The Resident Graduate Student (RGS) program is intended to enhance the residential college experience and help foster a fully integrated campus community that unites undergraduates of all four years, graduate students and faculty across the disciplines.
Office of the Dean of the College
How does the Edwards Collective manage to pull off so many rich and exciting events? The Resident Graduate Student program! Throughout the academic year, two graduate students help Collective members plan visits to exhibits and facilitate performances. In addition to external events, Edwards Collective RGSs also host regular brunches and run bi-weekly study breaks. Feel free to reach out to them with inquiries into Collective life!
I believe learning is a communal event… [The Collective] explicitly makes communal life its purpose. And that’s a double blessing for me in my role as a RGS of the Edwards Collective.
-Denis Z. (previous Edwards RGS)
Peter Benson (pbenson@) hails from the coast of Virginia. He’s an introvert but occasional performer, an amateur photographer of off-the-map locations, and a writer. As a certified scuba diver he’s swum with sharks and barracudas and found them to be delightful companions. His nieces and nephews describe him as a storyteller and voice-actor.
A 7th year in the English department, Peter studies nineteenth-century literature, theology, and speculative fiction. Prior to his current studies he attained masters degrees in divinity and literature. Ask him about ghosts and androids.
Claire Massy-Paoli (cm8048@) is a third-year Ph.D. student in the Department of French and Italian. If you ask her why she chose to study French literature in the US, she may tell you that, once, she had a passion for John Waters’ movies – and that this is what made her stay.
A former student from the Conservatory, you can still hear her playing Bach on her violin. Claire also spends her time dancing, reading, and wandering around Princeton. And what about her life as a scholar? It’s much the same. Whether she is shooting a stop-motion film or preparing an 800-kilometer (metric oblige) walk in a foreign country, it all eventually finds its way into an article (or a good story).
Claire also speaks Spanish, Italian, and a little bit of Arabic. She is always happy to chat about art and life – isn’t it the same?