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| May 2006
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ALUMNI NEWS |
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Luke
Dodds on top of Mount Tai in Shandong Province in China in
March. The characters read, "I climbed up Tai Mountain." The Fulbright Program announced its scholarship recipients this spring, and seven AU students were awarded with a one-year grant to study abroad. The winners include Eve Bratman, Samuel Coon, Luke Dodds, Laura Kurland, Nina Peacock, Gene Fielden, Rebecca Ratliff, and alternate Rebecca Frischkorn. The prestigious grant allows recipients to study, teach, or do research for one year in one of more than 140 countries that participate in the international exchange program. The program, funded through an annual appropriation from Congress to the State Department, awarded 6,000 grants in 2004, costing more than $250 million. Last year, AU had 10 Fulbright scholars. American University students have won 55 total Fulbright awards since the first scholarship was given to an AU student in 1993. "I think our success speaks to several things: The support students have from their faculty mentors, since no student can excel in competition without that; the quality, energy, and enthusiasm of our students; and the students’ level of engagement in major social issues," says Paula Warrick, an Office of Merit Awards advisor. Luke Dodds, SIS/BA '05, will use his Fulbright in Yilan County in northern Taiwan to be a full-time teaching assistant for an English teacher in an elementary or middle school. He also hopes to "develop close relationships with [the Taiwanese] that offer insight into the China-Taiwan situation and the human condition in general." He says that he has "been interested in getting to know the world" since he traveled abroad during middle school and lived in France in high school. Dodds is looking forward to the opportunity to achieve a more intimate understanding of the Asian culture. Nina Peacock, SIS/BA '05, is currently finishing a year in Lille, France, on another competitive fellowship, the French Government Teaching Assistantship in English. She will then travel to London using a special Fulbright that allows her supranational governance within the European Union. She will attend the London School of Economics to complete an MSc in European studies. While there, she’ll examine the EU’s method of inducing reforms in the Middle East and North Africa region. Gene Fielden’s, CAS/BA '06, background in music and German will help him when he uses his Fulbright to be an English language teaching assistant in a German high school. Bratman
is an SIS doctoral student who will conduct research on civil society
activists who have differing agendas in the Terra do Meio region of Brazil.
Kurland, an SIS master’s student, will use her Fulbright in Peru to see how the indigenous populations are responding to President Alejandro Toledo’s plans to redistribute economic and political power to local and regional levels of government. Ratliff, also an SIS graduate student, will travel to Turkey to study U.S. public diplomacy efforts and assess steps the federal government might take to improve its image with Turkish students. Congratulations and bon voyage to all of this year’s winners! -Tara Shlimowitz '08 |
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