The Adrian and Salomon Fellowship Awards

The Vonna and Arthur Adrian fund was established for graduate student fellowship support, and has supported a service-free period for doctoral students to write dissertations since 1995. The Roger B. Salomon Dissertation Fellowship was established for support of those writing doctoral dissertations and was first awarded in 2001. Since 2013, an annual event has recognized current and new Fellows supported by the Adrian and Salomon funds.  Beginning with the 2013-14 Awards, the English Department will ensure the continuous recognition of Professor Adrian and Professor Salomon as teachers and mentors to generations of doctoral students by designating Fellows as holders of “Adrian-Salomon Awards” in university materials.

About Vonna and Arthur Adrian

Professor of English Arthur A. Adrian earned his BS from Emporia State University, his MA from the University of Kansas, and his PhD from Western Reserve University, with a dissertation on Dickens’s Nicholas Nickleby. He cemented his reputation as a scholar of Charles Dickens with his 1957 Oxford University Press book Georgina Hogarth and the Dickens Circle, followed by Mark Lemon, First Editor of “Punch” (Oxford UP, 1966), and Dickens and the Parent-Child Relationship (Ohio UP, 1984). He served as mentor and supervisor to some very distinguished Victorianists in their own rights, including James Kincaid and Richard Dunn, and was a chief draw to the University for a generation of students studying under National Defense Education Act Fellowships. Vonna Adrian was a student of English literature herself, and a poet who published A Gaggle of Verses with the Department’s Bits Press, as well as in Harper’s Magazine and The Saturday Evening Post. She took a leading role, along with Professor W. P. Jones and Professor Lyon Richardson, in selecting and editing a volume of poetry by the late Professor Arthur White titled A Forted Residence: Selected Poems (1962). Arthur and Vonna Adrian married in 1947.

About Roger B. Salomon

Roger B. Salomon, Oviatt Professor of English Emeritus, earned his AB from Harvard University and his PhD from the University of California, Berkeley. Professor Salomon’s books include Twain and the Image of History (Yale UP, 1961), Desperate Storytelling: Post-Romantic Elaborations of the Mock-Heroic Mode (U of Georgia P, 1987), and Mazes of the Serpent: An Anatomy of Horror Narrative (Cornell UP, 2002). During his tenure in the English Department, Professor Salomon served as Department Chair for six years (1975-81) and Director of Graduate Studies for a decade (1987-1996). In the latter capacity in particular he touched the lives of many doctoral students. He ran the graduate program from the ground up; Professor Gary Stonum notes that for many years Professor Salomon “did all the recruiting, made all or most of the admissions decisions, and did most of the advising of everyone up to the point of qualifying exams.” Professor of English Emerita Judy Oster published a lengthy appreciation of Professor Salomon’s contributions to the lives of his students and colleagues in the English Department Newsletter in 2012, available online and from the Department of English. The Newsletter also includes a series of warm tributes from former graduate students to Professor Salomon’s kindness, deep generosity, and inspiring character. Professor Salomon passed away on October 4, 2020.

Adrian and Salomon Fellows, 1995-2022

2023-2024    Amber Kidd
                       Charlie Ericson

2022-2023   No Award

2021-22        Camila Ring
                      Hayley Verdi

2020-21       Leah Davydov

2019-20       Brita Thielen

2018-19       Philip Derbesy
                     Daniel Luttrull
                     Melissa Pompili

2017-18       Michael Chiappini
                     Megan Griffin
                     Megan Weber

2016-17       Evan Chaloupka
                     Raymond Horton
                     Jessica Slentz

2015-16       Cara Byrne
                    Eric Earnhardt

2014-15       Catherine Forsa
                    Kristin Kondrlik

2013-14       Monica Orlando

2012-13       R. Wells Addington
                     Jason R. Carney

2011-12        Danny Anderson

2010-11        Christine Mueri
                     Danielle Nielsen

2009-10       Tasia Hane-Devore
                      Brandy Schillace

2008-09       Anne Ryan

2007-08       Chalet Seidel

2006-07        Asdghig Karajayerlian
                       Ken McGraw

2005-06        Darcy Brandel
                       Katherine Clark
                       Narcisz Fejes

2004-05        Narcisz Fejes
                       Elizabeth Sirkin

2003-04        Maria Assif
                       Katie Kickel

2002-03        Katie Kickel

2001-02        Heather Kichner
                      Christopher Stewart

2000-01        Christopher Stewart

1999-2000    Paula Makris

1998-99        Mary Giffin

1995-96         Lisa Maruca