History Department
Senior Seminar
PREFACE
The Western Oregon University History Department initiated the Senior Seminar in 1997 as a requirement for all history majors. The university provost had requested that each academic department develop a means to ascertain whether its majors had achieved the goals of its program. The history faculty quickly recognized that the research, interpretation, and writing were the goals and competencies we wished that our majors achieve. To this end, the faculty created the Senior Seminar. In this course students undertook research projects of their choice, worked closely with professors in developing the project, and then wrote journal-length articles.
To help students develop their research, interpretive, and writing skills, the faculty also created a junior-level course titled, "History Research and Writing." Furthermore, in all upper division courses faculty emphasized the above-mentioned competencies. In this year's seminar, most of the students began work on their topic in one of these courses, supporting their initial work with additional research and reviews of scholarship. Over the past seven years, the faculty has seen a rise in the quality of senior seminar papers and an increase in the number of students choosing to major in history. The following seventeen papers from this year's seminar attest to these trends.
Although by definition, historians study the past, this year's war seems to have influenced the themes that the students chose research. Over half of them studied some aspect of war, with World War II and the Cold War predominating. A trend which contrasts to earlier years is that
Not surprisingly in a discipline with a long tradition of revisionism, a number of the students challenged traditional perspectives. One paper highlighted the plight of conscientious objectors in World War II, another, the government's dishonesty about nuclear weapons development, another, a critical view of the Everson ruling, and still another, the failure of paradigms to explain the Zapatista movement.
All students used a combination of primary and secondary sources in their research. In analyzing their topic, they discussed how other historians have interpreted it, and then developed their own thesis. Students wrote two preliminary drafts of their paper, both which their advisors edited, before writing their final draft. Although this process is very time-consuming for students and faculty alike, we feel that the seminar papers are the real testimony of what our history majors have accomplished at
John L. Rector
Professor of History
Spring 2009 History 499 Senior Seminar Thesis Papers
| AUTHOR | THESIS TITLE (and link to file) |
| Ashley Barnes | Paintings in Roman Pompeii: |
| Jessica Bertling | |
| Matt Bond | Ivan the Terrible: Centralization in Sixteenth Century Muscovy |
| Rebecca Carlson | Don Juan de Oñate’s Prosecution for |
| Sarah Coelho | Theoderic the Great vs . Boethius : Tensions in Italy in the Late 5 th and Early 6 th Centuries |
| Joshua Duder | |
| Kelly Gordon | |
| Mark Lowry | Boniface VIII and Philip IV: |
| Luke Martin | Boniface VIII |
| Mindy Nichols | Did Ancient Romans Love Their Children? |
| Jeffery Sawyer | |
| Anthony Sutton | |
| Jordan Wilde | |
| Josh Woods |
Spring 2007 History 499 Senior Seminar Thesis Papers
Spring 2005 History 499 Senior Seminar Thesis Papers
Spring 2004 History 499 Senior Seminar Thesis Papers
Spring 2003 History 499 Senior Seminar Thesis Papers
2.
Sam Burton, "Paranoia and Popular Culture in Cold War
3.
J. Benjamin Cushing, "Paradigm Piracy: The EZLN and the Quest to Categorize"
4.
Tara Dickey, "Keystones in the Pacific: The Strategic Importance of
5.
Leslie Erin Dooney, "Radioactive Reindeer: The Effect of
6.
Ellie Enos, "
8.
Bonnie Keady, "The Good War and the Bad Peace: Conscientious Objectors in World War II"
10.
Jesse Light, "100 Percent Americans: A Hard Proven Fact"
11.
Tim Melcher, "On the Brink of Nuclear Destruction"
12.
Erin Nickolson, "The Southern Way of Life and Planter-Class Women's Perceptions of the Civil War"
13.
Kalah A. Paisley, "Beyond Original Intent: The Reinvention of the Everson Ruling by Constitutional Historians"
15.
John H.T. Watkins, "Truman: The Man Behind the Cold War"
16.
Heath Wellman, "Sex and Lots of Erotic Art to Prove It: The Erotic Art of
17.
Kristin Williams, "The Contradictory Mandate of the National Park Service: