The fellowship, which provides financial support for one year of undergraduate education and one year of graduate school, recognizes undergraduates with the desire and potential to serve in the United States diplomatic corps.

Nieves, a double major in Hispanic Studies and international relations, views the prospect of joining the nation's diplomatic service as a "dream job."

"I want to continue serving and working with diverse groups in an effort to change social structures so that people from different cultural backgrounds are able to build trust and develop mutual understanding for one another so that all may prosper," he said.

A Wheaton Posse Scholar from Brooklyn, N.Y., Nieves has been involved in community service since high school, when he helped to organize community events sponsored by New York State Assemblyman Felix Ortiz.

"This ignited a passion for helping those less fortunate than myself," he said.

With support from the Katharine Conroy Whalen '70 Endowed Fund for the Filene Center, Nieves spent last summer interning with a non-profit law firm called Brooklyn Legal Services Corporation A, where he participated in a campaign to defend the rights and dignity of tenants against unlawful and demeaning conditions.

"My public service has exposed me to people from all different walks of life, taught me to adapt to new environments, and appreciate cultural difference," he said.

This year, the rising college senior received a grant from Benjamin A. Gilman International Scholarship that enabled him to spend the 2013 spring semester in Spain at the Programa de Estudios Hispanicos en Córdoba, known as PRESHCO.

Nieves' Pickering fellowship will allow him to participate in one domestic and one overseas internship during the remainder of his undergraduate and graduate studies. Upon the completion of a master’s degree, he will be committed to spend at least three years as a Foreign Service Officer for the U.S. Department of State. 

The Pickering Foreign Affairs Fellowship is named in honor of Ambassador Thomas R. Pickering, who served as ambassador to Nigeria, El Salvador, Israel, India, and the Russian Federation, finishing his career in the Foreign Service as Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs.

“It is my passion, my mission, to ease the tensions between immigrants and citizens of their adoptive homes and increase understanding,” states Van Akin.

And she just may succeed. Van Akin has been awarded a Rotary Global Grant to pursue a Master’s Degree in Human Rights and Humanitarian Action.

"It is truly the program of my dreams, combining theoretical and practical courses on human rights law, conflict resolution and management of humanitarian projects," she says.

The Wheaton senior will graduate later this month with a double major in Anthropology and International Relations. She didn’t expect to study anthropology but was drawn to the field after taking an intro course with Professor M. Gabriela Torres.

“Understanding that cultural practices which seem bizarre to me might be natural to someone else was challenging to accept," recalls Van Akin, "but it sparked a desire within me to continue learning more.”

This won’t be Van Akin’s first experience abroad. She spent the fall semester of her junior year in Paris, then went to South Africa the following spring. During that time, she completed an independent research project on Somali refugees living in Cape Town. Van Akin refers to the project as "life-changing."

"I was able to interview several Somalis, and hearing their stories had a huge impact on me," she explains. "Realizing the extreme discrimination and violence that Somali refugees, and refugees in general, face was disheartening. South Africa is a beautiful country, but it still has many battles to deal with."

This summer, the Rotary scholar will return to Paris and begin classes at the prestigious Institut d'Etudes Politiques (Sciences Po) – thought to be one of the world's most reputable schools for the study of the social sciences.

After earning her master’s degree, Van Akin hopes to work for an international Non-Governmental Organization (NGO) as an advocate for refugee rights.

“Immigrants are not aliens or non-humans,” she says. “They are people, families that, in an unfamiliar and forbidding environment, need the helping hands of those who understand their plight.”

That background, she said, prepared her to take intellectual risks in college.

Abdul-Musawwir plans to continue her educational journey next year in Bangladesh, where she will be teaching English as a Fulbright Scholar in the English Teaching Assistantship program.

"Teaching English in Bangladesh will allow me the chance to do two things I long for: teach young people English and become part of a community of people I want to learn more about," she said.

A native of Boston, Abdul-Musawwir identifies her decision to major in women's studies as a turning point.

"Prior to Wheaton, I found myself often questioning gender stereotypes, however, I was too shy to be expressive about my opinions," she said. "Women's studies challenged me to step out of my comfort zone and learn to be an active feminist."

Having taken courses in education, she finds welcome challenge in teaching. She has built up a resume of teaching experience with volunteer opportunities on campus and having spent several summers as a teacher with the non-profit Breakthrough Collaborative program in Cambridge, Mass.

"Teaching provides you with constant feedback, which is determined by how receptive students are to your performance," she said. "This requires a teacher to constantly look back on his or her work and reevaluate."

When Abdul-Musawwir heads to Bangladesh, it will not be her first trip abroad. She won an award from the Benjamin A. Gilman International Scholarship Program, which enabled her to spend the spring semester of her junior year in Morocco.

"During my time in Morocco I studied transnational identity and migration and  modern standard Arabic. In addition, I wrote a thesis on migration and the feminization of poverty in rural Morocco," she said. "Aside from doing research, I spent a majority of my time traveling throughout the country, practicing Arabic and trying to explore new areas every time I got the chance."

In some ways, Abdul-Musawwir's Fulbright year in Bangladesh will be a return home. Although the women's studies major has never visited the country before, her parents hosted a Bangla family in their Boston home for three years.

"Everyday life was hectic. However, we found beauty within the miscommunication and language and cultural differences," she said. "Through nightly gatherings in our living room sharing stories, our love for genuine connections and family was not lost in translation."

“I remember reading every Spanish-language advertisement on the New York City subway, and listening to every conversation in Spanish that I overheard,” Powell said. “I began to learn about Latino culture, food, music and dance.

Next year, Powell hopes to share the transforming power of language by teaching English to Malaysian schoolchildren as a Fulbright Scholar to Malaysia.

“I want to be able to work with young people especially and share with them the transformative experience I had when I began to learn Spanish,” Powell said. “I also believe learning English is a vital skill to have in our globalized world.”

A sociology major who is also pursuing minors in political science and development studies, Powell says that she looks forward to learning about Malaysia’s multi-ethnic and culturally diverse society by living there for a year. .

“After studying abroad in Vietnam I became fascinated with Southeast Asia and was particularly interested in doing more travel in the diverse region,” she said. “I chose Malaysia because I was intrigued by the mixing of cultures and ethnicities and how these realities increasingly play a role in the politics of the nation.”

A Wheaton Posse Scholar, Powell is a campus leader, currently serving as president of the Student Government Association. She also has been active in a number of other campus organizations, from the Roosevelt Institute and Best Buds to the Trybe dance group.

Powell is an experienced world traveler, too. In addition to her semester abroad in Vietnam, she also has spent a summer volunteering as a tutor in Rivas, Nicaragua, and she worked with youth in Cape Town South Africa last summer as one of Wheaton’s International Davis Fellows.

Through those experiences, she said, “I have seen the devastating effects that inequality and poverty have on children and young adults. I understand now how it damages one’s self esteem and self worth.”

Powell grew up in Brooklyn, NY, and she says that she first became aware of inequality as a child whose parents advocated for her and her brother to be reassigned to a better school from the low-performing public school closest to their home.

“My parents fought hard to get me and my brother out of that district and told us that our new school would give us ‘a fighting chance’,” she said. “For me the difference an education makes in one’s life is obvious.”

Issues of social justice and equality have formed the core of Powell’s studies at Wheaton, she said, noting that inequality can serve as a spark to achieving real and substantive change.

"Understanding and experiencing inequality can serve as a spark for positive social change because this shared awareness can motivate people to make a difference," she said. "It makes the injustices of the world seem less far away or removed from your own agency and has the ability to empower people to become an advocate and ally to those that may be facing equality globally."

Now, she will be putting her learning and experiences to work in Germany, having won a 2013 Fulbright Award, living and teaching there for a year.

Cayard traces her interest in the German language to her grandmother, Leonora Balla, who was born and raised in Marburg, Germany. After World War II, Balla emigrated to America to go to school. Ironically, she actually won a Fulbright to the U.S. herself. Unfortunately, she passed away in December before she could learn of her granddaughter’s similar success.

“I think my grandma really wanted me to carry on the family relations with the German family after she died because I am the only person in my family who speaks German somewhat fluently,” says Cayard. “I wish she could have known that I won the Fulbright. I miss her. We had a really special relationship.”

After graduating as valedictorian of her high school class, Cayard signed up to take German in order to fulfill the language requirement at Wheaton. Having visited Germany a couple of times, she ended up completing a semester there during her sophomore year – a year earlier than most college students pursue study abroad.

