Senior Fellowship Program

By vote of the Faculty and the Board of Trustees, each year no more than seven students in the junior class are selected to be Senior Fellows during the following year. Senior Fellows are chosen from among students of such intellectual caliber, independence of mind, and imaginative curiosity that they have become interested in some personal project of study that will contribute significantly to their intellectual growth. These students are permitted as much freedom as they are capable of using profitably within the framework, but not necessarily the conventional curriculum, of the College. The Senior Fellowship Program constitutes recognition of the existence at the College of the kind of responsible individualism that allows the opportunity for self-education for those judged best able to use it.

Appointment of the fellows is made by the Dean of the Faculty on the recommendation of the Academic Council. The Council shall select each year from its list of applicants those candidates who are able to receive Senior Fellowships. The Council also shall determine the number of Fellows each year, but the number cannot exceed seven.

Members of the junior class may become candidates for Senior Fellowships by individual application or on the nomination of a member of the Faculty. A candidate who is in residence must file a written application with the Dean of the Faculty by the date listed under "Deadlines" below. Included with the application shall be the names of the faculty members who shall have consented to serve as principal advisor and co-advisor and a detailed description of the project: what the candidate proposes to do, the reason for doing it, and plans for achieving the goals of the project.

Any student who is studying off-campus and wishes to become a candidate for a Senior Fellowship must file a letter of intent with the Dean of Faculty by the date listed below. Such students then have until August 1 to complete their applications.

The principle advisor and the co-advisor each shall submit to the Dean, in support of the candidate's application, a comprehensive written statement in which the merit and feasibility of the project, the qualifications of the applicant, and the commitment of the advisor are discussed fully.

Requirements

Fellows must have completed twenty-four course credits before the beginning of their fellowship year and should have met the goals of the College with respect to breadth of coursework, writing intensive course, knowledge of others and ethical issues. They shall take during the fellowship year such courses as the advisors, in consultation with the Academic Council, may prescribe; they shall not normally spend the senior year without enrolling in one or more courses.

Fellows shall not be required to complete a concentration, but they may do so if they so desire; they do not receive any reduction in the requirements for the concentration.

The Council shall exercise general supervision over the Senior Fellowship Program. The appointment as a Senior Fellow is provisional for one term, with continuation contingent upon the recommendation of the Council which shall consider a detailed written evaluation from the principal advisor.

Fellows must submit their final written projects to their advisors and the Dean of the Faculty not later than two weeks prior to the beginning of the final examination period of the last term of the fellowship. After the written project has been received by the Dean, the Academic Council, in consultation with the principal advisor and the Senior Fellow, will appoint a board of three examiners, at least two members of which shall be from the Hamilton faculty.

The principal advisor, co-advisor, and the board of examiners together shall determine a grade of Credit or No Credit for the fellowship project based upon an assessment of the written project and the performance of the Fellow during the oral defense. The principal advisor shall transmit the grade to the Registrar for permanent recording, and in addition shall write a letter of evaluation expressing the committee's judgment of the Fellow's performance on the project. The letter is sent to the Fellow, and a copy will be inserted in the student's personal file in the office of the Dean of the Faculty. Fellows are eligible, on the basis of their work in graded courses, for all honors that they may earn by virtue of their rank in class. In the event of a failure, the Academic Council shall specify the requirements to be fulfilled before the degree is awarded.

Each fellow must present his or her project at a public lecture to which the College community is invited. The scheduling is the responsibility of the principal advisor, but the lecture may not occur earlier than one month before the beginning of the examination period of the last term of the Fellowship or later than the last day of that term.

Advisors

Primary guidance in the planning and execution of the projects undertaken by Senior Fellows lies with the principal advisor, with the co-advisor serving to add breadth. Each advisor must be in the rank of Professor, Associate Professor, or Assistant Professor, and must hold an appointment not less than half-time. Normally the principal advisor and the co-advisor shall not be from a single discipline. Principal advisors who expect their duties to be burdensome may ask the Dean, in consultation with the departmental chair, to review their total commitments.

Deadlines

• Deadline for Fellowship Applications from on-campus students: Friday, April 7
• Deadline for Letters of Intent from off-campus students: April 15 (application deadline for off-campus students: August 1).

Recent Projects

Sarah Culkin: Lymphocyte adhesion to the extracellular matrix and gelatinase B secretion in HIV-I transgenic mice.

M. Cummins: The literature of heroes: The ancient heroic literature of Anglo-Saxon England and Medieval Iceland.

K. Ferrare: Saint Margaret of Cortona: Female sanctity and the struggle for independence.

C. Funsch: Kinesthetic interpretation of literature.

M. Garcia-Sciveres: Ways to chaos in classical physical systems.

J. Klein: An historical novel set at the time of the Salem Witch Trials.

A. Kuhlberg: Representation of the cognitive development of children through the narrative structure of literature.

Whitney Martin: Factual and fictional writings on the Southern and Northern United States.

Lanethea Matthews: Women and organizational structure: Reinventing bureaucracy in light of feminist theory.

Jennifer Mijangos: Mis cuentas: excavating a bi-cultural history.

K. Preucil: The neural basis of behavior: Processing by multimodal cells in the brains of behaving animals.

K. Russell: Rape as a cultural phenomenon in 18th Century Europe.

E. Windle: Power and meditation in curing practices among the Quicha and Tsachi peoples of Ecuador.

M. Woods: Breaking Camille. A play based on the life of a turn-of-the-century sculptress.

Scenes @ Hamilton