Dean Christopher Snyder of Shackouls Honors College has received a research fellowship at the University of Oxford to examine the link between the protagonist of “The Great Gatsby” and Mississippi State University’s first Rhodes Scholar, Major William Rogers. 
“This is in a research program called ‘Globalising and Localising the Great War,’ the World War I,” Snyder said. 
Snyder said he will be at Oxford for the periods of May and early July of this year for about six weeks for the fellowship. 
“I will teach a course to Mississippi State University students who will be over for Shackouls summer study program in Oxford and will be conducting research,” Snyder said. 
According to Snyder, the research for this summer is aimed at looking at a project launched by American Expeditionary Forces. 
“They got together the hierarchy to look at the soldiers and officers who were in Europe during the armistice,” Snyder said. “As the war was dwindling down, these soldiers in Europe didn’t have a home.”
Snyder said a program was created to send army officers to universities throughout Europe to study for five months. 
“One of these programs was in Oxford. That program was led by Rogers, who was the first Rhodes Scholar of Mississippi State University,” Snyder said. 
According to Snyder, characters within “The Great Gatsby” try and discover who the “Gatsby” character is,  and one character describes “Jay Gatsby” as an Oxford man. When later confronted, Gatsby said he did not graduate as a student, but was in the army and went to Oxford for five months. 
“Turns out it was a very real program led by our guy William Rogers. Rogers was later in Alabama, training as an officer at the same time as Fitzgerald was training as an officer,” Snyder said. 
Snyder said one thing he could do is try to connect all the dots to find out if there was a meeting between Fitzgerald and Rogers and if they exchanged information. 
“In a way, I don’t want to make all those connections,” Snyder said. “I want to leave it to the reader to imagine the meetings, imagine Fitzgerald figuring the story out.” 
Snyder said he wants to write about Oxford through American experiences and examine why Americans are still drawn to Oxford. Synder also added he is excited to create more alley ways for MSU students to succeed globally.
Snyder also said he lived in Oxford for a period of time as a graduate student and worked at Ashmolean Museum. 
“Our hope is to introduce our students to Oxford and getting familiar with the Oxford faculty. Through that experience they will be able to make stronger applications for Rhodes, Marshall and other scholarship programs,” Snyder said.
Will Prater, senior mechanical engineering major in the honors college, said he finds the research fellowship to be a great highlight for MSU. 
“I would say that it sounds like the Dean is going to have a very rewarding experience investigating a rich nugget of MSU’s history,” Prater said.
According to the News Bureau press release by MSU, Snyder will also use his research  from this fellowship for his upcoming book, “Gatsby’s Oxford: Americans in the City of Dreaming Spires.”