“Living in Germany was easily one of the best times of my life thus far,” Cayard recalls. “I enjoyed the independence and excitement of living on my own in the university city of Regensburg. I got to visit my family there regularly and to know them better.”

In addition to learning the importance of heritage, growing up in the rural woods of central Maine inspired Cayard to develop an interest in all things green. She remembers playing in the dirt daily in the summer and in snow in the winter. Her family kept an enormous garden each year and raised chickens for eggs. As a result, she believes, “it was ingrained in me from the beginning to waste nothing and provide for myself as much as possible.”

With a minor in anthropology, she was a member of the Outdoors Club, AfterTaste (a “slow food” organization”), and SEEDs (Sustainable Education for Environmental Development). Off campus, she completed an internship at the Upper Valley Food Cooperative in Woodstock, Vt. Cayard credits Wheaton as “a driving force behind my curiosity for the world.”

As a freshman in 2010, Cayard was presented the Consulate General of the Federal Republic of Germany Award. This prize is awarded to students who demonstrate excellence in their work in German classes. As a German tutor to her fellow Wheaton students, Cayard prides herself on her patience with students trying to learn another language. In Germany, the Fulbrighter will use her skills as a teaching assistant for students in English.

Upon her return to the U.S., Cayard will consider whether to apply to graduate school or to the Peace Corps where she can support the mission of international aid and education. “I don't know what my future has in store for me,” says Cayard, “but I am always up for an adventure.”

At the age of 21, Cieslik has already gained teaching experience in Tanzania, in South Africa, and here in Norton, where she is currently a student teacher in a fourth-grade classroom at the Henri A. Yelle Elementary School. Later this year, she will broaden that experience as she heads to Malaysia as an English Language Teaching Assistant under the Fulbright program.

She realizes that public education in the U.S. is far from equitable. “I think that, so far, many education reforms have been band-aid fixes, meaning they are just covering up the problem instead of finding the root of it,” she says. “We need to find the root of the problem and fix it. One way I believe that can happen is by putting the right teachers in the right classrooms.”

Cieslik, who wants to work with low-income urban students, has long drawn inspiration from the teachers in her own life—first in her early years, then at Wheaton, and then in a township outside of Grahamstown, South Africa, where she studied abroad during her junior year.

She had her first international teaching experience in Tanzania, East Africa, during the Wheaton summer course, “Tanzania: Education and Development,” taught by Anthropology Professor Donna Kerner. Then, during her semester in South Africa, Cieslik volunteered at the Little Flower Preschool, which had been started by four local women on their own initiative.

“They saw the need for early education in their township and banded together to form the school in an old house,” says Cieslik. “I was completely humbled by these women. They were bettering the lives of children and doing so for no pay and with sparse resources.”

Cieslik, who is a Community Scholar, came to Wheaton with a budding interest in teaching and soon “fell in love with the ‘community feel’ in the Education Department. I felt very supported by my professors and classmates.” She decided on a psychology major and a minor in elementary education.

She began “thinking globally” as early as grade school, attending the Madison (Wisconsin) Country Day School. The school drew its curriculum from around the world, depending on where student achievement was highest. That meant a math program from Singapore, a science program from Japan and a music theory curriculum from Great Britain.

In applying for a Fulbright teaching assistantship, Cieslik chose Malaysia because she had never visited an Asian country and wanted to broaden her global experience. “I wanted to challenge myself by teaching and living in a culture that’s totally different from my own,” she says. “I am excited to learn more about how the Malaysian education system works and to learn new approaches and ways of thinking about education.”

After her year in Malaysia, Cieslik wants to return to the States and teach in an urban school for a few years, then pursue a master’s degree in education. It’s all part of her quest to be the best teacher she can for the students with the greatest needs.

“The public education system can be used to make a huge difference in students’ lives,” she says. “As teachers, we must be advocates for our students’ needs and rights, and I fear that sometimes students in low-income schools are not fought for to the extent they should be. I want to make a difference, and I have chosen education as the path that will help me make our world a better and happier place to live.”

After graduation, the Wheaton senior will be joining a nonprofit organization working with the community of Cuispes to develop the trails and other amenities needed for tourists to trek to the Yumbilla waterfall in northern Peru.

Skaltsis has been awarded a $10,000 Davis Projects for Peace grant to purchase materials and skilled labor needed to complete the trail, a native plant nursery and a lodge to enable two-day treks through the region's pristine cloud forest environment.

"Not only will my project positively affect the Cuispans who directly benefit from the trail, the entrance fee and part of the lodge revenue will be considered communal money to be used for a variety of purposes," Skaltsis said.

Now in its sixth year, Davis Projects for Peace is an invitation to undergraduates at the American colleges and universities in the Davis United World College Scholars Program to design grassroots projects that promote peace. It is made possible by Kathryn Wasserman Davis, an accomplished internationalist and philanthropist who received an honorary degree from Wheaton in 2008. She is the mother of Diana Davis Spencer '60, a writer, activist and a trustee emerita of the college.

A dozen Wheaton students have won Projects for Peace awards since the program was launched in 2008. Past projects have included establishing a tutoring program in Namibia, founding a micro-finance initiative in Cambodia and help Ugandan residents build fuel-efficient stoves.

For Skaltsis, the project represents an opportunity to return to Cuispes, where she spent two months last summer, working on the trail and teaching in the village school as a volunteer with the Amazon Waterfalls Association (AWA).

"I have been deeply touched by the passion and conviction of the Cuispian people," she said. "It was clear to me that the whole town believed in this project; individuals with skills in gardening offered time in the nursery, carpenters offered to help design the tambos (rest stops), women brought us lunch on hot days."

Her dedication to the project led the founders of the AWA to offer her a position as the volunteer coordinator for the work, and she has been organizing the next phase of efforts while back on the Wheaton campus.

A Massachusetts native, Skaltsis said she came to college with the desire to see more of the world, particularly South America, influencing her decision to major in International Relations and Hispanic Studies as well as minor in Environmental Studies.

The Cuispes project culminates her undergraduate career, she said. For an independent study, she focused on the ideology of development in emerging areas, particularly in South America. "I have done some serious soul-searching about the difference between standing for people and standing with people," she said. Her aspiration is to facilitate development that people desire, rather than impose projects on a community.

"I want to stand with these people to harness all of the talents they possess and achieve a dream we share: the completion of an amazing eco-trek spanning seven waterfalls."

Maya Ennis, of Brooklyn, New York, will study in Egypt with a $4,000 scholarship. Gilda Rodrigues, of Boston, will go to Brazil with a $4,500 award, and Alexis Nieves of Brooklyn, will study in Spain with an award of $3,000.

The Gilman Scholarship program aims to diversify the kinds of students who study abroad as well as the countries and regions to which they go by supporting undergraduates who might not otherwise participate because of financial constraints. Sponsored by the Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs of the U.S. Department of State, the program is intended to help prepare U.S. students to play meaningful roles in an increasingly global economy and interdependent world.

Nieves will travel to the city of Córdoba in January 2013 to participate in the Programa de Estudios Hispanicos en Córdoba, known as PRESHCO.

“Living in Spain for several months will give me the opportunity to improve my Spanish speaking and writing skills, which will be beneficial as I seek to help the members of my community."

A double major in Hispanic studies and international relations, Nieves has a keen interest in diplomacy and positive social change. He looks forward to interweaving these interests during his time abroad, particularly through a course called “Community Organizations and Local Politics in Córdoba.”

“That course will directly engage me with an NGO committed to local issues, including gender inequality, integration of immigrants, rights of the differently-abled, LGBT rights, ecology and poverty,” he said.

Embarking on a School of International Training program in Brazil, Gilda Rodrigues will live with local families and participate in an academic program focusing on public health, race and human rights. She will investigate health care delivery models in Brazil and study Portuguese with an emphasis on health sciences.

As a religion major on a pre-med track, Rodrigues wants to learn more about how the Brazilian health care system incorporates spiritual practices, thus connecting her two main interests. Rodrigues also plans to conduct an independent study of the role of spiritual healing in medical care.

Maya Ennis will attend the American University of Cairo, continuing to work toward her psychology major and sociology minor. She is particularly excited about taking an urban development course, "to study the various ways individuals interact within their communities."

Last summer, with the support of a Wheaton fellowship, Ennis worked at the Brooklyn Young Mother’s Collective, an organization that helps young women move out of poverty by getting educated and becoming self-sufficient.

