Campus News and Notes
funding and office space in Baker Library. However, fellows must supply their own devotion and intellectual discipline. Here are the 13 fellows from the class of 2000: Imagine the luxury of being mentored by some of the best minds among the faculty while exploring in depth a subject that excites a passion. That's what Dartmouth's senior fellows have enjoyed since the program's inception in 1929. Applicants, a small intellectual elite, are recommended by a faculty committee and chosen by the president to pursue projects related to their majors. The College provides fellows with research
History major Janelle Ruley is studying the hottest subject on campus: student social life. "The history and social and political intricacies of change at the College are compelling to me," says Ruley. "And I am excited to be able to add my perspective to Dartmouth's story." Starting with the assumption that the current social and residential life system is not substantially coeducational, Ruley plans to investigate why it's taken so long to address the imbalances.
Kathryn Sullivan, a philosophy major, plans to perform a monologue and an improvisational performance piece as part of her study of the intersection of feminist philosophy and performance. Why? "To show how art can inform as well as be informed by theory," says the native of Locust Valley, New York.
General Douglas MacArthur aided several guerrilla organizations that were part of a little-known resistance effort in the Philippines during World War II. History major AnnaLoomis hopes to learn more about these groups and the support they received, particularly those on the islands of Luzon and Mindanao.
Music major MichaelRoberts is composing a rock opera. His "Lotus Blooming in a Sea of Fire," scored for 10 instruments and seven singers, tells the story of the My Lai massacre that took place during the Vietnam War. He'll conduct a live, concertversion performance in the Hop's Spaulding Auditorium May 24.
Winnie Wong, a studio arts major, has an eye on the use, meaning and production of space in urban Hong Kong. Wong plans to focus on how the city's colonial and postcolonial experiences challenge academic paradigms of change, progress and political confrontation.
Three seniors have joined forces to examine the evolution of black media and its future survival as a commercial entity. They are Desmond Ahoklui, a history major, Reginald Belhomme, a dual economics and African-American studies major, and Brian Sleet, a sociology major.
A lecture coupled with a spring performance of Langston Hughes' "Ask Your Mama" constitute English major Kevin Livelli's project. "How Can We Know the Dancer from the Dance?" documents the musical, literary, historical and cultural influences on African-American poetry during the Harlem Renaissance of the 1920s. Livelli, who is delivering the lecture, will also produce and direct the orators, jazz musicians and singers he's assembled for the show.
Anthropology major Vanessa Ferro, a Miami native, is collecting personal narratives and assembling a photographic record as part of her research into how Cuban exiles view their social, economic and political status.
Music major Steven Fox plans to produce and conduct two concerts of Russian Romantic music. First, he will coordinate 12 professional singers in a production of Rachmaninoffs "AllNight Vigil." Then he hopes to conduct a 50-person orchestra and four professional soloists in scenes from Mussorgsky's "Boris Godunov," Tchaikovsky's "Yevgeny Onyegin," Glinka's "A Life for the Tsar" and Tchaikovsky's "Swan Lake."
Film major Todd Garfield is producing "Remote Out of Control"—a six-minute, hand-drawn, cel-animated short. "Even after spending thousands of hours doingtedious, almost technical work, it still feels like magic when you see your drawings come to life on the big screen," he says.
Finally there's music student Elizabeth Roberts. She culminated her fellowship in January with a traditional performance of Handel's late-Baroque opera "Alcina." The soprano developed, produced and starred before two packed performances at Collis Common Ground.
The current senior fellows. Top row, from left: Brian Sleet, Elizabeth Roberts, Michael Roberts, Desmond Ahoklui, Todd Garfield, Reginald Belhomme; middle row: Steven Fox, Kathryn Sullivan, Kevin Livelli; sitting in front: Janelle Ruley, Anna Loomis. (Not shown: Winnie Wong and Vanessa Ferro.)
