Spring History Awards

Department of History Awards

April Chizanskos
Outstanding Undergraduate Student in History

History major April Chizanskos focuses her scholarship on expressions of cultural identity. She presented at CSURF 2022 her senior thesis, “They tore it to the ground without a second thought”: Emotion, Legitimacy, and Connection in Fan Narratives Surrounding Closed Attractions in the Disney Theme Park Fandom,” for which she conducted innovative exploratory research into a slice of the Disney world that had previously gone unnoticed by fan studies scholars. Most recently, April has been studying Korean music and media, and she is interested in pursuing graduate-level opportunities to research “the Welsh language and its connection to Welsh national and cultural identity throughout time."

Bailey Eisel
Outstanding Undergraduate Student in History

Bailey Eisel is a double major in History and Philosophy, with a minor in Dance.  As an Americanist specializing in issues of gender, race and social justice, Bailey plans to pursue her interests in law school.  Bailey’s career at UCCS has been stellar, as evidenced in her capstone project on the 1880 U. S. Federal Census “Defective, Delinquent, Dependent” Classes Schedule, in which she used race, gender, age, and disability as her site of analysis in the federal government’s determination of worthiness of those in need and the responses to provide relief services in New York City.  Over the past two years, Bailey has delighted and awed her professors with her keen mind and passion for history, her exceptional research and writing skills, and her never-ending supply of fruit snacks.  Finally, Bailey has earned the respect of her peers who have benefited from her dedication to compassion, collegiality, and collaboration.  

Laura Fadely
Outstanding Undergraduate Student in History

Laura Fadely lives in Castle Rock with her husband of almost 17 years, Nathan, and their children Moss, 14, and Jonah, 9. She has no definite plan for studies after graduation but will consider graduate school. In any case, she intends to act on her passion to work with Indigenous Americans and, also, with museums in the hope that they include more Native stories in what they offer to the public. In the History Department at UCCS, she has made her mark. She has both a sharp mind and a creative spark, the latter in evidence in the meme-game she submitted to fulfill her professors' "unessay" assignment in the World War II class. She has excelled in drawing connections between history and film and has written a truly distinguished senior thesis, based on extensive, careful research. In addition, as an undergraduate she was invited into a seminar for graduate students and showed, from the first day, that she was more than equal to the challenge. For faculty and her peers alike, she has been a pleasure to work with.

David Pastier
Outstanding Undergraduate Student in History

A Colorado Springs local and graduating with a 4.0 GPA, David Pastier fell in love with history after visiting Philadelphia in the third grade, and reaffirmed this with a visit to Washington DC in 2019. He is a historian of American History who prioritizes using the stories of individuals to present larger concepts about society. This can be seen through his senior thesis work with Professor Headle, where through diligent research of primary sources, David presented the varying roles of African American women within the Suffrage Movement. During his tenure at UCCS, David was an active participant in a variety of activities, including the History Club, interning at the United States Olympic and Paralympic Museum, and even publishing a indie-folk album to Spotify! David shares that his collegiate successes are the culmination of a firm work ethic, sleepless nights, and of course, ramen. Going forward, David will pursue a graduate program to continue his study of American History, likely focusing on the Early Republic Era. Congratulations, David!

Outstanding Graduate Students

Shannon Fortune 
Outstanding Graduate Student in History

Shannon Fortune has been named an Outstanding Graduate Student due to her excellent academic work, community engagement, and her commitment as an active graduate student leader for the History Club and Phi Alpha Theta. Her research studies include American history and Religious history, emphasizing the voices of women and children. She completed archival research for all of her MA papers and presented her research paper, "Intellectual Queens in a Spiritualist Community: Women's Equality in Lily Dale, New York", at the 2023 Biennial Phi Alpha Theta Conference. As part of her MA studies, Shannon worked with the Pueblo County Historical Society over the summer of 2022 as an intern and published her first historical article. She continues to work on the PCHS magazine, the Pueblo Lore, as a staff writer.  In Spring 2023, Shannon participated in the Daniel's Ethics Fund Case Competition as part of the UCCS graduate student team. "Shannon's level of work and drive is amazing," states her professor.  Throughout her graduate studies, she has also been working full-time as a teacher at Fountain Middle School and balancing it all as a spouse and mother of three children. Shannon hopes to continue her education after taking a year off. She'd like to acknowledge her husband who continues to support her throughout her educational career. Congratulations, Shannon!

Will Franks
Outstanding Graduate Student in History

Will Franks has produced work of extraordinary range and quality during his two years as a graduate student in the MA program for the Department of History, including work on the challenge posed by Anne Hutchinson to Puritan conceptions of government in seventeenth-century New England, on the use of concepts of the conquest of the American West by Nazi theorists in conceiving of their conquering of the East, and on prostitution in the Chinese port city of Shanghai. Will also served as an editor for the Graduate History Journal, and presented his research during three semesters of the Day of History organized by UCCS History graduate students. And we just learned that Will has accepted an offer from the PhD program in American religious history at Baylor University to begin pursuing his PhD there in that field next fall. We are confident he will make extraordinary contributions to this field in the future. 

Bryana Owens
Outstanding Graduate Student in History