Mellon Fellow

GAMBIER, Ohio (June 6, 2005) Daniel Gustafson, Class of 2003, is a 2005 winner of the Andrew W. Mellon Fellowship in Humanistic Studies. Gustafson, who majored in English, will enroll this fall in a doctoral program in English literature at Yale University. He plans to specialize in eighteenth-century studies.

As a senior, Gustafson, a native of Worcester, Massachusetts, earned highest honors for his thesis on James Boswell and theories of identity in the eighteenth century, a research project mentored by Associate Professor of English Deborah Laycock. "Deborah was my favorite professor and a huge influence. We're friends now," says Gustafson, who studied in Exeter, England, during his junior year as a participant in the Kenyon-Exeter off-campus studies program.

A student of diverse talents, Gustafson minored in biology at Kenyon. He worked in the lab of Associate Professor of Biology Siobhan Fennessy and earned a Summer Science Scholarship to pursue research in wetlands ecology during the summer between his junior and senior years. A lover of animals, Gustafson has worked since graduation as a veterinary-clinic technician in Boston, Massachusetts, and had contemplated applying to veterinary school. "But I found that at the end of a day working in the clinic, what I wanted was to go home and read literary theory," says Gustafson. "I realized it was English that I really wanted to pursue professionally."

As an undergraduate, Gustafson was an important contributor to the literary culture at Kenyon. In addition to editing the literary magazine Persimmons, he helped operate the student-run Co-op Bookstore.

The Andrew W. Mellon Fellowship in Humanistic Studies is designed to help exceptionally promising students prepare for careers in teaching and scholarship in humanistic disciplines. This year, ninety-one fellowships were awarded nationally. The fellowship covers full graduate tuition and required fees for the first year of graduate study and includes a stipend of $17,500.