Students earn two of 16 national Lilly grad fellowships

Summary: Recent Calvin College graduates Hannah Bormann and Robert Zandstra have been selected as Lilly Graduate Fellows, an honor bestowed upon just 16 people in the nation.

Hannah Bormann '09 and Robert Zandstra '08 have been selected as members of the Lilly Graduate Fellows program. The program, now in its third year, is an initiative of the Lilly Fellows Program in Humanities and the Arts that supports outstanding students in PhD programs who are interested in teaching at Christian institutions.

Students in the program are divided into two groups, each assigned a mentor chosen from one of the 93 schools that make up the Lilly Fellow Program national network of church-related schools. Over a three year period these fellows and their mentors meet virtually, communicating and collaborating in areas of research, teaching and professional development.

Calvin College professor of English Susan Felch is one of the two mentors for the second cohort of students that began last fall. She talks with each of her fellows via phone bi-weekly to provide one-on-one mentorship.

"This idea of coming up with a mentoring program for graduate students ... it has just been fabulous," said Felch. "These are such amazing young scholars already ... and they are appreciative of the opportunity to be involved in spiritual formation and a deepened understanding of the Christian intellectual tradition while they are in graduate school."

Devin Byker, who is a 2008 graduate of Calvin College, is in Felch's mentoring group. He is going into his second year of graduate studies in English literature at Boston University.

Bormann and Zandstra begin their graduate studies this fall in English literature at The Catholic University of America and the University of Oregon, respectively.

For more information on the program, visit www.lillyfellows.org/graduate_fellows_program.htm

-end-

Matt Kucinski
Media Relations Manager
Calvin College
msk23@calvin.edu
616.526.8935 (office)
616.307.7429 (cell)
Received on Thu Jul 8 09:30:11 2010