ONSA caps year as Fulbrights
go to 4 students

by Brendan Leith, special to the Chronicle

our University students have been awarded Fulbright grants to support overseas graduate studies or research during the upcoming academic year. The recipients include graduate students Hannah Chi, Clay Witt and Joanna Wheeler and undergraduate Steven St. Laurent.

     Witt, a master of fine arts student working with Art History professor Walter Denny, will travel to Syria to study Arabic language and calligraphy, which he hopes to one day incorporate into his art work. Having done similar work in Fez, Morocco, Witt is continuing his studies in a new context.

     Wheeler, a Ph.D. student in Political Science, is already in Brazil, where she is conducting a project titled "Women, Families, and Intergenerational Urban Poverty." She is gathering data by interviewing residents of the favelas of Rio de Janeiro.

     Chi has gone to Nepal to spend a year on a project titled "Investigation Expression: A poet's Study of Girl Trafficking." As part of the project, the English MFA student will write original poetry based on her observations and interviews of Nepalese women. She is working with English professor James Tate.

     St. Laurent, a Mechanical Engineering major, will attend the Fulbright-Garcia Robles Binational Business Administration Program in Monterrey, Mexico. The program includes course-work and a 35-hour per week internship at an engineering company.

     Along with the four winners, two other students nominated for Fulbrights were recognized in the competition. Daniel Kapner was named an alternate and Jose Martinez was recommended by the Fulbright national screening committee.

     With more than half of the 11 Amherst campus students nominated for Fulbrights receiving some form of recognition, the Office of National Scholarship Advisement has marked one of its most successful years.

     "This is definitely a high point for us," said ONSA coordinator and Psychology professor Susan Whitbourne, who attributed this year's results to the applicants' qualifications and the "extensive preparations" by her office and the campus's Fulbright committee.

     "We really worked with these people," said Whitbourne. "I have a committee of 12 people who read the applications, interviewed the applicants, and really helped them to revise their proposals, even after the interview process."

     The committee and former committee chair Edwin Gentzler aided Whitbourne's efforts by providing important feedback that she was able to use in her evaluation letters.

     According to Whitbourne, much of the credit goes to the students, who had "excellent credentials" and "put in a lot of background work learning about the countries they were going to."