Student Research

Every year several EMU History students present their original historical research in the Undergraduate Symposium and Graduate Research Fair. Students interested in engaging in an independent research project should contact the faculty member with whom they would like to work.

The Department grants students up to $200 to cover research expenses and up to $400 to present a research paper at a conference. Interested students should ask a faculty sponsor to request funding from our Department Head. Be sure to save all receipts—you will need to submit them in order to be reimbursed.

2012 Undergraduate Symposium presentations

Student Lauren Myhand presents at the 2008 Undergraduate Symposium.

• An Inside Look at the 1967 Detroit Riots--Jibri Ahmed Abdullah (Professor JoEllen Vinyard)
• How the King’s Mistress Came to Thrive at the French Royal Court--Michele Beam (Professor Ron Delph)
• Jordanian-Palestinian Relations: A Historic Overview--James Cal Davenport (Professor John Knight)
• In Regards to the War in the North: Quebec and the American Revolution--Aaron Luedtke (Professor John McCurdy)
• The Pontiac Bus Bombings: Political Transformation in the 1970s--Dean Jeffery Melmoth (Professor JoEllen Vinyard)
• The Signal of Liberty: A Look into the Abolitionist Newspaper and the Minds Behind It--Wallace Elliott Shelton (Professor JoEllen Vinyard)
• Howell, Michigan and the Ku Klux Klan--John Sherston (Professor JoEllen Vinyard)
• Stand Watie and the Cherokee Mounted Rifles: A Look at the Cultural Impact--Jon Tropf (Professor Kathleen Chamberlain)

2012 Graduate Research Fair presentations

• William Boardman (Professor Ronald Delph)--The Art of War: Reward, Duty, and Power in Renaissance Florence
• Jacob Casteel (Professor Kathleen Chamberlain)--Red Power: Native American Activism and the End of the Termination Policy
• Andrea S. Christmas (Professor Joseph Engwenyu)--"Je vous ai compris"?: The Algerian War, Intellectual Antagonism, and the Dissolution of the French Essentialist Colonial Narrative
• Andrea M. Davis (Professor Ronald Delph)--The Pazzi Conspiracy: Killing the Medici Men Andrew
• Karl Donovan (Professor Ronald Delph)--Days of Shaking: The English Witch-craze as an extension of the English Civil War
• Tamara R. Grit (Professor Ronald Delph)--Harlots to Holy Women: The Rehabilitation of Prostitutes in Early Sixteenth Century Florence
• Samantha Kies (Professor Joseph Engwenyu)--African Matriarchy: The Women of Southeast Nigeria Prior to Colonization
• Donna A. Lehman (Professor Joseph Engwenyu)--McCarthyism: Extreme Politics
• Edward W. McGovern (Professor Ronald Delph)--The Rise of the Pilgrimage of Santiago de Compostela: Rural Backwater to Supra-Regional Shrine
• Jacquelyn S. Odum (Professor Kathleen Chamberlain)--The Role of the Two-Spirit Movement in the Reclamation of Native American Cultural Tradition
• Branden O'Grady (Professor Ronald Delph)--Heresy In the Heavens: Galileo and the Catholic Universe, 1609-1633
• Matthew D. Penix (Professor John Knight)--A Rational Disaster: the Ottoman Break with Britain in the First World War
• Ashley Schwedt (Professor Joseph Engwenyu)--Extreme Fear: Justifying Adults' Fright of the World Wide Web
• William T. Zurenko (Professor Ronald Delph)--For the Love of Money: Henry VIII and the Dissolution of the Monasteries
• Johanna E. S. Zwally (Professor Ronald Delph)--The Pazzi Conspiracy of 1478: Murdering the Medici

2011 Presentations

2010 Presentations

2009 Presentations

2008 Presentations