Center for Great Plains Studies announces graduate fellows

            The University of Nebraska's Center for Great Plains Studies has announced the appointment of five University of Nebraska-Lincoln graduate students to its newly formed Graduate Fellows Program.

            Richard Edwards, director of the center, said the Graduate Fellows Program was established as a place for selected graduate students to work, meet, obtain support, learn from fellow students, engage with the center faculty and staff, benefit from the center's resources, and progress in their studies.

            The center will invite applications from students in Great Plains-related disciplines from all University of Nebraska campuses. Students will need to be nominated by a center faculty fellow and to be accepted into a doctoral program or a terminal degree master's program.

            The first students to be accepted into the program were nominated by their departments. They are John K. Fitzpatrick III, Alicia L. Harris, Aubrey Streit Krug, Robert C. Shepard, and Rebecca S. Wingo.

            Fitzpatrick is a master's student in anthropology whose main area of focus is on community-based outreach programs in the Great Plains. He is looking at how outreach programs start, how they evaluate themselves, and what impact they have on the community and society in which they work.

            Harris, a master's student in art history, specializes in Native American art and history. She co-curated a recent exhibition at the Great Plains Art Museum, "Concessions and Conciliatory Acts: Art and Artifacts of U.S. and Sioux Nation Conflict."

            Streit Krug is a doctoral student in English studying American and Canadian literature, ecocriticism, and place-conscious education. She has published reviews in Great Plains Quarterly and ISLE: Interdisciplinary Studies in Literature and Environment. Her dissertation will focus on plants in bioregional and environmental literature.

            Shepard, a doctoral student in geography, serves as a GIS research assistant at the Center for Digital Research in the Humanities. The projects he has worked on include "Civil War Washington," "Buffalo Bill's Great Plains" and "Railroads and the Making of Modern America."

            Wingo is a doctoral student in history whose primary area of interest is Native American history. She has taught introductory courses on Native American history and on dispelling myths and stereotypes in Native America. Wingo was awarded Graduate Student of the Year in 2012 by the UNL Graduate Student Association, and the Best Electronic Poster by a Student at the center's March 2012 symposium, "1862-2012: The Making of the Great Plains."

            The Graduate Fellow Program will be located on the mezzanine of the Great Plains Art Museum, 1155 Q St. Each fellow will receive a number of benefits including research and travel funds. For more information, contact the center at 402-472-3082.

Writer: Linda Ratcliffe