She says she is looking forward to “experiencing an ancient culture that has not been completely influenced by Western culture” and hopes "that living in a vastly unfamiliar place will sharpen my self-awareness and arm me with the tools needed to be an agent of change.”

At Wheaton, Ennis is also working on a second minor in theatre. “Theater is my fun thing!” she says.

Wheaton tied for sixth place with six other institutions (Claremont McKenna, Connecticut, Hamilton, Kenyon, Saint Olaf and Vassar colleges), according to The Chronicle of Higher Education and the Institute for International Education, which administers the Fulbright program.

"Wheaton is extremely proud of the accomplishments of our Fulbright award recipients who have taken full advantage of the opportunities that our faculty and staff afford them," said President Ronald A. Crutcher.

This marks the eighth consecutive year that Wheaton has ranked among the nation's top 10 liberal arts colleges in the preparation of Fulbright Scholars. Overall, the college's students have won 68 Fulbright awards from 2000 through 2012.

Nine Wheaton students won Fulbright Scholarships in the past year. They are conducting research, studying and teaching English in Turkey, Taiwan, Mexico, Indonesia, Bulgaria, Thailand, Poland, the Czech Republic and Estonia.

Overall, Wheaton students won 18 national scholarships, including two Watson Fellowships, two French Government Teaching Assistantships, a Rotary International Scholarship, a Beinecke Scholarship, a 100 Projects for Peace Award and a Boren Undergraduate Scholarship.

The success of Wheaton's students in winning the Fulbright reflects the college's broader achievements in preparing young women and men to excel in earning a wide variety of international scholarships. Since 2000, more than 158 Wheaton graduates have won awards such as the Rhodes, Marshall and Truman scholarships.

“They encouraged me to explore other cultures and the world around me,” said Gleason, who currently lives in San Francisco, after completing his master’s degree in international business practice in Bangkok, Thailand.

That encouragement and the global experiences he gained while at Wheaton and since graduating have led to Gleason being awarded a Fulbright Binational Business Grant.

The grants are awarded to students who are interested in combining coursework in international business or law with an internship at a Mexico-based company conducting international or legal business. The goal is to enhance knowledge, expertise and understanding of post-NAFTA Mexico.

For Gleason, who began learning Spanish at age 12 and double majored in Hispanic studies and international relations, the Fulbright opportunity draws upon all of the cultural knowledge he has gained and allows him to apply it in a real-world setting.

“Living and working in Mexico will tie together my lifelong study of Latin American culture with my postgraduate business studies and professional background,” says Gleason, a former resident of Dresden, Maine.

“My first experience abroad was a cultural immersion experience in Merida, Mexico. For two weeks, I lived with a host family, studied Spanish and explored the local culture. This experience awakened an urge to continue exploring other countries, and I studied abroad twice while at Wheaton—in Spain and in Argentina. I also worked for two summers in Turkey. After graduation, I accepted an internship in the UK, before moving to Thailand.”

Gleason says the Fulbright will allow him to build on his academic and professional work experience. “This would bridge the gap between my undergraduate and graduate studies. It would provide an outlet for me to apply my knowledge of culture, language and business strategy. I am eager to connect my work experience with the broad understanding of Latin culture I garnered from my education.”

His interest in international business is an organic extension of his studies in international relations, he notes. As a student at Wheaton, he said he was inspired to learn more about the world through his courses and motivated by a curiosity to understand the forces of diplomacy and political economy.

He enhanced his studies with internships and volunteer opportunities with internationally-oriented organizations.

While studying abroad, he volunteered as a location coordinator for L.I.F.E. Argentina, a nonprofit working with youths living in socially marginalized and extremely impoverished areas. He led a team of volunteers and designed and delivered social and educational programs, including after-school mentoring, tutoring and sports.

He also worked for two summers at an English language summer camp in Istanbul, Turkey. At the Robert College Summer Program, which is administered through the Filene Center, he introduced students to new ways to communicate in English through sports and the arts.

Professor Darlene Boroviak knew Gleason for the four years he was at Wheaton, was his advisor for his major in international relations, and has kept in touch with him.

“Padric has a broad, cosmopolitan view of the world, and he is clearly someone who wants to be engaged with that world,” she says. “He has an extensive understanding of international relations and the meaning of globalization.”

She agrees that the Fulbright as the right next step for him, given his goals.

“I was inspired to create my own languages and study as many others as possible, both real and constructed,” Antetomaso recalls. “I experimented with learning ASL, Esperanto, Finnish, German, Greek, Italian, Klingon, Korean, Latin, and even Xhosa. Language created a doorway between worlds, allowing me to step through into completely different cultures.”

A doorway to another new culture will open for Antetomaso this fall, when she heads to the Republic of Estonia as a Fulbright Scholar. The Wheaton College senior from Woburn, Mass., a double major in linguistics and Russian studies, plans to study and conduct research on language at the University of Tartu.

Antetomaso developed an interest in linguistics as a high school student, when she took a course in the subject at MIT. She chose Wheaton in part for its wide offerings in world languages, though she knew the college had no linguistics major. Then a friend told her about an English professor, Michael Drout, who “was always talking about linguistics in class.”

“On a whim I went to talk with him," she says, "and he was really supportive of the idea” of developing an independent major in linguistics.

With Drout’s guidance, Antetomaso built the major with courses from several departments—English, Computer Science, Psychology and Anthropology—plus linguistics courses at Brown University.

The University of Tartu, where she will work and study, is one of the world’s foremost centers for linguistics research, and its Department of Estonian Language Studies is the leading department of its kind. Antetomaso is intrigued by Estonian, which, like Finnish and Hungarian, is a Finno-Ugric language.

“These languages are significantly different from most other European languages,” says Antetomaso. “They are generally agglutinative languages, which means that things like tense, number, location and speaker can be indicated by an ending tacked onto the word.” (For instance, in Finnish, “istua” means “to sit down,” while “istahtaisinkohan” means “I wonder if I should sit down for a while.”)

In her Fulbright research, Antetomaso will employ natural-language processing, a technique that uses computers to process, understand, and output human language and which has applications to technology such as speech-recognition software, text-to-speech programs and machine translation. Antetomoso will examine how English-based language-processing algorithms work on Estonian texts, and vice versa, with the goals of studying the structural differences between the two languages and also developing “language-independent” algorithms.

“I’ve worked with a lot of language-processing tools at Wheaton,” she says, “tools that cluster similar texts, or parse speech into phonemes, but these tools all presuppose that you’re using them on English data sets.” Language-independent algorithms, on the other hand, are universal; they work with many different languages.

Antetomaso’s studies at Wheaton have opened up many other opportunities. She attended the European Summer School in Logic, Language, and Information in Copenhagen and has worked for two years as a research assistant to Professor Tom Armstrong (Computer Science). In 2011 the pair co-authored a paper and presented it at the International Conference on Development and Learning in Frankfurt, Germany. Antetomaso also completed a senior honor’s thesis based on her own linguistics research.

When she was 14, Fisher traveled to China with her mother and fell under the country's spell. She returned there last year as a Wheaton College student to spend the year studying and working as a student teacher.

After she graduates from Wheaton this spring, Fisher will head back to Asia as a Fulbright Scholar to Taiwan where she will teach English and immerse herself in its culture.

"What fascinates me about Taiwan and Taiwanese culture is how it’s a conglomeration of multiple cultures: Chinese (from many very different regions), Japanese, American, and aboriginal Taiwanese," Fisher said. "I think this makes for a very interesting mix of cultural practices.

"I am particularly drawn to the politics of identity and how education and history are involved in the making of identity," she said.

The New Orleans native says her desire to live and work in Asia began with the journey she took with her mother. "By the end of our trip, I did not want to leave. Back in the U.S., I delved into books about the history and culture of Chinese people," she said.

The Anthropology major pursued her interest in the region through a minor in Asian Studies with a concentration in Chinese history. She also studied Mandarin for three years.

During her junior year, Fisher studied Chinese culture and ethnic minorities at Yunnan Minorities University in Kunming and then moved on to Shanxi Normal University in Xi'an, where she studied Chinese history, particularly the Silk Road and globalization. While in China, she also spent the summer teaching English.

The most memorable moment of the year, however, arose from an impromptu trip she and a friend took into rural Sichuan on the eve of the Chinese New Year. The pair climbed aboard the train with no place to spend the night. "Within fifteen minutes, we had an invitation to stay with someone," she said. "We ended up with a room for the night and experiences that I wouldn’t trade for the world-–making glutinous rice balls with the family we were staying with, eating meals with them, setting off fireworks in the street, and lighting incense at a Buddhist temple to usher in the New Year."

