by Elise Goitia '17

Five Knox students who received Graduate School Exploration Fellowships (GSEF) are spending the summer undertaking paid research internships where they're gaining firsthand experience at the graduate level in their fields of interest.

"This is a terrific opportunity for students to explore graduate-level work, expand their own thinking and creativity, and have financial support to make this possible," said former Dean Laura Behling.

The GSEF program is designed for students interested in pursuing study and research in the humanities, humanistic social sciences, and arts. Fellows gain mentoring, career development, and experiential research opportunities beginning in the fall of their junior year.

In the summer before their senior year, fellows are paired with graduate professors and/or graduate students on the campus of a Big Ten Academic Alliance institution (comprised of the 14 member institutions of the Big Ten Conference) and the University of Chicago. 

"For my fellowship, I'm working on a paper about queer futurity in contemporary young adult literature," commented Katherine Alaks '17, who is doing research at the University of Michigan and hopes to become a children's/young adult librarian with an M.A. in English Literature.

"The program is providing me with a lot of resources to prepare my grad school application."

In addition to Alaks, Knox students who were awarded fellowships include:

• Willa Coufal, theatre, at University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
• Jayel Gant, theatre, creative writing, at University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
• Ari Jindracek, creative writing, at University of Wisconsin-Madison.
• Callie Ellis, economics, at Rutgers University.

Prior to her fellowship, Callie Ellis '18, a first-generation college student, considered graduate school a long shot.

"When I received the GSEF program application, it seemed like a door was finally opening for me to really put my personal investment in my education to the test," said Ellis.

Now, Ellis is working with Dr. Barry Sopher, the director for the Center for Economic Behavior Institutions and Design at Rutgers University on understanding the way that consumers react to deferred payment plans. She's considering pursuing a Ph.D. after graduating.

"Knox more than influenced my decision," she added. "It helped affirm my role as an academic. Its resources specifically helped provide me this opportunity that I may not have received at another school."

The GSEF program is one of three main components of the Undergraduate and Faculty Fellows Program for a Diverse Professoriate. It is supported by an $8.1 million grant from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation to create new opportunities for collaboration between undergraduate and graduate programs at the 14 liberal arts colleges in the ACM and 15 research universities in the Big Ten Academic Alliance.