Archived Edition: April 25, 2007 | Back to Current	Sep 09, 2010

Herschel Smith Trust offers more fellowships
Jake Gorelov - Executive Editor

Matt Keegan ’07, Joanna Korman ’07, Maggie Lowenstein ’07, Jeffrey Wessler ’07 and Devin Yagel ’07 will be walking on the cobblestone streets of Cambridge University next year due to the expansion of the Herschel Smith Fellowships program.

A proposal approved by the Board of Trustees will offer more students the opportunity to conduct two years of graduate school at one of the Cambridge colleges in addition to the standard five Herschel Smith Fellowships awarded to graduating seniors to attend Emmanuel College at Cambridge. The additional winners will be selected on a case-by-case basis, and will attend various residential colleges at Cambridge.

“The catalyst for this change is to maximize the funding available through the generous gift made to the College by Herschel Smith,” said Jody Spooner, director of Fellowships and Advanced Study Advising. “He made this gift so that as many students as possible could have access to a university that he felt had a profound influence on his life.”

The number of supplementary prizes awarded each year will not be a constant. Instead, it will fluctuate depending on exchange rates between the dollar and pound and tuition increases, altering the amount of funding available each year.

“Given the state of the dollar, it is hard to predict,” Spooner said. “Since we cannot predict the potential cost increases each year, additional awards could range from zero to five on any given year.”

Another contributing factor will be the strength of the applicant pool, as it was this year.

“The number of fellowships awarded this year is definitely on the high end, possibly because this is the first year of funding increase, and the pool of students this year was truly amazing,” he said.

The five students who were just notified of the fellowship have all been admitted to Cambridge University, but some of them have yet to hear about their college placement there. They were either on the waitlist for the Herschel Smith Fellowship in the fall or responded to Spooner’s e-mail to the senior class, announcing funding opportunities for study at Cambridge.

In future years, seniors will apply for Herschel Smith fellowships, and five will be selected to receive them for study at Emmanuel College. Next fall, additional students may also apply for the fellowship, but will have to secure their own placement in a college at Cambridge. The five who receive the standard Herschel Smith Fellowship College, however, will not have to apply directly to the school because of Williams’ long-standing relationship with Emmanuel.

The five recently accepted fellows will join Shane Bobrycki ’07, Caitlin Hanley ’07, Catherine Kelly ’07, Paul Rogers ’07 and Natalie Vokes ’07.

“We are excited about the potential to offer more Williams College graduates the opportunity to study at Cambridge,” Spooner said.