On campus, Fisher also followed her interests in culture and Asia by participating in the Asian American Coalition and the Anthropology Club and by serving as a Study Abroad Peer Advisor.

Her most important experiences occurred in the classroom, however. "The skills that I have gained in classes at Wheaton are what I think will be most helpful," Fisher said. "Particularly in my Anthropology classes, I have learned how to get a good understanding of group dynamics and exercise cultural sensitivity. These skills will be very useful when it comes to creating lesson plans that will best engage my students and address their specific needs, as well as collaborating with other teachers and staff."

The French Studies major and Education minor has won a French Government Teaching Assistantship, and she will be teaching English to secondary school students at the Académie de Paris.

"I am excited by the opportunity to teach about American culture and in return learn from my French students," said Hanson, who intends to pursue a career in education when she returns to the U.S."The French language is my passion, and I plan to share my experiences abroad with my future American students when I return to the United States."

The native of Darien, Conn., says that she is particularly fascinated with the intertwining of French fashion and history with its culture.

"Appearance is a critical part of the French way of life, even to the detail of how one cuts Camembert cheese," she said. "France’s artistic and architectural beauty reflects its culture, which dates back hundreds of years.

"Paris has a rich history – the Haussmann buildings, the bouquinistes along the Seine, the museums and the magnificent churches all tell stories about France’s past," she said.

In addition to her familiarity with French language and culture, Hanson also has developed her skills as a teacher. "Currently I am student teaching French at Norton High School," she said. "I love seeing my students’ faces light up once they finally grasp a concept, and I love seeing their passion for French growing as I am teaching them."

Hanson credits Wheaton with helping her to build the skills to overcome challenges, "I have learned the life lesson that one can never give up, even if you hit a roadblock," she said. "Perseverance is the key."

Zachary Ginsburg '10 will be joining an international team of researchers studying how Polish political and social culture may impact the EU's efforts to integrate its members into a common set of foreign and security policies.

The double major in International Relations and Political Science has been awarded a Fulbright Scholarship to conduct research at the Centre for European Studies (CES), which is located at Jagiellonian University. The university, Poland's oldest institution of higher education, is located in Krakow.

Ginsburg plans to investigate how Polish citizens' strong national identity shapes the country's participation in collaborative EU foreign and security affairs.

"Many of [Poland's] citizens have not seen fit to embrace the new European idea of collective governance instead of national sovereignty," he says. "This is because they see themselves as Poles first and Europeans second."

CES researchers have been affiliated with planning efforts funded by the EU and the center is home to a trove of proprietary survey data on the attitudes of the Polish public that Ginsburg will be able to use in his project, he says.

The award furthers Ginsburg's scholarly efforts in international relations. A member of Phi Beta Kappa and a magna cum laude graduate of Wheaton, Ginsburg won the college's Daniel K. Lewin Prize in Political Science and the Ruth Redding Phi Beta Kappa Scholarship, helping him to earn a master's degree in International Relations from the Department of War Studies, King's College, London. He graduated from King's in January 2012 with a Distinction, the highest grade in UK master's programs. He credits Wheaton for his first exposure to the field.

"But for my Wheaton experience, it's unlikely that I would have pursued an MA in International Relations," Ginsburg says. "There were many, many instances in grad school when I referred to class notes, papers, handouts, or other course materials from my Wheaton classes. More importantly, many of the ideas in my proposal and my Master's thesis were ones I began to develop in Wheaton Political Science and International Relations courses."

The Alexandria, Va., native says he learned many other valuable lessons at Wheaton, from serving as treasurer of the Student Government Association to taking courses across the liberal arts curriculum. In earning his master's degree, Ginsburg says he also has drawn on what he learned in Wheaton courses on ancient Greece, judicial philosophy, the French language and many other topics. "I’m delighted at how many of my Wheaton courses have informed my more recent work."

At present, Ginsburg is working as a staff associate for the Strategic Policy Partnership, a consulting firm that specializes in public safety management, law enforcement and homeland security. "It’s a terrific job and organization, and I’m delighted that our chairman is allowing me a leave of absence while I pursue the Fulbright," he says.

In his spare time, Ginsburg enjoys playing the bass, and he played in a variety of ensembles at Wheaton, King's and Oxford University, where he studied abroad. He looks forward to exploring Polish culture during his studies at CES.

"Poland isn't interesting merely because it might redefine notions of sovereignty or shape the future of Europe," Ginsburg says. "It also has rich cultural and intellectual traditions. Jagiellonian's most famous former student is Copernicus."

Then her grandmother started taking her on trips to such distant places as Ecuador and Italy. The exposure to foreign cultures opened her mind and kindled in her “a sense of adventure and a desire to learn about other languages,” says the Wheaton senior.

Now her enthusiasm for language will take her on an adventure to the Czech Republic, where she will spend a year teaching English with the support of a Fulbright grant.

At Wheaton, Bisbee has pursued language learning through a major in English and a minor in Italian. She spent the fall semester of her junior year at the University of Edinburgh and the spring term in Ferrara, Italy, where she studied in an Italian language immersion program.

Though she struggled at first with the new language and unfamiliar culture, she persevered and soon learned “to converse, read, write, and even joke in Italian,” she says. “By the end of the semester I could express my opinion on Dante as easily as I could order a gelato.”

During her year in Europe, Bisbee visited the Czech Republic for one weekend and fell in love with its historical and literary heritage. As a lover of literature, she is strongly drawn to the home country of Franz Kafka and Milan Kundera, and during her Fulbright year she plans to see as much of the country as possible.

“I always knew I wanted to travel after graduation,” says Bisbee, a resident of the rural town of Princeton, Mass., “but I never thought that I would be interested in teaching. That interest blossomed just last summer, when I used my Trustee Scholar stipend to intern at the Telling Room, a creative writing camp for children in Portland, Maine. I loved working with the bright young kids, and being surrounded by their frenetic creative energy, and I realized then that I could imagine myself as a teacher.”

Bisbee has additional teaching experience as a peer tutor in writing and Italian at Wheaton. “I really enjoy the feeling of helping students work through and understand new concepts,” she says.

In her senior year, she switched from a concentration in creative writing to one in historical linguistics, a course of study that she designed herself with the help of English Professor Michael Drout. She is also working on a senior honors thesis, studying how the fairy tale “Beauty and the Beast” has evolved over four centuries and in different cultures.

A member of the Ultimate Frisbee team at Wheaton and at the University of Edinburgh, Bisbee understands how sport can help connect people of different backgrounds. If there is no Ultimate Frisbee team where she’s placed, she says she intends to start one. “It would be a great way to interact with Czech students and get to know them as individuals.”

After her Fulbright year, Bisbee hopes to attend graduate school in linguistics, which appeals to her because “it’s such a comprehensive field of study—it has branches in psychology and neuroscience, literature, philosophy, computer science and anthropology—but it also has very real implications for everyday speech and writing.”

That experience fueled a passion for teaching and writing that has inspired Febles to seek out new opportunities to exercise and share the power of language with others, from editorial internships to volunteer work in several elementary schools.

Next year, the Wheaton College senior will travel to Indonesia as a 2012 Fulbright Scholar to teach English to Indonesian school children, and she is looking forward to the opportunity to continue her work as a teacher.

"I enjoy the 'aha' moment that students have when they finally connect the dots about a concept. It’s amazing, you can see it in their face, their posture, and how they raise their hands," she says of her interest in teaching. "It makes me feel like I’ve helped to inspire intellectual curiosity and enabled my most doubtful students to believe in themselves."

For Febles, teaching in Indonesia also presents the opportunity to promote social justice through education."English has rapidly become a global language and learning it can produce a variety of opportunities for non-native speakers who learn the language," she says. "This award will allow me to play a small part in facilitating that for Indonesian students."

And the island nation, which holds the distinction of being the world's most populous Muslim-majority state while also being home to approximately 300 native ethnic groups and a richness of biodiversity second only to Brazil, holds special fascination for Febles.

"Indonesia really interests me for a variety of reasons," the English major says. "Its stretch across 6,000 inhabited islands is fascinating to me and excites me about the wondrous possibilities and nuances that exist among them. In addition, I am intrigued by its rich diversity in culture, biota, and ethnicity. I am also eager to learn more about the intersection of nationality and religion in such a unique place."

