TACOMA, Wash. – University of Puget Sound students have again excelled in attracting national recognition for their academic and personal achievements, securing four Fulbright Scholarships, one Watson Fellowship, five French Government Teaching Assistantships, a Spanish Ministry Teaching Assistantship, and a National Science Foundation award. Over the past ten years, Puget Sound students have earned 83 national scholarships, including Fulbright, Watson, Goldwater, and Phi Kappa Phi Fellowship awards.
This year's Fulbright Scholars are KC Cox ’10 (Los Angeles, Calif.) and Jill Nguyen ’10 (Tacoma, Wash.), who will both travel to Germany, and Mark Maples ’10 (Yakima, Wash.) and Sam Fielding ’10 (Fairbanks, Alaska) who are going to Taiwan. The French Government Teaching Assistantships were awarded to Emily Cuthbertson ’10 (Aurora, Colo.), Ryan Donahue ’10 (White Bear Lake, Minn.), Tristen Hall ’10 (Pullman, Wash.), Kyrstie Lane ’10 (Big Bear City, Calif.), and Kelly Timian ’10 (Minneapolis, Minn.). The Spanish Ministry of Cultural Ambassadors Teaching Assistantship was awarded to Kyla Roberts ’10 (Kirkland, Wash.).
The Watson Fellow is Clinton Agresti ’10 (Rockaway Beach, Ore.), who plans to travel three continents doing research. Meanwhile, Alexa Fritzsche ’09 (Tacoma, Wash.) won the National Science Foundation fellowship and will pursue graduate studies at the University of Georgia. Starr Matsushita ’11 (Honolulu, Hawai`i) earned an honorable mention from the Barry M. Goldwater Scholarship committee. Carly McClure ’10 (Edina, Minn.) is an alternate for the Fulbright award.
The students’ success was facilitated by the support and dedication of Puget Sound faculty and staff. The Graduate Fellowships Advisory Committee conducts campus interviews and provides rigorous vetting of candidates’ applications. Members of the committee include Sharon Chambers-Gordon, director of fellowships, David Tinsley, committee chair and in foreign languages and literature, Alyce DeMarais, associate dean, biology, Kate Stirling in economics, Patrick O’Neil in politics and government, Katherine Smith in history, Jeff Grinstead in chemistry, and Amy Spivey in physics.
Stacey Weiss, assistant professor in biology, worked closely with Fritzsche, who won the National Science Foundation fellowship. The five students awarded French Government Teaching Assistantships were guided by Diane Kelley, chair of foreign languages and literature, and Michel Rocchi, professor of foreign languages and literature.
"Emily, Kelly, Tristen, Ryan, and Kyrstie are all outstanding young people, and we at Puget Sound are proud to have them represent us in the French Government Teaching Assistantship program, said Kelley. “Of all the wonderful students who come through our French classes, these five are particularly insightful individuals. Just as in the classroom, their contributions to the schools where they are placed will be valued."
The Center provided additional assistance for Writing, Learning, and Teaching, directed by Julie Neff-Lippman, and by the center’s faculty writing advisors Grace Livingston, African American studies, and Catherine Hale in psychology.
The Fulbright Scholarship
The Fulbright is the U.S. government's premier scholarship program. Students plan their own programs in a foreign country, including projects such as taking university courses or doing independent research. Students are selected based on their academic record, the feasibility and intent of their study projects, and personal qualifications.
Jill Nguyen (pictured above, on the left), a German and international affairs major, will be teaching English as a teacher’s assistant in Germany on her Fulbright scholarship. This is her third time in Germany, and she hopes to experience the local culture by exploring museums, attending symphonies, and doing volunteer work.
KC Cox (pictured in the center), who majored in mathematics, will be assisting in the instruction of English at a German middle school or high school. Cox studied abroad in Freiburg im Breisgau in fall 2008, and she hopes to immerse herself in German literature, film, and culture during the Fulbright-funded trip. She also aims to apply her minor in economics in an internship dealing with the German social market economy.
Mark Maples (pictured, on the right), a double major in Chinese and the Business Leadership Program, will travel to Taiwan in part to pursue his interest in Chinese, a language he believes will be of increasing importance globally. He visited Tunghai University in Taiwan over the 2008 summer and saw this Fulbright trip as an opportunity to represent his country in a foreign nation by working alongside others in the island state.
Sam Fielding, who majored in International Political Economy and minored in Chinese and biology, will be going to Taiwan on the scholarship.
The French Government Teaching Assistantship
The French Government Teaching Assistantship is sponsored by the French Ministry of Education. It allows students to be teaching assistants in a French school for one school year.
Emily Cuthbertson, who participated in the Business Leadership Program with an international emphasis, will spend seven months teaching as an English assistant in Nantes, France. She minored in French and mathematics.
Tristen Hall will be working as a conversational English teaching assistant at the Académie de Lille. Hall is an English and French double major with emphases in creative writing and literary studies, respectively.
Kelly Timian will be an English teaching assistant at the Académie de Montpellier in France. Timian majors in foreign languages and international affairs, with a concentration in French and minors in politics and government.
Ryan Donohue, a double major in international political economy and French, will be an English teaching assistant in the Lorraine region in northeast France. He expects to be involved in individual tutoring, leading conversation groups, and helping high school students prepare for their college entrance exams.
Kyrstie Lane, who majored in French, with an emphasis in international affairs, has chosen to decline the teaching assistantship in favor of graduate studies at Monterey Institute of International Studies in California. She plans to get a master’s degree in international politics and aims to live later and work overseas.
The Watson Fellowship
In awarding the Watson Fellowship, the Thomas J. Watson Foundation looks for people likely to lead or innovate and allows them a great deal of independence in pursuing their interests. Clinton Agresti (pictured, left), a 2009 graduate who majored in international political economy, will visit Mongolia, Ukraine, Ghana, and Bolivia. He plans to create a series of music ethnographies consisting of photographs, music recordings, and writings that will document musicians who participate in the tradition of teaching and learning music by ear.
The National Science Foundation Award
The National Science Foundation is a federal agency whose mission includes support for fundamental science and engineering fields, except for medical sciences. Alexa Fritzsche, who majors in biology and minors in Spanish, will use her National Science Foundation fellowship to study how behavioral ecology mitigates disease transmission in wildlife. The award will fund her Ph.D. studies at the University of Georgia.
The Spanish Ministry of Cultural Ambassadors Teaching Assistantship
The Ministry of Education of Spain established this program to broaden the language and cultural ties between the United States, Canada, and Spain. Kyla Roberts will be teaching English in a Spanish public school in Murcia, Spain, on the southeastern corner of the peninsula. In addition to polishing up her Spanish, she hopes to perfect her salsa skills and travel to Europe. Number one on her travel list: Barcelona.
Puget Sound's fellowships' office coordinates the application, interview, and evaluation process for qualified Puget Sound students. For more information, contact Sharon Chambers-Gordon at 253.879.3329 or scgordon@pugetsound.edu.
Press-quality photos of the awardees are available on request.
Tweet this: Bon voyage! Students @univpugetsound land 9 national fellowships and a ticket to even bigger things. http://bit.ly/adwzom
Follow us on Twitter! www.twitter.com/univpugetsound