The lazy days of summer are not an apt description of the way many industrious, intellectually curious Denison students spend June, July and early August. For it is during these "school vacation" days that most of them begin their preparations for the lengthy and arduous undergraduate and postgraduate scholarship application process. The Denison Honors Program coordinates this application process under the guidance of Director of Fellowships and Professor Emeritus of Physics Michael Mickelson and Honors Program Director Kent Maynard. Each year an increasing number of students both apply and receive prestigious awards to continue their research on a topic of special interest to them. During the school year, Denison welcomes representatives from such organizations as the Marshall Foundation, the Morris K. Udall Foundation, Truman Scholarship Foundation and the District IX Committee of the Rhodes Scholarship Foundation who come to campus to further familiarize potential applicants with the process.

Last fall, a record number of seniors applied for Rhodes, Marshall, Fulbright and Jack Kent Cooke Graduate Scholarships, and 15 juniors put together applications for the Truman, Goldwater and Udall undergraduate awards. A group of committed Denison faculty members read each of the student applications, and sometimes required numerous rewrites to assist each applicant in making his or her best impression.

In late January, Denison learned that five seniors had made it through the first round of competition for the Fulbright Scholarships. Julianne McCall (La Jolla, Calif.) who designed her own major, "Neuroscience," was notified in April that she had received a Fulbright Scholarship to do neurological research at the University of Lund in Sweden. Class of 2006 valedictorian Mary Ann Miller (Sugarcreek, Ohio), who was a finalist for the Marshall Scholarship, has now learned that she will receive a Fulbright research grant to study the early Amish orders in Switzerland. Curtis Plowgian (Gurnee, Ill.) was notified in mid-May that he had been awarded a French Government Teaching Assistantship under the auspices of Fulbright/IIE. He will teach English in Nantes, France, next year. German major Ross Rikkers (Madison, Wis.) has been chosen by the Austrian Fulbright Commission to serve as an English Teaching Assistant in Austria.

Denison students also competed for other postgraduate awards. Senior physics major Kim Murley (Dalton, Pa.) was awarded a National Science Foundation Research Fellowship and will begin graduate study of biomedical engineering at the University of Maryland in the fall. Denison alumna from the Class of 2004 Anna Beck was also awarded an NSF Scholarship for next year. She is currently a graduate student in Atmospheric Chemistry at California Institute of Technology and will continue her studies there.

In late April, the Honors Program hosted a special reception for all the applicants in the Welsh Hills Room of the Burton D. Morgan Center on Denison's campus. President Knobel congratulated all of them, noting that the effort involved in completing the application process marks them as exceptional students.

About Denison:

Denison University, founded in 1831, is an independent, residential liberal arts institution located in Granville, Ohio. A highly selective college enrolling 2,100 full-time undergraduate students from all 50 states and dozens of foreign countries, Denison is a place where innovative faculty and motivated students collaborate in rigorous scholarship, civic engagement and the cultivation of independent thinking.

For press inquiries:

Name

Barbara Stambaugh

Position Title

Director, Media Relations

Primary Email

stambaughb@denison.edu

Business Phone

(740) 587-8575