She predicts the experience will be life-changing. "This experience will broaden my global understanding, my appreciation of other cultures, and enhance my notions of faith and the connections between social integrity and Islam in a Muslim state," she says. "I will return as a refined global thinker and believe that my lifelong decisions will be more inclusive to other experiences and people in the world."

Indonesia will not be Febles's first trip abroad. She spent her junior year abroad, studying journalism for one semester at the American University of Cairo and participating in a program on social development and change in Vietnam. While in Cairo, Febles volunteered as an English tutor to Sudanese refugees and she wrote for the university's newspaper. In Vietnam, she worked with an English language club at the University of Economics in Ho Chi Minh City.

Febles has developed her teaching skills as an English and writing tutor in local schools and as a bi-lingual teaching assistant in a Providence elementary school. She is currently interning with the Appalachian Mountain Club in Boston as a communications and marketing intern. She previously interned with Teen Voices World magazine in Boston.

On campus, Febles has been active in a variety of organizations, including the Intercultural Board and the Distinguished Women of Color Collective. She also has been a writer for the campus newspaper, a peer advisor for the Center for Global Education and a senior admission intern.

In many ways, the Fulbright represents the fulfillment of a dream. "When I came to Wheaton, I knew I wanted to travel abroad," she says. "When I was younger, my mom and I would do this thing where we would pretend to be birds, close our eyes, and fly to any place in the world. It made my world so big, she really opened me up to so many possibilities at a young age. Since then, traveling has been an aspiration of mine. My experience in Cairo confirmed that this passion is an integral part of who I am."

Allen grew up just outside of Baltimore, Md., which is where she witnessed the disparity between her “beautiful, well-maintained, private school” and the “broken-down schools” that were only a few miles away. This is what sparked her interest in education and school systems. “I wanted to figure out what was the source of all this brokenness and I wanted to be a part of the conversation to fix it,” says Allen.

She came to Wheaton and began researching education systems both in the U.S. and internationally. She attributes her interest in teaching to a required class called “Schooling in America.” “I found myself reading books about the pitfalls of urban education, learning about concepts like ‘pedagogy’ and ‘experiential learning,’” remembers Allen.

Allen now has a variety of teaching experiences to draw upon. She has worked as a counselor for various summer camps around New England. Last year, she was a Teaching Assistant at The Steppingstone Foundation in Boston, Mass. – a non-profit that assists low-income, high performing students in getting to college. In the fall, she began tutoring her peers in the subject of her major: Religion. (She also has a minor in American History.)

Her quest for knowledge has brought Allen to a variety of destinations around the world. In Cape Town, South Africa, she learned about the history and the impact of apartheid from her host families. This resulted in Allen completing an independent study project on the implications of private schooling on black township students. She has also participated in voluntary programs that took her to the Caribbean islands of Trinidad and Tobago, as well as to New Orleans to work for Habitat for Humanities.

In 2011, Allen received the J. Arthur Martin Prize in Religion and has been on the Dean’s List every year since 2008. Her professors have described her as a “special and driven student” who is determined to make the most of her opportunities in college. She was a student preceptor in her Sophomore year, and is currently an Admission tour guide and a member of the College Hearing Board.

For the past four years, Allen has also been a singer in one of Wheaton’s oldest a cappella groups, the Wheaton Whims. She plans to use her artistic skills as another tool in her work overseas. “I would like to have my students explore English through different creative mediums such as writing and performing short plays or narratives, as well as writing song lyrics,” notes Allen. She hopes to form a singing group with her Bulgarian students.

Filmmaking is another of Allen’s interests, and she uses her camera to explore issues that she deems important. Last year, Allen completed a film about the relevance of the SAT test to college admissions in the United States. In 2008, she produced a documentary on the town of Moss Point, Mississippi after the impact of Hurricane Katrina. Her hand-held video camera will also accompany her to Bulgaria, where she will allow students to produce their own videos as a more engaging way of learning the English language.

After completing her Fulbright year, Allen plans to spend time teaching in the United States. Ultimately, she wants to attend graduate school in the hopes of gaining a better understanding of how to implement positive and effective education policy in this country.

“In the future," states Allen, "I wish to take my experiences and put them back into the school system that I know well, in a way that can transform the educational experiences of children in the United States.”

“English fluency brings the possibility of access, opportunity and entry into the global community,” Sweet wrote in his Fulbright essay. “An English Teaching Assistantship in Thailand will allow me to play a role in helping students to improve their English reading, writing and speaking skills and ultimately gain access to more opportunities.”

In additional to teaching, Sweet plans to immerse himself in the Thai culture. He got a small taste in 2010 when he took a short vacation there after studying abroad at Royal Thimphu College in Bhutan.

“The trip to Thailand consisted of visits to temples, shrines, markets and other centers of Thai culture. Although we remained in Bangkok, I came in contact with several individuals who had moved from the more rural areas of Thailand in search of education and work opportunities. Their stories made me want to explore other areas of the country.”

During his semester in Bhutan with seven other Wheaton students, Sweet gained experience that will be helpful during his Fulbright. He worked as a tutor in the Royal Thimphu College writing center and interned at a radio station, where he co-hosted a weekly talk show that required him to be creative and collaborative.

The Wheaton College (Norton, Mass.) psychology major says he plans to bring creativity to the classroom to develop a comfortable and enriching environment for his students.

“The way in which I know that a student understands a concept is how well they are able to make connections to other concepts we have studied,” he said. “Promoting participation and hands-on activities can best establish these connections. Lessons that use skits, cross-cultural sharing and debates will enrich our exchange, and encourage students to learn together.

"It is this sense of confidence and collaboration within a diverse learning environment that will make English comprehension and use easier for students. …I also plan to provide meeting time outside of the classroom to build connections with individuals and adapt to different learning needs.”

No doubt his mindfulness research experiences with Professor of Education Mary Lee Griffin will supply him with the tools needed to help students focus.

He has been an Education Department research assistant since 2009, working with Professor Griffin to develop mediation programs for students in grades K-12. This academic year, he has been acting as a teaching assistant and technical advisor for Griffin’s current First-Year Seminar, helping to create digital stories that fuse technology, personal narratives and mindfulness.

He also has been offering mindfulness “services” to students on campus to help them de-stress and relax, especially as they prepare for exams.

Professors who have worked with Sweet describe him as engaging, adaptable, friendly and able to easily connect across cultures.

“Raffi Sweet is the strongest student I have taught in my twelve years at Wheaton,” says Griffin. “He has had a number of classroom and extracurricular experiences, which attest to his insatiable curiosity, diversity of interests, and willingness to explore new territory, no matter where he find himself.”

A member of two honor societies—Phi Beta Kappa and Psi Chi—he has twice earned the President’s Award, in 2009 and 2011, for maintaining a 3.9 GPA. He also has been on the dean’s list for six semesters.

On campus he also has been heavily involved in volunteer work and extra curricular activities, including serving as co-chair of the Wheaton College Hearing Board; working in the Admission Office interviewing prospective students and serving as a tour guide; and singing with the a cappella group the Gentlemen Callers for four years.

After his Fulbright year, Sweet plans to apply to graduate school. “I am sure that this Fulbright opportunity will allow me to increase my real-world experience and expand the perspectives that I develop in Thailand. More importantly, it will allow me to hone in on my passions, find what truly excites me, and apply to a graduate program that is representative of my accomplishments and plans.”

Donlevy will use the $10,000 grant to travel to Phnom Penh, Cambodia, this summer to establish a mathematics education program for teens and a micro-lending initiative to provide seed money for women-owned businesses. She is one of approximately 100 undergraduates nationwide to receive the grant from the Davis Projects for Peace program.

The youngest of six daughters, she came to the U.S. in 2004, lived with the Donlevy family of Attleboro, Mass., and graduated from Attleboro High School in 2008. After graduating from Bristol Community College on a full scholarship, she transferred to Wheaton, where she is now majoring in mathematics. Donlevy, who changed her surname name from Eam in honor of her foster parents, also selected Sophal as her middle name in honor of her mother. She has been tutoring adults and children in math for six years and feels well equipped to teach the subject to young Cambodians.

Donlevy will partner with the People Improvement Organization (PIO) in Phnom Penh to establish math classes in English for students in grades 7-9. PIO provides education and training to nearly 900 young people, ages 5 to 24, including orphans, street children, and children with AIDS and HIV. But the organization lacks the resources to provide instruction in English, Donlevy says, and young people who are skilled in both math and English are in high demand in the workplace.

