2015 Ohio Wesleyan Graduate Selected as Woodrow Wilson Teaching Fellow
Nathan Chaffee Earns $30,000 Stipend to Support Completion of Year-Long Master’s Degree Program
Nathan Chaffee ’15
DELAWARE, Ohio – Nathan Chaffee of Macedonia, Ohio, an astrophysics and music double-major at Ohio Wesleyan University, has been selected as a 2015 Woodrow Wilson Indiana Teaching Fellow.
As part of his fellowship, Chaffee, who graduated from Ohio Wesleyan in May, will receive a $30,000 stipend to attend Indiana’s Ball State University, where he will participate in a specially designed one-year master’s program.
The highly competitive Wilson Fellows program recruits both recent graduates and career changers with strong backgrounds in science, technology, engineering, and math – the STEM fields – and prepares them to teach in high-need secondary schools. Chaffee received one of only 49 Wilson Fellowships awarded in Indiana this cycle. After he earns his master’s degree, Chaffee will teach for three years in the Indiana schools that most need strong STEM teachers.
Of his fellowship, Chaffee said, “It is a great honor, and I want to use this opportunity to touch as many lives as possible around me.”
“OWU has helped me toward this fellowship,” Chaffee said, “because the faculty has taught me that effective teaching changes the lives of individuals and helps them succeed. I want to follow in their footsteps and become the best teacher I can be.
“Being both an astrophysics and music major has allowed me to study with a diverse range of teaching styles and people. I have learned that individual attention and care to the student is necessary to help the growth and motivation of the student.”
As part of his OWU experience, Chaffee combined his love for both the arts and sciences by serving as president of the Society of Physics Students and by playing piano in the Park Avenue Jazz Ensemble and percussion in the OWU Wind Ensemble.
Chaffee credits Ohio Wesleyan physics and astronomy professor Robert Harmon, Ph.D., with helping him to discover the Wilson Fellowship. Chaffee said he realized his passion for teaching during the summer before his junior year while he was working for Cleveland’s Great Lakes Science Center. At that point, however, he was not able to add or switch to an education major and still graduate on schedule.
“This is when I began talking to Dr. Harmon,” Chaffee said, leading to his learning about the Wilson Fellowship. At Ball State, he will pursue a master’s in science education with licensure in physics and chemistry.
With its origins dating back to 1949, the nonprofit Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship Foundation has awarded more than 15,000 fellows, with recipients including “14 Nobel Laureates, 36 MacArthur Fellows, 18 Pulitzer Prize winners, and hundreds of other distinguished individuals – as well as everyday classroom heroes.”
To learn more about the Wilson Fellowship program, visit www.woodrow.org. To learn more about preparing for post-graduate fellowships at Ohio Wesleyan, visit https://www.owu.edu/about/offices-services/office-of-career-services/students/post-graduate-fellowships/.
Founded in 1842, Ohio Wesleyan University is one of the nation’s premier liberal arts universities. Located in Delaware, Ohio, the private university offers 86 undergraduate majors and competes in 23 NCAA Division III varsity sports. Ohio Wesleyan combines a challenging, internationally focused curriculum with off-campus learning and leadership opportunities to connect classroom theory with real-world experience. OWU’s 1,750 students represent 46 U.S. states and territories and 43 countries. Ohio Wesleyan is featured in the book “Colleges That Change Lives,” listed on the latest President’s Higher Education Community Service Honor Roll with Distinction, and included in the U.S. News & World Report and Princeton Review “best colleges” lists. Learn more at www.owu.edu.