Lycoming College history students recognized for original research at regional, national conferences

Several Lycoming College history students received accolades for their original historical research at conferences this spring. Additionally, the College inducted several new members into its history honor society, Phi Alpha Theta.

Jacob Quasius ’18 of Stanhope, N.J. was accepted to present his research at the Symposium for Undergraduate History Research (SHUR), a national undergraduate conference sponsored by Mississippi State University on April 28. The theme of the year’s conference was “Making Memory: Remembering and Commemorating the Past.” On a program full of students from top research schools such as Yale University, Johns Hopkins University and Arizona State University, Quasius was one of just 23 students invited to present at the event, and the only student representing a small liberal arts college.

His paper, “A Family Affair: The Family Unit in the Early Civil War,” examines the responses of the Pickens family of Hollow Square, Ala., to the outbreak of the Civil War. As young adults coming of age in wartime, the six siblings and their widowed mother struggled to balance the competing social pressures of Confederate nationalism, gender roles, and their dedication to the family unit.

In collaboration with Sarah Silkey, Ph.D., associate professor of history at Lycoming College, Quasius examined hundreds of hand-written letters at the Doy Leale McCall Rare Book and Manuscript Library at the University of South Alabama. His work was supported by generous funding from The George B. Gaul Endowed Student-Faculty Research Program, The Robert H. Ewing Fund, The Dan S. Collins Enhanced Academic Experience Fund, and a Lycoming College faculty-student collaborative research program funded by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.

SHUR chose to showcase Quasius’s paper at the conference due to his reliance on strong archival research. Conference organizers cited similarities in their approach to conference submission evaluation and that of a conference for professional historians.

Quasius’s paper, along with three other Lycoming College students’ papers, received “Best of Conference” awards for their presentations at the Phi Alpha Theta New York/West-Central Regional Conference at Nazareth College in Rochester, N.Y. on April 7. In addition to Quasius, those recognized include:
• Rachel D. Ham ’18 (College Station, Texas), “Food in Medieval Iberia: Religious and Legal Boundaries”
• Joseph Ingrum ’18 (Lodi, Calif.), “The Development of the Cultural Memory of the Titanic Disaster”
• Diana J. Nemceff ’20 (Phoenixville, Pa.), “The Nation’s Reaction to the Adoption of the Nineteenth Amendment”

Sean Gray ’18 (Williamsport, Pa.), Lydia Jones ’18 (Akron, Pa.) and Ali Preston ’18 (Edgewater, Md.) also presented papers on their original historical research at the conference.

On March 22, Lycoming College’s Zeta Zeta Chapter of the Phi Alpha Theta National History Honor Society held its annual induction ceremony. In order to receive an invitation to join the society, students must complete at least four history courses with a minimum GPA of 3.1 in history and maintain a GPA of 3.0 or better overall. The following students were inducted:
• Abigail Anne Bendick ’19 (Shavertown, Pa.)
• Cody A. Botts ’20 (Millmont, Pa.)
• Kaitlyn E. de Melo ’19 (Tiverton, R.I.)
• Jacob Mitchell Hatch ’19 (Jersey Shore, Pa.)
• Gabriella S. Quintard ’18 (Middle Island, N.Y)
• Jenny Amanda Romey ’19 (Temple City, Calif.)
• Kimberly A. Rutherford ’19 (Phoenixville, Pa.)
• Ashlee M. Ruzicka ’18 (Quakertown, Pa.)
• Alicia N. Skeath ’18 (Wapwallopen, Pa.)
• Joanna Lynn Wagner ’18 (Middlebury Center, Pa.).