The select seniors who have been awarded Senior Fellowships are digging deeply into their respective theses and conducting research on their many diverse projects.
The eight seniors have been awarded fellowships from the College to pursue topics from dolphins to Dave Matthews, each topic as diverse as the interests of the student.
Brian Reilly and Blake Zidell, for example, are examining feminism in the context of the music business in a thesis titled "Silent All These Years: Feminism, Listening and Contemporary Popular Music."
Their thesis was the first time the College has granted a collaborative fellowship, though Reilly said, "it really amounts to two separate fellowships," with both seniors doing an equal amount of research and writing.
Reilly said he had been thinking about writing on this topic since his freshman year, when he met Zidell on the College's debate team. The two formulated the idea based on their shared interest in both music and philosophy.
"I really wanted to write about REM," Reilly said.
The two agreed to broaden their topic to include many performers and genres, which would help them in their goal: to join literary theory and popular music.
Physics Professor Joseph Harris, chair of the senior fellow committee, said the fellowship numbers were down slightly from previous years, when anywhere from seven to 12 seniors have been awarded the honor. However, if the committee feels a fellow is not making sufficient progress on his or her thesis, the fellowship can be revoked.
"We expect these students to devote most of their time to this," said Harris.
"It's definitely an all-day thing," Reilly said. He said most of his time is spent on the phone, speaking to thesis partner Zidell and to professors. Zidell is currently conducting research in Santa Cruz, where he plans on interviewing "music stars and people in the business," Reilly said.
Fellowship recipient Rahsaan Sales, whose thesis concentrates on the relationships between Toni Morrison and August Wilson's works, also has little free time. To work successfully on such a big project, he said, takes a great deal of self-motivation. "Another part is determining your own deadlines," Sales said.
Many senior fellows choose to use some of their time and money to travel and conduct research -- Lauren Allen-Vail, Elizabeth Davison, Lindsay McOmber, Robin Nunn and Zidell are all doing research off campus this fall term. Sales said he plans to take a trip to Yale University, where playwright Wilson's plays were first produced, and to go and interview the two authors.
Sales, whose thesis is titled "All Are One: Cultural Survivors of the Middle Passage: A Comparative Study of Toni Morrison and August Wilson," said he started thinking about the topic his sophomore spring, and began work on the actual proposal for the fellowship application last winter.
The application, which consists of an essay, two recommendations and a proposed budget for the project, are considered by the fellowship committee after submission. The applicant then interviews with the committee, after which a vote is taken on whether or not the fellowship should be granted.
Once they have met their distributive requirements, senior fellows are free to spend three full terms on their project, for which they receive credit equivalent to nine courses.
The other senior fellows and their respective theses are:
-- Lauren Allan-Vail; "Khabarovsk: Going Home" (a collection of personal essays).
-- Sarah Callies; "A Cross-Cultural Comparison of Gender in Marriage Rituals as Performance."
-- Elizabeth Davison; "Wildlife Rehabilitation: The Search for Co-existence" (a photojournalistic examination of the efforts to live with the wildlife in America's backyards).
-- Lindsay McOmber; "Mating Group Behavior of Dusky Dolphins,"
-- Robin Nunn "The Rebellion" (a novella that examines the transformation of the Kikuyu women in Kenya from 1920 through the Mau Mau period).
