The Fred L. Emerson Foundation, Inc. of Auburn, N.Y., has announced a $500,000 challenge grant to permanently endow student-faculty collaborative programs at Hamilton College.
The grant carries with it a one-to-three challenge to Hamilton, meaning the college must raise $1.5 million in order to receive the foundation's full $500,000.
Once fully funded, the Emerson Scholars Program will provide grants for approximately 20 students each summer to work closely with a faculty mentor. The program was started in 1997 as a pilot project, also with a grant from the Emerson Foundation.
The Emerson award is the second major grant received by Hamilton in as many weeks. Last week the College announced receipt of a $330,000 grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation to assess student learning.
"The Emerson Scholars program has become, in a very short time, Hamilton's most prestigious student-faculty collaboration opportunity," said President Eugene M. Tobin. "It is a tremendous success, reflected not only by the nearly 150 applicants for the 42 awards made since 1997, but by the positive influence it has had on the educational experiences of students and faculty members alike."
The Emerson Scholars program was designed to provide students with significant opportunities to work collaboratively with faculty mentors, researching an area of mutual interest. The recipients typically undertake some combination of fieldwork, laboratory investigation, library research and the development of teaching materials. A public presentation of their findings is required of all Emerson Scholars.
David Prior, a May 2001 Hamilton graduate from Santa Clara, Calif., called the program, "the most rewarding academic experience I have had to date. With its emphasis on self-discipline, intellectual initiative, research, close contact with a professor and communication, the Emerson Scholar award is perhaps all of the merits of a small liberal arts college in a pure form."
Prior, who is currently working with the Federal Reserve in Washington, collaborated with Professor of Economics Elizabeth Jensen on a project titled "Presidential Economics from Truman to Nixon." As part of his obligation to present material from his Emerson research publicly, Prior taught a class last fall in Jensen's American economic history course.
"By teaching students to pursue their academic interests aggressively and to articulate their interests," Prior said, "the Emerson Scholars program functions as an important rite of passage between the undergraduate classroom and the world of research. My Emerson grant has done wonders for my confidence as a student and as a researcher."
Nicole Austin, also a May 2001 Hamilton graduate, studied "Temporary Aid to Needy Families (TANF) in the Utica, New York, Area," with an Emerson grant in the summer of 2000.
"The Emerson Scholars program has changed my career outlook and given me incredible passion," Austin said. "I am convinced that I should now go into some form of government, law or public policy to continue doing projects such as this in the future." Austin, from Clinton, N.Y., recently began work at a law firm in Washington and plans to attend law school in the future.
Emerson grants are also coveted by faculty members, because they provide opportunities to work closely and substantively with students on long-term research projects.
"In almost 30 years at Hamilton," said Edmund A. LeFevre Professor of English John O'Neill, "I have seldom had an opportunity to interact as a teacher with a student in as sustained and sophisticated a relationship as I did on this project."
Richard Seager, Associate Professor of Religious Studies, recalls his time advising a Emerson Scholar, "as one of the best experiences I have had as a teacher."
Traditionally, support for student-faculty collaborations has been available only in the sciences. The Emerson Scholars program accepts proposals from students and faculty in all disciplines, including the sciences, but the college gives preference for summer research, scholarship or creative activity in the three other divisions of the college - the arts, humanities and social sciences.
Typically, an announcement inviting applications for the grants is distributed to the college community in the spring. Interested students and faculty members, working together, develop proposals describing the objectives of their intended projects and the methods they will use to accomplish those objectives over the course of the summer. With few, if any, exceptions, proposals must be submitted by one or two faculty members collaborating with one or two students on an original project.
Students are selected to receive an Emerson grant based their project's potential for high quality and collaborative, yet independent, research with a faculty sponsor. They receive a $3,000 stipend for the summer and must prepare a public presentation based on the results of their findings.
Carol Drogus, Associate Professor of Government, said the Emerson Scholars program need not be limited to the Hamilton campus.
"The Emerson Scholars program was a fabulous opportunity for Emily Roynestad," Drogus said. "It enabled her to extend her study abroad experience in Chile and to undertake real fieldwork on a research project that was truly her own. She subsequently presented a paper, 'Market Citizens or Union Maids? Women Workers in the Globalized Chilean Economy,' at the Mid-Atlantic Congress of Latin American Studies, and Emily was a real star of the conference. Numerous faculty members from other colleges congratulated me on her presentation and envied me the experience of working so closely with such a great student. The paper was awarded the Espada Prize for best undergraduate research. I am sure that the Emerson Scholars program also played a key role in Emily's successful application for a Fulbright Grant to do further research in the Dominican Republic."
A list of previously funded Emerson Scholar projects is available at: http://www.hamilton.edu/academics/Emerson/.
The Fred L. Emerson Foundation, incorporated in 1932 by funds donated by Fred L. Emerson, is a private foundation which focuses its grant-making efforts on private institutions of higher education, social service and youth organizations, community funds, and cultural programming in Central New York.
