One of the great things about teaching at Butler University is the opportunity to work closely with students on independent, archival research projects for classes, honor’s theses, and as a part of the Butler Summer Institute (BSI).

Current student projects

Student class projects have recently focused on transforming and adding to public knowledge through adding to and revising wikipedia in advance of the 100th year anniversary of women’s suffrage. Other student projects have included working on histories of high school suffrage and on the Indiana Nurses’ Association. More information is to come.

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Recent Student Honor’s Projects

Vencel, Wendy, “Women at the Helm: Rewriting Maritime History through Female Pirate Identity and Agency” (2018). Undergraduate Honors Thesis Collection. 452.
https://digitalcommons.butler.edu/ugtheses/452

Vic Overdorf, Department Thesis Research Recipient, STAIR Recipient, Honor’s Thesis, 2017

• Overdorf, Vic, “Imprisoning Sexuality: The Abuses of the State in Homosexual Male Incarceration at Alcatraz Federal Penitentiary (1934-1957)” (2017). Undergraduate Honors Thesis Collection. 413.
  https://digitalcommons.butler.edu/ugtheses/413

Miren Mohrenweiser, BSI Summer 2016 and Honor’s Thesis, Spring 2017

Sarah Bowman, USRP, 2015-2016, Honor’s Thesis, 2016

• Bowman, Sarah, “”Are You With Us?”: A Study of the Hoosier Suffrage Movement, 1844-1920″ (2016). Undergraduate Honors Thesis Collection. 355.
  https://digitalcommons.butler.edu/ugtheses/355

James Rick BSI,(BSI Summer 2014, Honor’s Thesis, 2015)

• Rick, James Jonathan, “Crafting Industrial Manhood in the Manual Training Movement, 1876-1920” (2015). Undergraduate Honors Thesis Collection. 423.
  https://digitalcommons.butler.edu/ugtheses/423

Emma Landwerlen (BSI Summer 2014, Honor’s Thesis, 2015)

• Honor’s thesis examined of two-spirit culture in the US.

Abby Neuman, BSI, 2013 and Honor’s Thesis, 2014.

• Neuman, Abigail, “Protecting the Fairer Sex: Indiana’s Failure to Improve the Lives of Working Women” (2014). Undergraduate Honors Thesis Collection. 279.
  https://digitalcommons.butler.edu/ugtheses/279

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Select Past Student Research Projects: BSI and Honor’s

Lindsay Sharp (Summer 2012)
Lindsay is working on an analysis of the rhetorics of violence in the Sierra Madre campaign in the Cuban Revolution.

Janelle Jordan (Summer 2012)
Janelle’s project examines the use of commitment as a form of eugenics in mid-20th century Indiana.

Shannon West
Shannon’s summer 2010 BSI project was a memoir of her political socialization growing up in the midwest. It will serve as the foundation of her honor’s thesis tentatively entitled, “Live a Little.”

Krista Sorensen
Krista is working on an honor’s project that examines community and identity formation among Filipino workers on the Pacific Coast, 1920-1940. This past summer she was a BSI student and completed archival research in Seattle. She received funding for her research trip from Butler University’s Holcomb Undergraduate Grant. Krista has finished her Ph.D. in public history and now works as a a Digital Projects Librarian for the state of North Carolina.

• Baylon Sorenson, Krista, “Shallow Roots: An Analysis of Filipino Immigrant Labor in Seattle from 1920-1940” (2011). Undergraduate Honors Thesis Collection. 98.
  https://digitalcommons.butler.edu/ugtheses/98

Lindsay Rump
Lindsay was a BSI student summer 2009. Her research focused on the struggle by Hoosier women, particularly those from the countryside, to gain the vote. Her research trip to Seneca Falls was funded by the Indiana League of Women Voters. spring 2010 Lindsay completed her honor’s thesis based on her summer research and gave the commencement speech drawing from her archival research. She is currently directing the election campaign for an Indiana politician.

• Rump, Lindsay E., “Votes for Women: Women’s Suffrage, Gendered Political Culture, and Progressive Era Masculinity in the State of Indiana” (2010). Undergraduate Honors Thesis Collection. 275.
  https://digitalcommons.butler.edu/ugtheses/275

Lauren Maxwell
A Chicago native, Lauren completed an archival project on the politics of memory that surrounded the work of women at the Columbian Exposition of 1893. She was a BSI student Summer 2008. She is currently a librarian in Greater Chicago.

• Maxwell, Lauren Alexander, “Constructions of Femininity: Women and the World’s Columbian Exposition” (2009). Undergraduate Honors Thesis Collection. 40.
  https://digitalcommons.butler.edu/ugtheses/40

Laura Weiskopf
As a BSI student Summer 2008, Laura explored the gendered history of birth control education in the mid-twentieth century. This research served as the basis for her honor’s thesis completed spring 2009.

Liz Orr
Liz finished her honor’s thesis entitled “Hands-on Jesus: Christian Consumer Culture in America” Spring 2008 with a presentation of her research at the URC and exhibition of her research. She is now a graduate student at Cornell University in African American studies.

Rebecca Scherpelz
After completing a BSI Summer 2007, Rebecca finished her honor’s thesis on child warfare in Uganda Spring 2008. She spent the summer after her graduation in Uganda with Ambassadors for Children.  She earned a Masters in Public Policy–International Development Management/Leadership   is currently working in the non-profit sector with children with disabilities.

Conor Lee
In the Spring of 2005, Conor completed his honor’s thesis on the Jeffersonville Boy’s Reformatory and the use of vasectomies to cure wayward boys. He is currently

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