The little-known works of the George Washington fellows

Home News The little-known works of the George Washington fellows
All of the current George Washington Fellows who, in addition to receiving scholarships, complete research each week on a Constitutional topic or statesmanship. (Courtesy of Aaron Kilgore)
All of the current George Washington Fellows who, in addition to receiving scholarships, complete research each week on a Constitutional topic or statesmanship. (Courtesy of Aaron Kilgore)

Although the George Washington Fellows’ presence on campus is largely unknown, they are involved in research projects that promote Hillsdale’s ideas outside of campus. The Fellowship requires an extensive time commitment but is accompanied with outstanding benefits.

“The program is an encouragement in training themselves [the fellows] to seek out opportunities to serve,” George Washington Fellowship Program Manager Aaron Kilgore said. “The fellows are required to complete four to 10 hours per week of research on a Constitutional topic or statesmanship.”
The fellows are currently working on three main projects: The Great Works project, the Churchill Biography, and social media campaigns.
The purpose of the Great Works project is to bring literature, similar to that in the Great Books courses, to people outside of Hillsdale who are interested in engaging with Western works.

“The target audience is people who want to read the sort of things we read at Hillsdale, but who aren’t fortunate enough to be at Hillsdale,” junior Walker Mulley, a George Washington Fellow and the copy editor for Great Works, said. “ Many people are interested in reading Western literature but don’t know where to begin. That’s what we’re trying to solve.”

The database will hopefully go live within the next few months.

“We’re going to compile a database that will be hosted on the college website that will have summaries of these books, explain the basic plot, and, more importantly, explain the themes that the books explore,” Mulley said.

The server is meant to be easily approachable and unintimidating. The fellows have the task of reading, summarizing, and thoughtfully organizing these books so the general public can understand their significance.

Kilgore described the importance of these works to the United States.

“In order to have an educated citizenry who are able to participate in the political process and understand Constitutional principles, they also have to have a general knowledge of what Western civilization is and how Western civilization came to understand our principles, which the Constitution and our political theory of natural rights are based on,” he said.

The President’s Office and the George Washington Fellows are working side-by-side to complete the official Winston Churchill biography and document volumes, according to junior Graham Deese, a fellow involved in the project.

“We do a lot of transcription of those documents, we also do editing for the final copies, and then we’ll also be assigned side research projects,” Deese said.

Hillsdale and the fellows are spreading the college’s message through social media as well. Kilgore said research on the Constitution, Declaration of Independence, and great statesmen is being molded into easily understandable information that can be shared on social media. For this project the fellows are working through books in order to find quotes and themes that will appeal to an audience outside of Hillsdale.

“I go through the Constitution, American Heritage, and Western Heritage readers looking for quotations and specific pieces from authors,” Deese said. The information that the fellows pull from the texts are then put on social media, such as Facebook and Twitter, for media campaigns.

Although being a fellow carries a heavy workload, they receive great perks. According to Kilgore, each fellow gets roughly a half tuition scholarship, an internship through the WHIP program, and opportunities to do research. They also have meetings with speakers who come to Hillsdale such as Václav Klaus, Charles C.W. Cooke, and David Satter.

The George Washington Fellows have a large part in Hillsdale’s outreach and research. In the background of the college the fellows do extensive work to broaden the impact Hillsdale has outside of this community.