The recipients of the 2011 American Graduate Fellowships are Melissa Pankake of Annville, Pennsylvania, who graduated first in her class from Ursinus College (PA) with a BA in English and Classics, and Natasha Roule of McLean, Virginia, who graduated from Wellesley College (MA) with a BA in Medieval and Renaissance Studies. Both of these Fellows graduated in May and will receive awards of up to $50,000 for a year of graduate study, renewable for a second year. Pankake will pursue a PhD in English with a medieval concentration at Princeton University (NJ). Roule will attend Harvard University to pursue a PhD in musicology.
The American Graduate Fellowships (AGF) program, now in its fifth year, is designed to promote and support advanced study in the humanities by talented graduates of small and mid-sized private liberal arts colleges and universities. The Fellowships may be used to support doctoral study at any of 23 leading private research institutions in the U.S., Great Britain, and Ireland. The eligible fields of graduate study include history, philosophy, literature and languages, and fine arts.
A generation ago, small liberal arts colleges prepared a disproportionate share of the country’s professional scholars and scientists. In recent years, however, graduate students in the humanities have been drawn increasingly from large research institutions and state universities. Data from a CIC analysis of the Survey of Earned Doctorates show that in 1980, 28.2 percent of new PhD recipients in the humanities were alumni of independent American colleges and universities that emphasize baccalaureate and master’s level education. That share decreased to 22.9 percent in 2003, and in 2009, only 21.4 percent of PhD recipients in the humanities were graduates of such institutions.
In addition, the American Historical Association stated in a 2005 report, “After decades of lowering the barriers of class and privilege, the ranks of new history PhDs are growing less diverse and more likely to draw from a narrow range of elite institutions…. [Only] a small number of private liberal arts colleges played a critical part in feeding undergraduates into the pipeline of future history PhDs.”
The American Graduate Fellowships support the graduate education of a few stellar graduates of small colleges and also advance two larger purposes: encouraging the best students at small and mid-sized independent colleges to apply for PhD work in the humanities at top-tier private research institutions and raising awareness at leading graduate schools that small colleges are a rich source of future doctoral students. The Fellowships, funded by a generous grant from the Wichita Falls Area Community Foundation in Wichita Falls, Texas, draw attention to the best graduates of small liberal arts colleges who possess the education and ability to excel in the doctoral programs that train tomorrow’s leading scholars. Foundation president Teresa Pontius explained, “The Wichita Falls Area Community Foundation continues to be supportive of the important work being accomplished by these distinguished recipients. The small part we play in helping shape lives is very rewarding.”
Melissa Pankake of Ursinus College (PA) graduated with a BA in medieval and renaissance studies and minor in music. She says she fell in love with Middle English literature while studying at the University of St. Andrews in Scotland in 2009. Since then, she broadened her interest in medieval literature and produced a Distinguished Honors thesis on the subject of authorship and identity in the 15th-century epic tale Morte D’Arthur. Pankake was inducted into Phi Beta Kappa as a junior, served as president of the college chapel, and is interested in the study of oral tradition, print culture, and theology and religion.
Natasha Roule is a viola da gambist at Wellesley College, where she served as assistant director of the college’s early music ensemble and conducted lecture-demonstrations on early music. She has devoted extensive time to the study of Old French and Medieval Latin and has published an article on St. Caterina de Vegri in the Monastic Matrix online academic archive. Roule was named a Trustee Scholar of Wellesley. The renowned viola da gambist Laura Jeppesen has described Roule as a student whose “intellectual pursuits cross disciplines in a rich mixture. She has already earned respect for the quality of her work as musician, linguist, writer, and historian.” As a student of musicology, Roule is interested in rhetoric in medieval music and medieval performance practice.
The 2011–2012 American Graduate Fellowship competition received applications from 38 students at 23 different institutions across the nation. In addition to the two winners, the panel of distinguished humanities scholars who reviewed the applications chose seven individuals who were also extremely deserving of commendation (see box below).