Kate Buhrmaster '97 Caleb Scott '97 Natasha Zartsky '97

Senior Fellows

IT'S A VERY DIFFERENT experience from being a normal student," says Kate Buhrmaster, a brown-haired creative writer who is one of the few people in her class to have completed a fall-length novel before graduating. "You can't say, 'Gee, do I want to sleep through class this morning or not?'"

That's because she has no classes to go to. For instead of completing her English and psychology majors, Buhrmaster last year became a senior fellow, part of a select group of students who are awarded one of Dartmouth's most distinguished yet intimidating honors: a full year set free from classes to follow an independent scholarly project.

Started in 1929, the senior fellowship gives formal recognition to those whose greatest learning occurs beyond the classroom.

To find the right voice for her novel The Landing—a look at one family's struggle with manic depression—Buhrmaster interned at Dartmouth- Hitchcock Medical Center's psychiatric unit; Caleb Scott took the medieval epic TheCartnina Burana, for which he is doing a creative translation, and blared the soundtrack at Moosilauke Ravine Lodge during the freshmen trips dinner skit; Natasha Zaretsky walked the streets of Brooklyn, interviewing Soviet Jewish immigrants and gathering data for her culminating work, "The Invented Spaces and Identities of Soviet Jewish Immigrants in Brooklyn, New York." After a year's passage of solitary vision and quiet creation (which can be an inspiration as well as a constant struggle against loneliness, some say), the fellows presented their final works to the campus in May.

Fellows receive few honors at graduation time. Their recognition has come earlier, when the College first gave them the nod to navigate freely. For many fellows, the experience leaves them forever changed: unafraid to think big, to attempt faraway dreams, and to strive alone for higher knowledge.

The Best of the Brightest. Senior fellows Zaretsky, Scott, and Buhrmaster.