Wheaton senior awarded prestigious Watson fellowship

Wheaton senior Adar Cohen was one of 50 college students nationwide selected to receive a Thomas J. Watson Fellowship this year. The $22,000 award will support a year of travel and research in Turkey, Tibet and India, where Cohen will examine expressions of national, ethnic and religious identity within the cultural history of Oriental rug making.

''Oriental rugs communicate aesthetic values, cultural histories and even personal life stories,'' Cohen wrote in his application, ''but do they offer another layer of meaning that may exist between the warp and weft of these functional household items and priceless masterpieces? In India, Turkey and Tibet, rug-makers may be weaving much more than knots. Do they convey nationalistic aspirations, political dissent or perhaps implicit revolt?''

Cohen, a native of Peterborough, New Hampshire, designed an independent major at Wheaton in conflict resolution, an approach to learning grounded in anthropology, political science, religion and history. His undergraduate work considers the complex dimensions of world peace and security; nonproliferation and disarmament; faith-based peace building; contemporary social justice campaigns; and international mediation.

'''But I've been doing just as much of my learning outside the classroom,''' says Cohen, who spent last summer in George Mason University Summer Institute on Conflict Resolution and Peacebuilding, Cohen was selected as one of 15 students to participate in the program, which included four academic seminars in Washington, D.C., an internship and a portion of the summer spent in Geneva, Switzerland, working at the United Nations and the Red Crescent on humanitarian projects.

The summer prior to that, Cohen traveled to the Himalayan Kingdom of Bhutan, a tiny Buddhist state between Tibet and India. Through funding provided by Wheaton's Davis International Fellows program, Cohen assisted two Wheaton professors with a teaching fellowship and curriculum development project at Sherubtse College, Bhutan's only liberal arts institution.

Cohen also has pursued learning on an Anishnabai reservation, studying efforts being made to reclaim ancestral homelands from the government of Ontario and cease destructive logging and mining, and has spent time in Israel conducting interviews with Palestinians and Israelis for his honors thesis on that conflict. ''There are two components of my thesis,'' Cohen explained. ''The first is the traditional, written part. But the other is a play that presents the world views of Palestinians and Israelis whose lives are dominated by their war.''

In 2004, The Thomas J. Watson Foundation considered 184 candidates nominated by 50 private, liberal arts colleges noted for their quality and commitment to undergraduate education.

''We look for people with the passion and creativity to find solutions, work effectively with people and generally weather the bad days on the road while treasuring the glorious ones,'' says Beverly Larson, the executive director of the Watson Fellowship Program and a former Watson fellow. ''The awards are long-term bets on people likely to lead or innovate, giving them unusual flexibility to set and pursue their own global agendas.''

After his Watson-funded year of travel, and perhaps an additional period of work and study abroad, Cohen will pursue graduate work, funded in part by his Truman Scholarship in public service. '''One of my graduate school options is the Institute for Conflict Analysis and Resolution (ICAR) at George Mason University. I am also considering other post-Wheaton opportunities, such as the Gandhi Institute and Tuft's Fletcher School for Law and Diplomacy.''' Cohen was chosen in 2003 as one of 76 U.S. college students to win the Truman.

Other New England colleges with students receiving Watson Fellowships this year include Williams, Amherst, Middlebury and Wellesley.