. She always walked in the back of the group, and if someone tried to turn around, she made sure they could not. She was determined to lead people to freedom.”
When asked what advice he gives his students, McNally’s answer is simple: “Tell the truth, and do not give up. You can do it.” As for how he hopes to be remembered, he said, “as someone who cared about his students; even the ones who did not like me, I still cared about them.”
And his students, no doubt, will remember much more: a teacher who told stories instead of lectures, made history feel alive and showed them that truth and perseverance matter most.
