The $22,000 fellowship will allow Johnson to spend a year studying a topic of his own choosing, beginning in August. The fellowship is one of 60 awarded to students at 40 of America's top liberal arts colleges. Johnson received the only fellowship awarded to a student at a Kentucky college. Winners are selected on the basis of character, leadership potential, willingness to immerse him or herself in new cultures and personal significance of the project proposed.

Johnson, from Franklin, Ky., will spend his fellowship year studying the evolution of contemporary socialism in Germany and France, living for six months in Berlin and the other half of the year in Lille, France. He will be accompanied by his wife, Tina, and three-year-old son, Percy. A second child is due to be born while the couple is living in Germany.

Following his year of independent study, Johnson's current plans are to enroll in the Geography masters program at the University of Kentucky. His long-term goal is to earn a Ph.D. and teach at the college level.

The Watson Foundation is a charitable trust founded in 1961 by the widow of Thomas J. Watson Sr. to honor her husband, the founder of IBM. In 1968, their children established the fellowship program in recognition of their parents' long-standing interest in education and world affairs.

Johnson is the 18th Berea College student to receive a Watson Fellowship since 1988, when the College first became involved in the program.