The Presidential Fellows Program
Faculty Advisors
Of all our institutional assets, students most appreciate the quality of the faculty they find at Washington College. Professors here are dedicated teachers and mentors who want their students to excel and who take the extra time to make that happen.
For each entering class, the College selects two of its distinguished members to advise the incoming class of Presidential Fellows. Your faculty advisor will help guide you and other incoming participants through the first-year experience and beyond.
During advising sessions, you and your faculty advisor will talk about your interests, your academic performance, and the special opportunities available that fit your individual goals and aspirations. Advising sessions for first-year Presidential Fellows are intended to help you integrate quickly and fully into the academic life of the College.
2008-09 Advisors
Joachim Scholz
Professor of German
Joachim Scholz is a noted scholar and veteran faculty member who has held several leadership positions in higher education administration. The 1985 recipient of the Lindback Award for Distinguished Teaching, he has chaired both the College's Humanities Program and the Department of Modern Languages. From 1994 to 2006, Dr. Scholz served as Provost and Dean of the College.
While on a leave from Washington College from 1991-1993, Dr. Scholz was the Director of the Literaturarchiv der Stiftung Haus Oberschlesien in Ratingen, Germany, and Visiting Professor of Modern German Literature at the Heinrich-Heine Universität Düsseldorf.
Dr. Scholz has published seven books, among them a four-volume edition of the literary remains of the German writer August Scholtis, and well over thirty articles in a variety of German- and English-speaking journals, yearbooks, and anthologies. Over the last fifteen years, Dr. Scholz's research has focused on German-speaking archival holdings in Poland and the Czech Republic. He has worked in several local archives and has lectured at a number of institutions of higher learning in those two countries. Much of his work has been supported by grants of the Federal Republic of Germany.
Jennifer Benson
Assistant Professor of Philosophy
Dr. Jennifer Benson is an experienced Honors College advisor. While earning her Ph.D. degree in philosophy at Michigan State University, she worked as an advisor to MSU undergraduate students. In 2003 she became a full-time advisor in the prestigious Michigan Sate University Honors College.
"Advising in the Honors College gave me the opportunity to work with high-achieving students who were exceptionally talented," Benson says. "I helped them to create innovative and enriching undergraduate programs."
Dr. Benson joined the Washington College faculty in the spring of 2007. Very soon after, Associate Provost Patrice DiQuinzio asked her to serve as an advisor for the Presidential Fellows program. At Washington College Dr. Benson employs many of the same skills she developed as an Honors College advisor at MSU.
"The best thing a high-achieving student can do is to seek out academic challenges that are both intellectually demanding and personally exciting," she says. "Washington College offers many opportunities for those who are talented and curious. Seek out honors and upper division courses in disciplines that are new to you. The reward is a unique and exhilarating education that will serve you well into the future."
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