Junior wins Wheaton's first Gilman Scholarship
NORTON–Wheaton psychology major Valerie Tobia, a junior from Falmouth, Mass., became the college’s first winner of the Benjamin A. Gilman International Scholarship late last month.
NORTON--Wheaton psychology major Valerie Tobia, a junior from Falmouth, Mass., became the college's first winner of the Benjamin A. Gilman International Scholarship late last month. The $4,000 scholarship, one of only 273 awarded nationwide by the U.S. Department of State, the Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs, and the Institute of International Education, will fund Tobia's spring semester study at Rhodes University in South Africa.
''I wish to travel to South Africa to study apartheid and how it has affected the communities where I am studying,'' Tobia explained. ''Within my psychology major and my English minor I have concentrated on childhood and racial studies. I am interested in comparing South Africa after apartheid to America after desegregation and the effect both have had on each country's children.''
Besides being a Dean's List student and the recipient of several scholarship--including the Saxon Family Endowed Scholarship, the East Falmouth Episcopal Church Women's Youth Scholarship and the Henry Herbert Smythe Scholarship--Tobia has held leadership positions on and off campus. She is a head resident in Meadows student housing and works as a Filene Center peer mentor. Last year she helped organize a spring break Habitat for Humanity working trip to Sacramento, Calif., and has served internships at Cape Cod and Women's and Children's hospitals.
In addition to her study of apartheid in South Africa, Tobia plans to share her experience on campus by organizing a Black History Month symposium on the history of South Africa's apartheid past and the impact it's had worldwide. Working in collaboration with the college's Marshall Multicultural Center and the Center for Global Education, Tobia wants to bring together members of the Wheaton and Norton communities to encourage understanding of race and culture issues.
