Students Win Mellon Fellowships

Eight Harvard College students are among the 98 winners of the Mellon Fellowships in Humanistic Studies competition announced last month.

Harvard has more fellows than the other 52 schools represented.

The fellowships, administered by the New Jersey-based Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship Foundation (WWNFF), are awarded to students beginning doctoral work in the humanities in the fall. The fellowships target students who want to teach and have a broad interest in learning.

The only national humanities graduate awards, the fellowships cover the complete cost of tuition and fees and provide a $14,500 stipend.

"The fact that it's in the humanities I really like because a lot of people don't even consider applying to grad. school because everyone knows the job market for Ph.D.s, especially humanities Ph.D.s, is pretty bad right now," said Lynn Y. Lee '99, one of the winners and a former Crimson executive. "I think the Mellon is just a great way of encouraging people to do graduate study and go into academia in the humanities."

Four of the eight Harvard winners are seniors, and four graduated from the College.

Current Harvard students receiving this year's award are: Luis A. Campos '99, a biology concentrator from Lowell House; Shalimar A. O. "Abigail" Fojas '99, a history concentrator from Winthrop House; Lee, an English concentrator from Currier House; and Emily Thornbury '99, an English concentrator from Lowell House.

Additionally, four former Harvard students are recipients of this year's award: David F. Elmer '98, a classics concentrator; Andreas J. Liu '96, a philosophy concentrator; Emily D. Michelson '95, a history and literature concentrator; and Edith A. Replogle '96, a history and literature concentrator.

For some recipients, the award fulfilled its intended purpose of encouraging graduate study in the humanities.

"Up until that point (of winning the fellowship) I was debating whether or not I wanted to go to grad school," said Lee, who had been accepted to law schools when she learned of her award.

But now she has decided to study English at Yale next year. "It reaffirmed the thought that somebody out there thought it was worth it for me to study on a graduate level."

Campos praised the award's purpose. "It's a fantastic award," he said, "and to have a foundation that values teaching as well as top notch research...that's what it's all supposed to be about, right?"

Before learning of his Mellon fellowship, Campos accepted an award to study at Cambridge University for a year before pursuing his Ph.D. in the history of science at Harvard. Since the Mellon Fellowship requires its winners to use the money in the year after it is awarded, Campos will be designated an honorary Mellon fellow, and his stipend will be awarded to a student on the waiting list.

National graduate school enrollment has declined this year, but applications for the Mellon Fellowships were up 4.5 percent, to almost 800 applicants.

Women won 54 percent of the fellowships. Twenty-one of the fellows identified themselves as non-white, including eight blacks, seven Hispanics, one Native American and six students from other ethnic groups.