CSWS Calderwood Seminars

Starting in Spring 2025, CSWS is sponsoring Calderwood Seminars in Public Writing on gender-related topics across several departments at the University of Oregon. Hear student experiences and instructor insights about these intensely rewarding workshop-style courses that strengthen student writing, editing, and revision skills for audiences beyond academia.

Calderwood Seminars: Student Work

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Shane Rose: HIST 416, Spring 2025

In about two weeks I will be graduating from the University of Oregon. It took eleven years to get to this point, registering in 2014. I’m certain it isn’t a record for the longest enrollment period as an undergrad, but it is still a rather long time. I’m proud of myself and my accomplishments, sure, but I do have one regret. I wasn’t a Women's, Gender, and Sexuality Studies major. I wanted to be one, as the subject matter deeply impacted who I am as a person and my trajectory in life, but Veteran’s Affairs policy actively prevented me from doing so. I wish to explain both aspects to you.

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Shaelyn Thomas: HIST 416, Spring 2025

Two out of every three people diagnosed with Alzheimer’s in the United States are women. While this has been commonly explained by women’s slightly longer lifespans, many researchers have been dissatisfied with that conclusion. It does not explain why Black women are disproportionately affected, or why certain geographic locations show a higher disparity of diagnoses. Nor does it show why there is growing evidence that women are still disproportionately underdiagnosed with Alzheimer’s, suggesting an even higher disparity in cases compared to less than five years difference in lifespan.

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Lash Eversole: HIST 416, Spring 2025

We look at the world around us and the remarkable things we can do at speeds people only dreamed about in a not so far past, and when we look at who was awarded and given credit to these great advancements, we see a long list of men with little to no mention of the women who made these achievements possible. It is a brutal and saddening truth how many wondrous minds and their work have been suppressed by men, but it's well past time these women are brought into the limelight and given credit and praise, even after death.