Undergraduate Historical Society Holds Fourth Annual Conference

Student research opens new doors for exploration and understanding, with fascinating results. On Saturday, April 15, nearly twenty of our students presented their original research at the Fourth Annual Capstone Conference of the Undergraduate Historical Society.

From papers on the Cold War to the early American presidency to the language patterns of the Philippines, the work offered new insight into our world. Two excellent panels, one from the Summersell Center and one from departmental research assistants, explored what it means to be a researcher—and how students can do original research as part of the major.

The following papers were presented:

  • Emma Kenny, “We Came, We Voted, They Conquered: How the Secret Ballot Ensured the Right to Voter Privacy”
  • Katie Applebaum, “Ein Madchen Macht Politik: How Female Punk Youth Threatened the Socialist State”
  • Brooke Masaitis, “The Red Against the Red Queen”
  • Summersell Scholars Panel
  • Shannon O’Keefe, “A Defenestration in August: A Look at the Interaction of Gender and Education in the telling of the life of Oksana Kasenkina”
  • James Golen, “Elizabeth Bentley: Silver [Tongued] Spy Queen”
  • Nick Elwing, “Safeguarding What Matters Most: A Recent History of Medical Privacy in the United States”
  • James Overstreet, “The Shepherd of Nameless Souls: How Povl Bang-Jensen’s Life and Death Was Used to Further Anti-United Nations Sentiment”
  • Annika Lee, “The Philippines’ Experience of Colonization as told through the History of the Book”
  • Savannah Berryman, “Searches, Seizures, and Students: The Fight For Fourth Amendment Rights in Schools”
  • William Morris, “Backing Away From the Brink of War in the Black Sea”
  • Research Assistants Panel (Mary Payne, Lauren Hudson, Olivia Womack)
  • Lainey Decker, “Red Threads of Tragedy”
  • Spencer Elizabeth Favor, “The Never-Ending Story: The Greensboro Massacre and Long-Standing Ideological Currents in the Southern United States”
  • Ash Lussier, “The Power of Privilege: An Analysis of Executive Privilege in the Early Republic”