Fellowships

On the way to Ph.D.

Mitchem Fellows get started at Marquette

Aesha Adams and Ebony A. Utley joined Marquette’s faculty as the 2005-06 Mitchem Dissertation Fellows. They are spending the academic year on campus, working on their dissertations with faculty mentors and teaching one course each in their respective disciplines.

Adams earned her master’s degree in English from Pennsylvania State University. She graduated magna cum laude from Marquette in 2000 with degrees in English and secondary education. In her dissertation titled “As the Spirit Gives Utterance: The Language and Literacy Practices of Black Women Preachers,” Adams is exploring the practices of contemporary African-American women preachers.

Utley earned a master’s degree in communication studies from Northwestern University, where she held a Jacob K. Javits Fellowship. She earned her undergraduate degree in speech communication at Indiana University. In her dissertation titled “God’s in the ’Hood: Raps Rhetorical Reconstitution of Religious Authority,” Utley is studying how figures of God function in rap music.

The Mitchem Fellowships were established to increase the number of minority faculty at the nation’s colleges and universities by supporting doctoral candidates as they complete their studies. ”

	Mitchem Fellowship First Mitchem Fellows Class In 2002, Marquette established the Arnold L. Mitchem Dissertation Fellowship Program, intended to increase the presence of underrepresented ethnic groups in the professoriate by supporting doctoral candidates in completing the final academic requirement, the dissertation.