In an era when the boundaries between academic disciplines are increasingly porous, Dartmouth College’s Society of Fellows has emerged as a quiet but potent force in shaping the future of interdisciplinary scholarship. Established to provide a structured yet flexible postdoctoral environment, the Society offers a three-year fellowship to a select group of early-career scholars whose work transcends conventional academic silos. While the program may not be widely known outside academic circles, its influence is steadily growing, both within the College and across the broader intellectual landscape.
At its core, the Society of Fellows is a postdoctoral initiative designed to attract scholars who are not only accomplished in their respective fields but also capable of engaging with ideas that lie at the intersection of multiple disciplines. Each year, nine fellows are selected through a competitive process to join the program. Once admitted, they are granted the time, resources, and institutional support to pursue ambitious research agendas that might not fit neatly within the confines of a single department. The fellowship includes a modest teaching component, typically beginning in the second year, but the primary emphasis remains on research and intellectual development.
What distinguishes Dartmouth’s model from similar postdoctoral programs at peer institutions is its deliberate cultivation of cross-disciplinary dialogue. Rather than isolating fellows within departmental structures, the Society encourages them to engage with one another across fields as diverse as anthropology, biology, religious studies, and history. This is not merely a rhetorical commitment. Weekly seminars, writing retreats, and informal gatherings are structured to foster sustained intellectual exchange. The result is a community in which a scholar of economic history might find unexpected resonance with a colleague studying ritual movement in religious traditions, or where a cognitive scientist might draw methodological inspiration from a historian’s archival approach.
Faculty director Emily Walton has articulated this vision with clarity, noting that the Society’s mission is to support “hybrid forms” of knowledge production. In her view, the most pressing questions of our time, whether related to climate change, social inequality, or technological transformation, require analytical frameworks that cut across traditional academic boundaries. By encouraging fellows to think about anthropology in terms of biology, or religion in terms of race, the Society positions itself at the forefront of a broader movement toward integrative scholarship. This orientation is not only intellectually ambitious but also pragmatically aligned with the evolving demands of higher education, where interdisciplinary literacy is increasingly valued.
The structure of the fellowship reflects this commitment to intellectual breadth. During their tenure, fellows are expected to produce significant scholarly work, whether in the form of monographs, peer-reviewed articles, or public-facing essays. Many use the time to revise their dissertations into publishable books, while others embark on entirely new research trajectories. The program’s flexibility allows for both approaches, recognizing that scholarly development does not follow a uniform path. Importantly, fellows are also encouraged to experiment with new methodologies and to engage with communities beyond the academy, including through public lectures and collaborative projects with local institutions.
Teaching, while not the central focus, plays a meaningful role in the fellowship experience. In their second and third years, fellows typically offer undergraduate courses within their home departments. These courses often reflect the fellows’ interdisciplinary interests and serve as a conduit for bringing cutting-edge research into the classroom. For undergraduates, the opportunity to learn from scholars at the forefront of their fields is a distinctive feature of the Dartmouth experience. For the fellows, teaching provides a valuable opportunity to refine their pedagogical skills and to test the broader applicability of their research ideas.
The impact of the Society of Fellows extends beyond the individual trajectories of its participants. Many alumni go on to secure tenure-track positions at leading universities, bringing with them the interdisciplinary ethos cultivated at Dartmouth. Others remain at the College, contributing to its academic vitality as faculty members. In either case, the program functions as a pipeline for intellectual leadership, shaping the contours of academic discourse in subtle but significant ways. Moreover, the presence of the Society enriches the broader Dartmouth community, introducing new perspectives and fostering a culture of rigorous, open-ended inquiry.
From a comparative perspective, Dartmouth’s Society of Fellows aligns with a broader trend among elite institutions to invest in postdoctoral talent as a means of renewing and diversifying the academic workforce. Programs at Princeton, Harvard, and Stanford offer similar opportunities, but Dartmouth’s emphasis on community-building and interdisciplinary engagement sets it apart. The scale of the program, intimate but not insular, allows for meaningful interaction without sacrificing scholarly depth. In this respect, the Society exemplifies a model of academic development that is both intellectually ambitious and institutionally grounded.
As higher education grapples with questions of relevance, equity, and innovation, initiatives like the Society of Fellows offer a compelling vision for the future. By investing in scholars who are willing to traverse disciplinary boundaries and engage with complex social realities, Dartmouth is not only advancing its own academic mission but also contributing to a broader reimagining of what scholarship can be. In a time when the academy is often criticized for its insularity, the Society stands as a reminder that intellectual rigor and public engagement need not be mutually exclusive.
Ultimately, the Society of Fellows represents a strategic investment in the future of knowledge. It affirms the value of deep, sustained inquiry while embracing the fluidity and interconnectedness of contemporary intellectual life. For the fellows, it offers a rare opportunity to think expansively, to collaborate meaningfully, and to grow professionally in an environment that prizes both excellence and experimentation. For Dartmouth, it is a testament to the enduring relevance of the liberal arts tradition, reimagined for a new generation of scholars. The program reflects the broader institutional investments Dartmouth is making, including new residence halls to accommodate growing enrollment and enhanced federal advocacy efforts to secure research funding.