Donlevy plans to set up evening classes for students who already have a working knowledge of English, then hire a professional teacher and two university students to take over the program under the guidance of PIO’s director. She will provide a syllabus and introduce the instructors to current teaching methods in mathematics; she also hopes to bring donated textbooks and materials from the U.S.

With about $4,000 of the grant money, Donlevy will establish a micro-lending program for skilled women who hope to start family businesses. The interest from these loans will in turn be used to sustain the math education program.

“Providing women with a little money to start businesses will help them gain independence and economic self-sufficiency,” Donlevy says. “It will be a source of motivation for these women to work hard to achieve a higher status of living. These women will have children, and those future children will follow their example.”

Cambodia has endured decades of civil war and violence, beginning with French decolonization in 1946 and continuing through the Vietnam War and beyond. During the Cambodian genocide of 1975-1979, the Khmer Rouge regime headed by Pol Pot committed mass murder on its people. At least 1.7 million people (more than 20 percent of the population) lost their lives, according to the Cambodian Genocide Project at Yale University.

Today, the violence persists through ongoing border wars, and the nation struggles with a rapidly growing population, a high rate of joblessness, and an unskilled work force.

“Though I am now a U.S. citizen, part of my heart is in Cambodia,” Donlevy says. “My mother survived the genocide, but conflict continued through the 1990s. My mother and her six daughters worked very hard together just to survive and make a living. We have all experienced war. We have all suffered. I have a vested interest in those in Cambodia who are just like me—young people who have suffered and continue to do so.”

The Davis Projects for Peace program was launched by Kathryn Wasserman Davis in 2007 on the occasion of her 100th birthday, when she pledged $1 million to fund 100 peace-promoting summer projects developed by college students. The program has continued in ensuing years, with the objective of encouraging and supporting today's young people to implement their own ideas for building peace in the 21st century. A noted philanthropist, Davis is the mother of Wheaton Trustee Diana Davis Spencer '60.

Seniors Adam Goldberg and Iraimi Mercado were selected as winners from a pool of 700 candidates, of which 147 finalists were nominated to compete nationally. Goldberg and Mercado were among the 40 Watson Fellows selected this year.

The Thomas J. Watson Fellowship is a one year grant for independent study and travel outside of the United States. The fellowship funds students of "unusual promise" who have an the desire and ability to explore a topic that is personally significant to them.

Goldberg will use his grant to learn how Buddhism is “used as a vehicle for social change.” He will travel to Sri Lanka, India, Cambodia and Thailand. Goldberg spent his junior year on Wheaton’s study abroad program in Bhutan. In May, he will complete his undergraduate degree in “Conflict and Social Change,” a major that he designed with Wheaton faculty.

Mercado will explore the YMCAs around the world to “discover each culture's particular method of supporting and empowering youth, and by extension, the community.” She will conduct her research in Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Senegal and the United Kingdom. Mercado was born in the Dominican Republic and is a sociology major. Last year, she completed an internship with Big Brother Big Sister in Brockton, Mass.

The stipend for the Watson fellowship is $25,000. Fellows are encouraged to study a subject that they have always wanted to explore no matter what obstacles they could encounter. This year’s recipients will traverse seventy-four countries, exploring topics from neuroscientific art to ocean acidification.

Since 2000, Wheaton students have won 143 academic awards, including Rhodes, Fulbright and Truman scholarships, in addition to Watson Fellowships.

Now, the 2011 Wheaton graduate has won a Rotary Ambassadorial Scholarship that will allow her to follow her dreams of improving health care for women and children, particularly in the developing world.

Mehlhorn, who graduated summa cum laude with a major in biology, will be enrolled next fall at the University of London, working toward a master's degree in reproductive and sexual health research at its School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. She was sponsored by the Rotary Club of Camden, Maine.

"Due to gender discrimination women and girls are generally the most marginalized members of any society and therefore are often the poorest both in terms of economics and health," Mehlhorn said, explaining her interest in the field of study.

"I am interested in understanding the global health issues facing women today, the policies that have been developed to address these problems, and the implementation success of such programs aimed at improving women’s health."

The native of Nobleboro, Maine, says she arrived on the Wheaton campus aspiring toward a career in medicine, but not convinced that it was within her reach.

"It wasn't until Wheaton and my experiences during college that I realized it was something I was truly passionate about and something I could realistically achieve," says Mehlhorn, who is currently working as a research assistant in a neurology lab at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston.

Mehlhorn developed as a scholar through deep immersion in her subject. She served as a research assistant to Professor S. Shawn McCafferty, conducted genetics research as an intern at the Jackson Laboratory in Bar Harbor, Maine, and completed an honors thesis involving genetic analysis of grey harbor seals. She also held positions at Wheaton as a teaching assistant and a tutor in biology.

The Wheaton Trustee Scholar says that her experiences while studying abroad in South Africa helped to crystalize her growing fascination with public health issues for women and children.

"Through the program I performed a study project which allowed me to work in the maternity ward of a rural hospital and get a glimpse of maternal health in this still racially divided country," she said. "This glimpse contrasted drastically with the view of health I had when interning at a local women’s clinic in my hometown during the previous summer."

Study at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine will fit her interests particularly well, says Mehlhorn. "This program focuses study on the developing world and it is a great introduction to policy-relevant research."

The purpose of the Ambassadorial Scholarships program is to further international understanding and friendly relations among people of different countries. While abroad, scholars serve as ambassadors of goodwill to the people of the host country and give presentations about their homelands to Rotary clubs and other groups.

Adam Goldberg ’12 has received the Gilman Scholarship and he will use the funds to attend Wheaton’s new study abroad program in Bhutan. The Gilman Scholarship Program, which is run by the Institute of International Education, is intended to better prepare U.S. students for significant roles in an increasingly global economy and interdependent world.

Goldberg says the small Himalayan country, which is situated between India and China, is in the midst of extraordinary sociopolitical change that will further his academic interests. He is pursuing studies in an independent major, Conflict and Social Change, that he designed with Wheaton faculty.

“This experience will help solidify what I have learned at Wheaton,” says Goldberg. “It will go a long way toward my understanding of the social dynamics that lead to a stable, peaceful society.”

Wheaton is the only U.S. university or college to host a study abroad program in Bhutan and it is no coincidence: the current king is a former Wheaton student.

In addition to his studies at Royal Thimphu College, Goldberg will work alongside public school teachers and their students to see how the country incorporates new reforms into its educational system. Goldberg explains, “The goal of this program is not merely to observe Bhutanese society, but to participate and become part of it, something that only the rarest of foreigners have ever experienced.”

Often, these experiences change us in subtle or pronounced ways. But is the obverse true? Do travelers change the countries they visit? How? And to what extent?

Amy Broome ’11, an international relations major from St. Johnsbury, Vermont, is curious about such questions. Now she has won a Fulbright Scholarship to Oman, where she will research the ways in which foreign tourism there shapes and changes modern Omani identity.

Broome, who has studied Arabic at Wheaton, notes that the increasing numbers of foreign visitors to the once-isolated Sultanate of Oman have brought “new cultures, ideas, and languages with them—novelties that undoubtedly affect Omanis and Omani society at large.”

Tourism “is a process of both ‘give’ and ‘take,’ in which travelers and Omanis take part in cross-cultural interactions,” Broome says. By studying the effects of these interactions, she hopes to paint “a comprehensive picture of how the influx of foreign travelers affects a society’s perceptions of self and of the outside world.” She also hopes to analyze her findings “in a way that fosters wider intercultural understanding.”

The oldest of four children, Broome is a first-generation college student. She grew up in northeastern Vermont in a family that harvested its own firewood, cultivated an extensive garden and constructed its own buildings. Her parents, she says, put a high value on education and on a strong work ethic.

At Wheaton, Broome has pursued a passion for languages that began with her study of Latin at age 11. She started with Arabic and Italian in her freshman year and later added Mandarin Chinese. In her junior year, she spent one semester in Beijing and one in Cairo, where she sharpened her Arabic skills and also learned some “Egyptian colloquial.”

Oman, an Islamic monarchy located on the southeast coast of the Arabian peninsula, has close political ties to the United States. In recent years the country has developed its tourism sector in an attempt to reduce dependency on its oil industry. Most foreign visitors to Oman hale from other Middle Eastern nations, says Broome, and the country is becoming modernized without necessarily becoming “westernized.”

