Timothy Spurgin, associate professor of English, Bonnie Glidden Buchanan Professor in English Literature, and director of Freshman Studies, recently wrapped up another Watson Fellowship application season, coaching four seniors as they prepared written proposals and participated in interviews, each dreaming of earning a coveted Watson Fellowship.
With assistance from Brian Pertl ’86, dean of the conservatory of music, and Megan Ward ’97, visiting assistant professor of English, both Lawrence Watson winners themselves, Spurgin serves as a liaison for the Thomas J. Watson Foundation, which annually awards 50 fellowships.
The promise is daunting. A Watson Fellow must leave his or her home country for an entire year without returning, and must travel independently (no faculty, friends, or family.) The reward, however, is enticing. It’s a $28,000 stipend for a year of international travel to explore a subject of personal interest, with no tests or grades or written reports at the end of the project.
“At this time it’s especially important to send students out into the world. They will come back with a much different understanding of the world and a very different sense of what it means to be an American,” Spurgin said.
Spurgin, the winner of the 1993 Young Teacher Award and the 1994 Freshman Studies Teaching Award, is taking a second turn as the director of Freshman Studies, a job he said, “is the best job on campus.”
“Only a handful of other schools are even attempting to do what we have done in Freshman Studies,” Spurgin said. “The great thing is that we all do it together. It involves all of the incoming freshmen as well as faculty from all ranks and divisions. That’s almost unheard of these days.”
Spurgin noted that efforts to broaden the scope of the course have excited students and faculty. “It’s important for our students to see their teachers working to learn new things,” he explained. “In Freshman Studies, as in so many other places at Lawrence, the best teaching is teaching by example.”
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