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Near Mt. Washington in New Hampshire's White Mountains, Dan Murphy works on the Appalachian Trail
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He will travel footpaths all over the globe.
Dan Murphy, member of the Class of 2002, has been awarded a prestigious Thomas J. Watson Fellowship for his project titled, "Trail Maintenance: A Little-Known Aesthetic Trade." The award will provide $22,000 to support Murphy for a year in Iceland, Nepal, New Zealand, Ethiopia and Chile, where he will investigate styles of trail work.
Murphy, who completed his degree requirements in December to take a year off from academic work to live in China, is now studying at Beijing University. He earned a bachelor's degree in English and Chinese at CC. He spent each summer working for the Appalachian Mountain Club's White Mountain trail crew.
"As I began to realize the holistic nature of trail maintenance as functional, aesthetic and necessary, my work really began to take shape," he wrote in his application for the Watson Fellowship. "I became enamored with the meeting of beauty and use in a craft that, while practiced everywhere in the world foot trails exist, is virtually unknown."
Murphy is one of 60 Watson Fellows chosen from a pool of more than 1,000 students from 50 selective private liberal arts colleges. This year's winners will travel to more than 90 countries on seven continents while investigating such topics as genetic resource sharing, vernacular architecture, spice production, trail maintenance, rural healthcare delivery and traditional sailing vessels.
The year of travel provides Fellows with an unusual opportunity to take stock of themselves, test their aspirations and abilities, pursue their own in-depth study and develop a more informed sense of international concern. Murphy is the sixth Connecticut College student to win a Watson Fellowship in the past five years.
The Thomas J. Watson Fellowship Program was established in 1968 by the children of Thomas J. Watson, the founder of IBM Corporation, and his wife, Jeannette K. Watson, to honor their parents' long-standing interest in education and world affairs. The program identifies prospective leaders and allows them to develop their independence and to become world citizens. Watson Fellows span academic majors from physics to fine arts, and 23 percent are minorities. More than 2,200 Watson Fellows have taken this challenging journey in the history of the foundation. Recipients have gone on to become college presidents and professors, chief executive officers of major corporations, politicians, artists, lawyers, diplomats, doctors, and researchers.
ÒWe look for extraordinary promise, individuals who have the personality and drive to become the leaders of tomorrow,Ó Norvell E. Brasch, the executive director of the Watson Foundation and a former Watson Fellow. The Watson Foundation continues to believe that the investment in Watson Fellows is an effective contribution to the global community.
View previous fellowship recipients at Connecticut College. |