Broome will carry out her study in the city of Muscat, Oman’s cultural hub and largest city, where she will affiliate with Sultan Qaboos University. Throughout the year she will conduct interviews with Omanis from many walks of life, seeking to learn how aspects of other cultures, including food, dress, media and language, are making their way into modern Omani society, and how such changes are viewed.

After her Fulbright year, the Phi Beta Kappa graduate plans to pursue a master's degree in Middle Eastern Studies.

During those years, as she worked through her own cultural and religious identity crisis as an Islamic Bangladeshi-American attending a predominantly white Catholic high school, she was the one to take the lead by founding a multicultural club to help her peers learn about and embrace diversity. And during her four years at Wheaton, teaching has been an integral part of her experiences—in settings from Rhode Island to Ghana.

All of the experiences have paid off. Yusuf, a Flushing, N.Y., resident, has been awarded a Fulbright English Teaching Assistantship to Bangladesh.

As a teacher in Dhaka, Bangladesh, she plans to create inventive lessons and programs through group projects aimed at fostering academic development, interaction and a peer-to-peer learning environment.

“Receiving the English Teaching Assistantship will allow me to continue to pursue my goals as an educator and fuel my passion to work with youth and young adults in a variety of settings,” said Yusuf, a sociology major.

The Posse Scholar has been actively involved on campus while at Wheaton, as a senior resident advisor, an Admission intern, and the former co-president of the Distinguished Women of Color Collective. She also has made great use of her summers, gaining a wide variety of experience.

One summer, she was a dean at the Sadie Nash Leadership Project in New York, a nonprofit organization that promotes leadership among young women—work she plans to continue in Bangladesh during her Fulbright.

She was a community organizer for Desis Rising Up & Moving in New York, where she taught community organizing techniques to South Asian high school immigrants from low-income neighborhoods.

“Working with this particular population challenged me,” Yusuf wrote in her Fulbright proposal. “I had difficulty relating to the youth I worked with because I did not face their economic challenges, nor share any of their problems.”

However, as the summer progressed, she learned ways to become an ally and realized that any differences between them could not hinder the type of relationship she wanted to develop with them.

“My success as an educator became apparent when they thanked me for teaching them how to become successful youth organizers in their communities,” she said.

During the summer of 2008, she had her first major international experience in Ghana, where she studied NGO development and taught English at an NGO-affiliated orphanage. In 2009, she was an eighth grade literacy teacher for the Breakthrough Collaborative in Providence, R.I. The challenge of trying to motivate students and adjusting to different learning styles pushed her to be more innovative as a teacher, she noted.

Her experience in Morocco studying and conducting independent research was a significant inspiration in her desire to want to teach English.

“Although I grew up in a bilingual household, it was not until my study abroad experience in Morocco that I learned how valuable language ability is,” said Yusuf, who also speaks Bengali. “In Morocco, being able to speak two or more languages helped many Moroccans and provided access to numerous opportunities for employment and advanced education.

“Teaching English in Bangladesh will allow me to play a role in helping students to have multiple options. At the same, it also will allow me to return to my ethnic community and deliver an educational service.”

Yusuf pointed out that majoring in sociology at Wheaton has prepared her well for what is ahead and helped on a personal level as well.

“Sociology allowed me to develop conversations and gain insight on racial and ethnic theories; in addition, it also put into context connections between history and current events I learned in the past,” she said. “My major taught me that each identity has a rich history that becomes uncovered through time. Perhaps, most importantly, the discipline helped me think critically of my identity and find answers to the questions I posed during my adolescent years.”

By Amie Rosenblum '12

“After hearing their accounts of all the good they had done and the difference they had made, I knew what I wanted to be ‘when I grew up,’” Ryan recounts. “I brought this aspiration with me to Wheaton, where I continued my interest in international relations and discovered my love for the Russian language.”

The 22-year-old Wheaton senior will take another step toward fulfilling her passion in the coming year. With the support of a Fulbright grant, Ryan will travel to Russia to teach English and pursue her quest for fluency in Russian. After that, she hopes to join the Peace Corps herself.

Ryan says she got “hooked” on the Russian language in Professor Francoise Rosset’s “Beginning Russian” class. She loved the sounds of Russian, she says, as well as the fact that “the language has developed with the cultural and political history of the country. For example, the [word for the] number 40, сорок, … originated from the name of a peasant’s tunic that was used as a sack during harvest and carried about a 40-weight” of crops.

“Nuances like this require an understanding of not only the language, but the history of the nation,” she adds. “So, I started taking courses in Russian literature, history and foreign policy. From this education, I developed an enduring curiosity for the enigma that is Russia.”

Ryan thus decided to complete a Russian studies major in addition to the major in international relations she had planned. In her sophomore year, she received the Audrey Schneiderman Scholarship, and for the past two years she has been awarded the Ariadne Schilaeff Scholarship of the Kohn & Arronson Foundations. Both named scholarships are awarded to students who are studying Russian.

In the fall of her junior year, she studied in Ireland at University College Cork, where she “enrolled in every course they offered on the European Union and European-Irish politics” in order to get an “insider’s perspective.” Then she spent the spring semester studying in Vladimir, Russia.

“I was there for four months, and I fell in love with the people, the culture, and the language,” later Ryan wrote in her essay.

In Vladimir, Ryan also tutored a group of high school students who were learning English and had never had the opportunity to converse with a native speaker.

“I have never been so impressed by a group of students’ will to learn,” Ryan wrote in her Fulbright essay. “This experience made me want to go back and help more Russian students with their [conversational] English.” During her Fulbright year she will serve as an English-language teaching assistant at the university level.

At Wheaton, Ryan is a peer tutor in Russian, the “prime minister” of the Russian Club, and a member of both the co-ed and the newly formed women’s Ultimate Frisbee team.

Her honor’s thesis centers on grassroots peace and conflict-resolution activities in South Caucasus (Armenia, Azerbaijan and Georgia). After her Fulbright year, Ryan hopes to land a Peace Corps teaching assignment within the former Soviet Republics and then pursue a master’s degree in peace and conflict resolution. Ultimately, she hopes to work in the non-profit sector to advance peacemaking in that part of the world.

Photo: Amie Rosenblum '12

The senior from Baton Rouge, LA, will take her lifelong fascination with the written word and the art of story-telling to Argentina where she will spend the year teaching English and conducting independent research on the country's vibrant cinema industry.

Cronin has been named a 2011 Fulbright Scholar to Argentina where she will be assigned to teach English to students who are themselves training to be English teachers.

"Stories are my favorite thing in the world," said Cronin. "When I was a little girl I hated art museums. My Mom was clever enough to figure out that if she just told me the stories of the pictures, Bible stories, the myths and the historical circumstance that inspired the paintings, I would be smitten, and I was."

Despite her love of narrative, Cronin arrived at Wheaton determined to pursue something other than English, to distance herself from her parents' interests. She abandoned that plan in her sophomore year while studying critical theory. "That class taught me to take ownership of my writing, which meant embracing the prospect of endless revision," the English major recalls, "Not just taking criticism but inviting it and putting it to constructive use."

At the same time, Cronin, who is pursuing a minor in Hispanic Studies, credits Spanish language classes at Wheaton with helping her become proficient enough in the language to spend her summer teaching English to 63 school girls in Guaimaca, Honduras. The experience, which was funded by the Balfour Scholarship stipend she received from Wheaton, "was the most challenging of my life."

"That summer convinced me that teaching is some of the most difficult, but also some of the most rewarding work that there is," she adds.

Cronin has excelled in her academics, earning Dean's List honors six times as well as the college's Presidential Award for outstanding performance. Beyond the classroom, she is active in Wheaton's Ultimate Frisbee Club Team and she has served as a residential advisor for the past three years.

During her Fulbright year, Cronin plans to spend some of her free time as a volunteer with a girls' soccer league, as a way to immerse herself in the local community. She also looks forward to developing a research project on Argentinian film.

"A lot of people will say that analyzing a film, or a novel even, takes the pleasure out of being a spectator or reader. I don't find that to be true. I genuinely enjoy reading and engaging with what critics and scholars have to say about films or novels, almost as much as I enjoy being immersed in the narratives themselves. That's how I know I picked the right major," she says.

"The English Department at Wheaton is absolutely wonderful, and I'm really lucky to able to work with Professor Clark this year on my senior honors thesis which is analyzing three existing adaptations of George Eliot novels, and the process of adapting the narratives from the page to the screen. It's been wonderful to have a foot in both camps, in novels and in film, this semester."

