IWU Student Awarded Washington Semester Prize for Outstanding Paper

BLOOMINGTON, Ill. – Cameo Kaisler, a senior political science major at Illinois Wesleyan, was chosen to receive the spring 2002 ashington Semester Prize for the Outstanding Paper in gender and politics.

Kaisler, the daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Jeffrey Kaisler of Batavia, Ill., spent the spring of 2002 in Washington D.C., where she participated in American University’s Washington Semester, said to be the oldest and most prestigious experiental education program in the world. The program immerses 400 students from 150 different colleges and universities into their field of interest for a full-credit semester.

For her optional independent research project, Kaisler wrote her prize-winning paper entitled "The Effects of Federal Campaign Finance Reform on Women Candidates for the U.S. House of Representatives," Along with the prize, Kaisler will receive a $200 cash award. David C. Brown, dean of American University, commended Kaisler’s paper as "a rigorous and significant contribution to the fields of gender and politics."

Kaisler, whose interest was sparked by a class on Congress she took with Greg Shaw, assistant professor of political science at Illinois Wesleyan, is particularly interested in women in elections and public policy. She sees a possible future in law and would like to campaign for a female candidate in the 2004 election or return to Washington D.C. to work for women’s interest groups.