December 28, 2005
Director of Media Relations
413/542-8417
AMHERST, Mass.—The American Academy of Political and Social Science has named Nicholas C. Soltman, a senior anthropology major at Amherst College, a 2006 Junior Fellow of the academy. A resident of Tarzana, Calif., Soltman is the son of Harriet Cooper (New York, NY) and Neil Soltman (Philadelphia, PA). Soltman will now submit a paper submission for the undergraduate research award.
The Junior Fellow program of the AAPS recognizes the very best undergraduate students for their achievements in analyzing social problems and for their promise of becoming tomorrow’s outstanding social scientists. The academy invites leading social science departments in the United States to designate one undergraduate senior each year as a Junior Fellow. The academy says the designee must exhibit “an outstanding grasp of a discipline’s theories and methods, as demonstrated through prior coursework in the student’s major department, an enthusiasm for understanding social issues and the promise of making substantial contributions to the social sciences in the future.”
Deborah Gewertz, the G. Henry Whitcomb 1874 Professor of Anthropology at Amherst, nominated Soltman and says “he is simply a wonderful student: smart, playful and analytically sophisticated.”
In addition to writing a thesis on the role of media discourse in the failure of Clinton's 1994 Health Security Plan, Soltman is a columnist for The Amherst Student, for which he has served as a reporter, photographer and publisher. He is an attorney on the Mock Trial team, and was an intern last summer at Harlem RBI, where he led a small workshop group in a literacy-based enrichment program and coached baseball and softball. After graduation, he plans to pursue a graduate degree in law or anthropology or both.
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