Second Wheaton student awarded Fulbright Scholarship this year
June 20, 2000
Gregory Bates of Beaverton, Ore. is the second Wheaton student this year to receive a Fulbright Award. Only 35 college students in the country are awarded this prestigious honor each year.
Bates, a political science and Hispanic studies double major at Wheaton, will spend next year studying international law and commerce in Uruguay. Focusing on free trade and specifically, the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA), Bates will take classes at the national university in Montevideo and work for an international think tank. Bates will also conduct research with private sector and government officials in Uruguay, Chile, Brazil, Argentina, and Paraguay, and examine how NAFTA and the Common Market of the South (MERCOSUR will affect the final negotiations of the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA).
''This scholarship is not only a great way to utilize my undergraduate education in political science and Hispanic studies, but also a way to bridge my path to future studies and work,'' Bates said. Bates plans to study international law after completing his Fulbright year, and looks ultimately at a position in the US State Department or in the private sector, consulting on international law and affairs.
Bates is one of two Wheaton students to be awarded a Fulbright this year. Skye Paine[base ']00 of Belmont, Mass. was also awarded a Fulbright, to teach English in a rural section of France. Paine, a student of French and art history, spent a semester of his junior year studying in Paris. After his experience abroad, he plans to return to the U.S. and teach French in an American classroom.
The Fulbright Program was created in 1946 to foster mutual understanding among nations through educational and cultural exchanges. Senator J. William Fulbright, sponsor of the legislation supporting the program, saw it as a step toward building an alternative to armed conflict. Today the Fulbright Program is the U.S. Government's premier scholarship program, enabling U.S. students, artists and other professionals to benefit from unique resources in every corner of the world. The Fulbright Program is funded by an annual Congressional appropriation and contributions from other participating countries.
Wheaton College is a selective liberal arts college located in the Boston area. It has a student body of 1,500 drawn from 45 states and 35 countries. It is a member of the Twelve College Exchange, which also includes Amherst, Bowdoin, Connecticut, Dartmouth, Mount Holyoke, Smith, Trinity, Vassar, Wellesley, Wesleyan and Williams.