What they’re thinking: Coe English chair named leadership fellow, promotes liberal arts

Joining a select handful of department chairs, associate deans and tenured professors from esteemed liberal arts campuses like Minnesota’s Carleton College, Wisconsin’s Lawrence University and Iowa’s Grinnell College, Amber Shaw of Coe College in Cedar Rapids has landed a two-year leadership fellowship to support her campus in “navigating current challenges and opportunities.”

Shaw — Coe’s English Department chair and national fellowship adviser, guiding students applying for scholarships and fellowships — tapped that experience and expertise mentoring students in nabbing for herself one of 10 Associated Colleges of the Midwest academic leadership fellowships.

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Supported by a $1.16 million grant from the Mellon Foundation — promoting and defending the arts and humanities through hundreds of millions in grants since 1969 — the 2025-2027 fellowship gives select faculty “the opportunity to level up their expertise in a wide range of leadership areas.”

“My goal is to develop a fellowship office at Coe that will serve both students and faculty who are exploring options to expand their interests beyond campus,” Shaw told The Gazette.

Q: What sort of work would a new Coe fellowship office do?

A: “That might mean applying for Fulbrights and Trumans and Rhodes — like I've been helping students with,” she said of high-profile scholarship programs that support student enrichment — having last fall guided her first Coe student to a prestigious Rhodes scholarship. “But also maybe applying for fellowships that help students study abroad while they're still in college. Maybe it's helping faculty apply for Fulbright Scholar awards for their sabbaticals. Maybe it's helping faculty apply for library fellowships.”

Q: Are grants and scholarships and fellowships becoming more important as the cost of college rises and as institutions face an increasingly-tumultuous funding landscape?

A: “I think they always have been,” Shaw said. “And I think it's something that we can be even more cognizant of and intentional with in how we think about and pursue different opportunities. Because I think they can be really useful tools for students and faculty and institutions in expanding opportunities and deepening interests.”

Q: From your perspective as an English professor at Coe since 2013 — now serving as department chair and adviser of students pursuing academic-enrichment experiences across the globe — do you think liberal arts in higher ed has been downplayed and devalued in recent years and months?

A: “I do. I do think that, especially with the rise of technology, there has been a kind of a global emphasis on STEM and the importance of STEM. And those are certainly important skills — science and math. But those don't exist in a vacuum. You need to learn about other things, too, to really thrive in the world.”

Q: Can you share more about pressures the liberal arts are facing at the higher ed level?

A: “There's maybe been some questioning about the value of degrees attached to reading books or thinking about philosophy,” she said. “But those are degrees and those are courses that are imparting really fundamental skills in critical thinking, in reading carefully and closely, and learning how to make a reasoned argument orally or in writing. And those are things that serve students and citizens in a whole host of ways.”

Q: Can you give an example?

A: “I'm currently reading a book that is a memoir about a scientist who became obsessed with a Civil War submarine that was sunk, and it's been a historical mystery of why this submarine sunk, and she used her engineering PhD to write her dissertation on discovering why this submarine was sunk In the middle of the Civil War,” Shaw said of the book, “In the Waves” by Rachel Lance.

“And it's this beautiful union of deep historical interest, deep historical study, but also application of math and physics to solve this historical mystery. And as I've been listening to it, I've been thinking about the students that I work with in my scholarships and that I have in my classes. And this is really what we dream up for them … that they are never really working just in history or just in English or just in math. That they are drawing on all of these fields in whatever profession they go on to do.”

Q: How many fellowship students have you mentored and how many have landed scholarships?

A: Shaw said she’s helped more than 100 students complete at least one fellowship application and about 100 more explore fellowship and graduate student options. Of those, she’s advised one Rhodes scholar, two Truman scholars, two Goldwater scholars, more than 21 Fulbright winners, one McElroy scholar, two Rhodes finalists, four Truman finalists, one Goldwater honorable mention and more than 20 Fulbright semifinalists.

Q: Did helping those students influence your own application for the leadership fellowship in any way?

A: “I think so. One of the things I help students applying strategize is articulating how an opportunity will help them better achieve their goals. And that is certainly one of the first things I asked myself when I sat down to write my application — thinking about clear goals and matching the opportunity with my skills and my interests.”

What she came up with — her vision for the fellowship — also was influenced by students and peers, Shaw said.

“The heart of what I want to do with this fellowship is expand opportunities for students and faculty and Coe.”

The fellowship spans two years and offers Shaw an annual stipend, professional development opportunities, release time from teaching courses and mentorship. She’ll receive training on budgeting and leading through crisis; receive large-scale project management experience; and engage in immersive summer institutes.

During her time in the fellowship, Coe will receiving funding to hire replacement instructors.

Vanessa Miller covers higher education for The Gazette.

Comments: (319) 339-3158; vanessa.miller@thegazette.com