by Rachel Knuth

(June 24, 2014) — Three University of Kentucky graduate students have received the fellowship award from the Association of Emeriti Faculty. Each award includes a stipend of $2,000.

Since 1996, the UK Association of Emeriti Faculty has awarded 53 fellowships to full-time graduate students who demonstrate a commitment to teaching at a university or college. Thanks to generous gifts from UK faculty retirees to the fellowship program and UKAEF’s Commonwealth of Kentucky Research Challenge Trust Fund, these gifts constitute a $77,000 donation of ongoing support of graduate students.

4Winners for the 2013-14 school year were Brad Fox, Ashley Bourgeois and Michelle Bolduc.

Bolduc is in her fourth year as a doctoral candidate in the Department of Geography. Her dissertation research is in the field of medical geography and involves an investigation of the economic, political and socio-cultural barriers that pregnant Haitian immigrants face in gaining access to prenatal care in a county in Florida. Bolduc has been active as a teaching assistant and primary instructor and was co-founder of the UK Critical Pedagogy Working Group.

Bourgeois joined the Department of English as a doctoral student in 2009. She is investigating film and fiction sources of theoretical views on sexual liberation that were associated with the New Left in the 1960s and 1970s and that later became largely submerged by more consumer-friendly versions of fulfillment. She is actively publishing and presenting at conferences. Bourgeois has served as a teaching assistant and as primary instructor of a number of English and gender and women studies courses.

Fox has completed two years as a doctoral candidate in the Department of Mathematics. His research is in the field of discrete mathematics or, more specifically, algebraic combinatorics, and he is currently working on four projects. Fox has extensive experience as a primary instructor, recitation instructor, guest lecturer and tutor in his department.

The UKAEF website gives details for applying for the fellowhips awarded annually. Deadline for students to apply is in October 2014.