This week, the standing faculty committee on senior fellowships selected Hannah McGehee ’15, Bennie Niles ’15 and Yomalis Rosario ’15 as senior fellows for the 2014-15 year, giving them the opportunity to pursue in-depth research projects instead of taking classes. Director of undergraduate advising and research Margaret Funnell said the three were selected because their projects were unique and aligned with the program’s goals.
Given the options of majoring, minoring, modifying and various interdisciplinary programs, Funnell said most students can find their path inside the Dartmouth curriculum. The senior fellows program, however, is designed for students whose interests extend beyond existing course offerings.
“The idea behind it is to let students individually explore a topic about which they are very passionate,” Funnell said.
Niles is making a documentary titled “I, Too, Am Man: Malcolm X and Visions of Black Masculinity.” The film will examine self-representation in “performativity,” constructions and representations of black masculinity and the ways in which notions of Malcolm X inform contemporary black masculinity, he said. He said his personal experiences motivated him to make the film.
“I’ve been grappling with issues of masculinity my whole life through interactions with my dad and experiences being on the football team,” he said. “I always struggled with what it means to be a man.”
Over the summer, Niles will be a fellow in the humanities institute program at the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture in New York . At the center, Niles will conduct archival research before returning to Hanover to shoot his documentary next year.
After graduation, Niles hopes to pursue a Ph.D. in African-American studies or English.
Rosario decided to complete a project called “Narratives and Images of Resistance: Haitian-Dominicans and the Struggle for Citizenship Rights.”
Her goal is to create a collection of oral histories and photographs that focus on the experiences of Haitian-Dominicans in the Dominican Republic, she said. Currently, Haitian-Dominicans are mobilizing and working against a recent court ruling that threatens their rights to Dominican citizenship.
“It has a lot of importance to me because my family is from the Dominican Republic, we are working-class and I identify as Afro-Dominican,” she said. “These types of policies and discrimination that takes place in the Dominican Republic also affect Afro-Dominicans and workers in the Dominican Republic.”
Rosario has protested in New York City in solidarity with Haitian-Dominicans and hopes to share their stories and experiences through her project, she said. This summer, she plans to travel to the Dominican Republic to conduct interviews and take photographs before returning to Dartmouth to finish her project, which will be available in both Spanish and English.
McGehee’s project is “Living Fibromyalgia: Communicating Chronic Pain through Narratives and Creative Expression.” She plans to interview college-aged women at Dartmouth and in Colorado who have been diagnosed with the syndrome, which causes chronic widespread pain.
The project will explore various components of fibromyalgia through oral histories, academic writing and a display of the artwork her participants produce in the Visual Arts Center.
Before applying to the senior fellowship, students meet with an advisor in the undergraduate advising and research office, who asks questions to determine if the program is a good fit, Funnell said.
“This is a specific program that is the right thing for very few students, and so one of the things we do in the meetings is talk through their academic plans, course work, post-graduation plans and plans for their projects so that they can make a more informed decision about whether this program is the right thing for them,” she said.
This year, 15 to 20 students arranged meetings to discuss the application process, and five students applied for the three spots, Funnell said.
The original senior fellowship program was started in 1929 by then-College President Ernest Hopkins, who wanted a program that would allow students to explore academics on their own, Funnell said.
Instead of proposing projects and finding faculty advisors, students initially took the year to explore a topic of choice, Funnell said, adding that the program has become more academic in focus over the years.
McGehee could not be reached for comment by press time.
Rosario is a former member of The Dartmouth senior staff.
