One of the activities we’ve launched for the 50th Anniversary is a web site on NSF’s history. On it, you’ll find a remarkable set of recollections from the very first class of NSF Graduate Fellows – the class of 1952.
The noted entomologist EO Wilson was a member of the class – and he recalls how he felt when receiving word of the fellowship...
"The announcements of the first NSF predoctoral fellowships fell like a shower of gold on several of my fellow students in Harvard's Department of Biology on a Friday morning in the spring of 1952. I was a bit let down because I wasn't among them, but then lifted up again when I received the same good news the following Monday (my letter was late)."