She plans to expand her horizons by working with other artisans around the globe on a yearlong project that will be supported by the Watson Foundation.

A double major in math and biochemistry, Emory won a Watson Fellowship that will allow her to work with and learn from farmers and fiber artists in Cambodia, Romania, Iceland, Mongolia and the Falkland Islands. The Barnstead, N.H., native plans to explore how native crafts are made, marketed and used in each country and discover how these traditional arts maintain their place in modern society.

The Thomas J. Watson Foundation awards 40 fellowships to college seniors of unusual promise for a year of independent exploration and travel outside the United States. Nearly 1,000 students from up to 40 selective private liberal arts colleges and universities apply for these awards each year. This year, 148 finalists competed on the national level, after their institutions nominated them in the autumn.

The inspiration for Emory's project stems from her passion for the fading crafts of spinning, weaving and knitting, an interest she first cultivated by accompanying her mother to meetings of the New Hampshire Spinners and Dyers Guild as a toddler. Now an active member of the guild herself, she has demonstrated the craft at historical sites, such as the Musterfield Farm and Museum and the Shaker Village in Canterbury, N.H.

"I may be part of a dying breed from a small New England town, but being a Watson means having the opportunity to become a part of an inclusive international league of artisans who continue to perpetuate traditional crafts and shape the relevance of art," she wrote in her project statement to the foundation," says Emory, whose family farm raises sheep as well as a wide variety of fruits and vegetables.

After graduating from Wheaton in the spring, Emory plans to travel to Cambodia to observe how silk weaving and artistry are being used to employ disadvantaged women; to Romania to study the art of the country's famous kilim rugs; and to Iceland and the Falkland Islands to immerse herself in communities that revolve around raising sheep and spinning their wool into clothing and crafts. Along the way, she has been invited to teach a few courses on American fiber culture at the University of Mongolia while she learns about that country's felt-making traditions.

"Traditional arts and crafts are in and of themselves a universal language that transcends cultural boundaries," says Emory. "With the aid of my drop spindle and a traditional New England knitting project, I will take time in each location I visit to join the artistic community before initiating conversations about the nature of their art and eventually being asked to participate in it."

Emory says her desire to study indigenous fiber crafts around the globe satisfies the same urge that has inspired her studies in math and science at Wheaton.

"I've always wondered why things work; probing into the deeper meaning is something that's always fascinated me," she says. "I've always been curious and science is a discipline that allows you to be curious all the time. It's natural to ask why; I love that."

The double major is currently working on a senior honors thesis researching "green" alternatives to traditional synthesis methods.

"I can't talk about my studies and my majors without talking about the professors that helped me get to where I am today," she says. "Professors Straley, Decoste and Sklensky fostered my growth both as a math major and a student. I wouldn't be the person I am today without them. Professors Kalberg, Sweet, Pastra-Landis and Brennessel brought out a scientist in me I never knew existed."

In addition to her studies, Emory is an active member of several campus organizations. For the last several years, she has lived in Spectrum House, a theme residence dedicated to creating a safe space for people of all orientations and genders. She also has served as a preceptor to first-year students and she has worked as a math tutor.

"Being a tutor also comes with a great sense of community," she says. "Professor Straley helps us to be our best and the other tutors are always around to talk out strategies, discuss some math, or just shoot the breeze. It's a really great group of people to be a part of."

When home, Emory works on the family farm and at Frisbee Memorial Hospital in nearby Rochester, N.H. As a nurse's assistant, she conducts an initial triage when people enter the emergency room, provides supports services to patients and clinicians and stocks the facility.  "I really like my job because I have time to spend with patients while at the same time I get to support the nurses, doctors and PAs by making sure all the small details get accomplished."

The Thomas J. Watson Fellowship Program was established in 1968 by the children of Thomas J. Watson, Sr., the founder of International Business Machines Corp., and his wife, Jeannette K. Watson, to honor their parents’ long-standing interest in education and world affairs.  The Watson Foundation regards its investment in people as an effective long-term contribution to the global community.

"I discovered that I have a passion for helping others, one stronger than I had thought," she says, recalling her work in an after-school program at the Bernhard Nordkamp Center in Katutura. "This work made me less materialistic than I had ever been, extremely grateful for the opportunities that I have been given by my parents, country and Wheaton, and made me realize that I really do want to devote my life to making a difference for people."

The junior has been awarded a $10,000 Davis Projects for Peace grant to establish a sustainable tutoring program that will change lives by helping students with mild learning differences learn to read fluently. In ten weeks, she plans to start tutoring programs in two nearby schools, set up a training program for volunteer tutors and hold workshops for the schools' teachers.

In its fifth year, Davis Projects for Peace, is an invitation to undergraduates at the American colleges and universities in the Davis United World College Scholars Program to design grassroots projects that promote peace. It is made possible by Kathryn Wasserman Davis, an accomplished internationalist and philanthropist who received an honorary degree from Wheaton in 2008. She is the mother of Diana Davis Spencer '60, a writer, activist and a trustee emerita of the college.

Dickinson's peace project continues work that she took on last summer as a volunteer at the nonprofit organization, which is located just north of the country's capital, Windhoek.

"For three months in the summer of 2010, I worked with two American special education teachers at the BNC to develop a successful after-school tutoring program," says the Bowdoin, Maine, native, who received one of Wheaton's Davis International Fellows grants to travel to the West African nation.

Through her interactions with students, Dickinson realized that a number of the children not only faced economic hardships but also had learning differences, such as dyslexia or attention deficit disorder, with which the schools were not equipped to deal.

"While discussing my ideas with principals, teachers and NGO workers, we all realized that Katutura schools could provide this attention if I were able to invest the time and resources to develop a sustainable program," she says.

"The BNC teachers taught me many games, techniques and tips that I will use in the tutoring program I am proposing," Dickinson says. Since then, she has researched a host of additional strategies to further enrich her efforts and those of the volunteers who will be recruited to continue the program. She plans to use much of the grant to purchase laptops, software, books and games to be used by the volunteers and their students.

A double major in anthropology and classics (Greek and Latin) with a minor in women's studies, Dickinson plans to focus her senior thesis on education in Namibia, and she views her work as an outgrowth of her scholarly interest in inequality, its causes and violence within societies. She credits the Research Methods class she took during her sophomore year as clarifying her interest in the subject through work that she did a local women's shelter. Her future goal is to earn a law degree and work for human rights.

"I am driven to work with the children in Katutura because I believe that education is the key to success and to a more peaceful world tomorrow," Dickinson wrote in her project description. "These children strive not for abstract notions of world peace, but rather for a peace of mind: knowing that they can access and achieve a higher level of education, that they will have more opportunity in life, and that they will have the tools necessary to break out of the cycle of poverty. Children with learning disabilities in Namibian public schools now have little hope.

"My Project for Peace will bring opportunity and help some of the dreams of these children become reality. This is not only about individual successes, but also about improving the quality of life for the community in Katutura."

The resident of Milford, Mass., who graduated summa cum laude in May with an A.B. in biology, has been awarded a Fulbright Scholarship that will allow him to join the research team of Lotte Pedersen at the University of Copenhagen, a pioneering lab in the study of cilia.

"The field of ciliary research is exploding because of the large number of diseases recently found to be associated with cilia and breakthroughs in understanding we have made within the last decade," Manguso says.

"There are still countless unanswered questions associated with the assembly, structure and function of cilia, so it is exciting to be going to a place where I will be on the cutting edge of the ciliary research field."

Manguso's research in Denmark will continue work that he began as an undergraduate at Wheaton in Professor Bob Morris' lab, which uses cells from the purple sea urchin to study cilia.

"That experience really helped me grow as a scientist and helped instill in me the fearless attitude that one must have to be a successful researcher," he says.

In his two years as a member of Professor Morris' team, Manguso presented findings from his work at several research conferences, including the American Society for Cell Biology annual meeting in San Diego.

Manguso also gained lab experience while working as a course assistant for the renowned summer physiology course at the Marine Biological Laboratory in Woods Hole, Mass. The course brings together graduate, doctoral and post-doctoral students with scientists from around the world for an intensive seven-week course. Manguso is serving as a course assistant again this year before leaving for Denmark.

The new Fulbright scholar credits his college experience for helping him to discover his passion for science. Indeed, he transferred to Wheaton from another college at which he had been a business major, dissatisfied with his studies.

"Research is the perfect field for me because nothing interests and motivates me more than problem-solving," he says. "All biological processes are inherently interesting because of the unbelievable complexity of life."