English Doctoral Student Awarded National Fellowship

Friday, August 31, 2007

Elizabeth Thompson, a doctoral student in the University of Tulsa Department of English, has been awarded an American Dissertation Fellowship from the American Association of University Women (AAUW) in the amount of $20,000. Thompson was one of 63 AAUW fellows nationwide this year and the only one from a university in Oklahoma.

The nationally competitive year-long fellowship will support Thompson as she completes her dissertation, “From Princess to Schoolgirl: American Indian Girls and Anglo Depictions of their Conversions.” This project, which makes extensive use of archival materials in the McFarlin Library’s Special Collections, studies portrayals of Native American girls and young women in the British American colonies and United States through the early twentieth century.

“The Faculty of English are very proud of Elizabeth,” said her dissertation director, Laura Stevens, associate professor of English. “We consider this prestigious award to be a sign of the excellent contributions she promises to make to the field, as well as of the growing prominence of our graduate program.”