Four minority graduate students in the last year of their research are at the College serving as fellows, receiving extensive support from the College as they work on their dissertations.
Robert Clyne and Demetrius Eudell '89 are Thurgood Marshall Dissertation Fellows, Kevin Connelly is the Native American Dissertation Fellow and Nancy Mirabal is the Latino Dissertation Fellow.
The fellowships were created to increase the number of minorities in the academic pipeline. They give graduate students a stipend of $25,000, office space and access to the library, computing facilities and College faculty, according to Dean of Graduate Studies Edward Berger.
The fellows said they like the opportunity to interact with Dartmouth students.
Eudell, a history graduate student from Stanford University, said he would like to establish a relationship with the Afro-American society at Dartmouth through academic advising.
"I am in a position where I am able to assist undergraduates to make decisions concerning graduate school," he said.
Eudell said his dissertation involves the "question of ideology after the abolition of slavery in the United States, particularly in the South and the British Caribbean."
Mirabal, a history graduate student from the University of Michigan, said one aspect of Dartmouth life she enjoys is the level of intellectual exchange it offers.
"I find that, with faculty and students that I've interacted with, they tend to be interested and intellectually quick," said Mirabel, who is studying the early migration of Afro-Cubans to the United States from 1899 to 1924.
"This kind of research hasn't been done before," she said.
She said she wants to serve as a student resource, particularly because there are few Latino professors at the College.
Connelly said he will use his time at Dartmouth to study the oral history and tradition of the Onondaga Indian culture.
He described his study of the Onondaga language as a process of "language revitalization" that he hopes will help preserve and maintain the dying language of his native Onondaga community in upstate New York.
"It's my part, as a member of the Onondaga community, to bring linguistics back to my community," he said.
The minority fellows are also invited to teach a course at Dartmouth and interact with undergraduate majors in their respective host departments by acting as mentors.
"As Ph.D. students, they offer a body of knowledge completely different from that of the faculty," Berger said.
Clyne could not be reached for comment.
