On April 2, 2022, the Undergraduate Historical Society hosted its third annual Capstone Research Symposium. The conference, organized and led exclusively by our department’s undergraduate researchers and leaders, featured a full day of research presentations–two panels, with nine papers in all. Topics ranged from slavery and Sherman’s “march to the sea” to the travels of Marco Polo, Westernization in Japan, and criminality in early modern London. Dr. Lucy Kaufman, one of the faculty mentors for the conference, described it as “a phenomenal event,” and several of its contributions as not only “exceptionally strong,” but central to some of the participants’ recent applications for some of the world’s most prestigious honors, including Fulbright, Marshall, and Rhodes scholarships.
Dr. Sarah Steinbock-Pratt, another of the event’s faculty mentors, lauds the fresh energy of the UHS. The group “has shown tremendous enthusiasm in creating a History community for our majors,” and has hosted “an impressive slate of social and professional development events.” And at the heart of the new group’s program is the Capstone Conference, which is “a showcase for the impressive scholarship being done by our undergraduates.”
The UHS, now in its 5th year as a departmental student group, boasts some 200 members, and an active calendar of both social and scholarly events.