UpDate - Vol. 13, No. 29, Page 7
April 28, 1994
Joseph Thompson awarded Andrew W. Mellon fellowship

     Joseph Thompson of Kinsale, Va., a senior enrolled in the University
Honors Program, has been chosen as a 1994 Andrew W. Mellon Fellow in
Humanistic Studies by the Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship Foundation.
     Thompson plans to attend Yale University for graduate study in
African-American studies and English.
     The prestigious award is given to college seniors and recent graduates
of outstanding promise to encourage and assist them to join humanities
faculties of the country's colleges and universities.
     This year, 85 winners were selected, 20 of them are in the field of
English literature. The fellows will be given a stipend of $12,750, plus
tuition and required fees.
     A graduate of Washington and Lee High School in Kinsale, Va., Thompson
said he was attracted to the University of Delaware because of its Honors
Program. Majoring in English with a minor in the Black American Studies
Program, Thompson is writing his senior thesis on the representation of
black masculinity in the works of Langston Hughes, an African-American
poet, and W.E.B. Du Bois, a social activist and writer. Thompson recently
gave a presentation based on his research at the National Conference on
Undergraduate Research at Western Michigan University. His adviser was
former faculty member Gary Lemons, who now serves as director of literary
studies at the New School for Social Research in New York.
     Thompson has been active in several undergraduate organizations and
has won several honors on campus, including the George and Margaret Collins
Seitz Award given to an outstanding freshman or sophomore and the Black
Student Union Academic Achievement Award in 1991, 1992 and 1993.
     During the summer of 1993, he received an Arts and Humanities Scholar
grant. He also is a member of Phi Sigma Pi, a coed national honor society
that recognizes scholarship, leadership and fellowship.
                                                  -Sue Swyers Moncure