Prestigious Mellon Fellowships won by Bhimull and Weber

F or the second consecutive year, Kenyon has produced two Mellon Fellowship recipients. Chandra D. Bhimull '98 and Laura M. Weber '97 have won the highly competitive award to pursue graduate study in the humanities. The stipends for Bhimull and Weber, who will enter Ph.D. programs in the fall of 1998, will be $14,000 plus tuition and mandated fees. The fellowships are for the first year of the program only.

Bhimull plans to study history and anthropology at the University of Michigan or history at the University of Chicago. Weber will pursue a doctorate in English, specializing in medieval studies, at Columbia University.

Because many programs do not provide stipends for first-year students, Weber says she was especially happy to hear of the award. "I think it will help to have the prestige of the Mellon name behind me when it's time to find a job," adds Weber.

Ninety-seven of the entry-level, portable merit fellowships were awarded in this year's competition from a field of seven hundred and fifty applicants. The judging is based on grade-point averages, Graduate Record Examination scores, and outstanding future promise, as attested to by faculty members at the candidates' home institutions.

According to foundation materials, the awards are intended to help exceptionally promising students to prepare for careers of teaching and scholarship in humanistic studies by providing awards that contribute to the continuity and teaching of research of the highest order in America's colleges and universities.

Harvard led among the fifty-five institutions providing winners, with a total of eleven. Following were Yale University with eight; Princeton University with four; and Brown University, Reed College, the University of Chicago, and the University of California at Berkeley with three. Kenyon was one of fifteen institutions to have two winners.

The Mellon Fellowships are funded by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.

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