The Graduation Issue > May 3, 2007

By Kell Wilson | Life editor

While most of her classmates were settling into their second year at the university, Liz Lundeen was off in Wisconsin, helping with the 2004 presidential race.

click to enlarge

After earning a Truman Scholarship, Liz Lundeen plans to study at Cambridge University next fall to work towards a Master’s degree. (Sophie Mullinax/Old Gold & Black)

She interned with The League of Conservation Voters, an organization that endorsed democratic nominee John Kerry.

It comes as no surprise then that Lundeen, who hails from Great Rapids, Mich., initially came to the university to major in political science.

However, after taking a few history classes at the university, she recognized that the two departments serve as a complement to one another.

“I realized that what I was learning in political science was well supplemented by a lot of the contextual academic information that I was studying in history,” Lundeen said.

“I also found that I was very stimulated by the way in which history courses teach you to think,” she said.

“You constantly are taught to ask the question ‘why?’.”

“I was very interested especially in American history and the issues of race and gender and class,” she said.

“In the last year or so I’ve become very interested in southern American history in particular.”

Lundeen has certainly put her two majors to use throughout her college career.

For example she served as president of College Democrats for two years and this year helped to put together Genocide Awareness Week on campus in April, which grew out of a class she was taking.

“I strongly believe in making connections in what I do in class in what I do outside of class,” Lundeen said.

“I’m fortunate to have a lot of cross-applications. It’s kind of been a goal of mine to never take a class that didn’t have some applicability outside of the classroom.”

Lundeen has also been involved with Women’s Initiative for Self Empowerment.

She wished to become a women and gender studies minor, but because of the time she had taken off to help with the presidential race, she was one class shy of having a case for the dean to allow her have a minor along with her two majors.

Lundeen was also a part of the university debate team for four years.

She entered the university as a Presidential Scholar in debate, building upon this background with the university’s debate team over the years.

After working on the presidential election in 2004 and studying abroad in London in the fall of 2005, Lundeen was able to come back her senior year and get into the competition.

This year, she met her goal in reaching the elimination rounds in the National Debate Tournament.

Her junior year, Lundeen was granted the esteemed Truman Scholarship, a federal scholarship that is given annually to only 65-75 college students who show a commitment to public service and demonstrate leadership skills.

She is only the 14th student from the university to receive this honor since its founding in 1975.

This summer Lundeen will travel to Washington, D.C., with the rest of the Truman scholars from her class to partake in a 10-week internship.

Next year, Lundeen will find herself across the Atlantic Ocean entering a graduate program at the prestigious Cambridge University in England to earn her Master’s of Arts degree in history.

Yet even she admits that after completing the year-long program it may be best to take a break for a year.

“I’d say I’m about 75 percent certain that I want to stay in academics,” Lundeen stated.

“But I think definitely after Cambridge, I’m going to take some time out of school to see if I really want to be back in school.”