Many students find senior spring a time for relaxation and time for visiting with friends before graduation.
That has been far from the truth for five seniors who have forgone theses and pursued a much more ambitious form of research -- the senior fellowship.
Brian Cina '98, Martin Kessler '98, Elena Reilly '97, Aaron Russo '98 and Onche Ugbabe '98 have each pursued an area of interest within their majors which allows them to go above and beyond what normal course work would permit them to study.
Once Senior Fellows meet their distributive requirements, they are free to spend three full terms on their project, for which they receive credit equivalent to three courses.
"It's certainly not for everyone, and it's more work than I thought it would be," Reilly said. "Nonetheless, I am really glad I did it."
Reilly, a member of the Class of 1997, took a year off to work for Americorps. She traveled to the Guatemalan highlands to study agriculture in the Mayan communities and related topics.
Through an organic farming organization, Reilly had the opportunity to live in Mayan communities where electricity was not available in order to look at environmental issues from a human perspective as their society is becoming modernized.
Even after returning to the College, Reilly was quick to point out that the work does not stop after the research has been completed.
"The big difference is that it just doesn't end. It goes through breaks and seems never-ending," she said.
Russo took on an equally ambitious task in producing the Baroque opera "Venus and Adonis: A Masque for the Entertainment of the King."
"We have been rehearsing all of the production elements. It seems like I have had an appointment every hour or half hour," he said.
Russo's work marks the first time a full-length student-run Baroque opera has been performed at the College.
Right now Russo has "no regrets," but he emphasized that the heart of the project is the performances on May 2 and 3.
Cina is pursuing an interesting connection between urban dance culture and tribal dance rituals which sprang from his background as a DJ and his frequent trips to dance clubs at home in New York City.
The music major spent his fellowship at the Fort Berthold Indian Reservation in North Dakota studying the environment and "nature in action through sound."
Cina's culminating experience will be a suite of seven pieces which combine a "sound collage" from his "nature sounds" on a recording and a live quintet of wind instruments.
Ugbabe, who is a double major in economics and music, conducted a project titled "A Study in Musical Fusion" while Kessler's project is titled "Justice for the Poor Revisited: The Legal Aid Society of New York City and the Civil Legal Services Movement, 1960-1995."
Candidates for the program apply during their junior year and must present a functional plan for their independent research projects. Fellows are ultimately selected by the president of the College based on the recommendations of the Faculty Committee on Senior Fellowships.
