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Dartmouth students are well represented in national scholarships this year, with three current students and five alumni winning Fulbright Scholarships, two current students chosen as alternates for Fulbright scholarships, and a Beinecke Scholarship and Udall Scholarship awarded to current students. The recipients will be pursuing a wide range of scholarship and travel experience, from the study of ancient Chinese script to a Ph.D. in English literature.
Fulbright Scholars
William French ’08, of Plymouth, Minn., is majoring in Asian and Middle Eastern languages and literatures, modified with history. His studies have been in Chinese, and he will be using his Fulbright to attend Jilin University, in Changchun, the capital of Jilin Province, in the People’s Republic of China. There, he will examine the semantic and phonetic classification of the earliest Chinese characters, in the form of oracle-bone script from the late Shang dynasty (ca. 1300–1050 bce). French says he looks forward to “the chance to study with some of the brightest minds in Chinese paleography, as well as the opportunity to live in China for a year.” Following his year in China, he plans to apply to do graduate work studying ancient Chinese history.
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Benjamin G. Jastrzembski ’08, of Hanover, N.H., is a Latin American and Caribbean studies major going to Nicaragua on his Fulbright, a place he first visited through the Tucker Foundation. That trip inspired him to apply for the Fulbright, which he will use to do anthropological work on the subject of biomedical healing practices. Jastrzembski is eagerly anticipating “developing friendships with people who have lived very different lives from my own,” and said he considers the grant to be “an opportunity in and of itself and not simply a gateway to something in the future.” However, he adds, the scholarship “does reflect my more fundamental interest in how people try to control their own lives when faced with limiting structural conditions they cannot control, like government policies or racism.” Following his Fulbright year, he is leaving many doors open, including graduate work in anthropology, medical school, or something else entirely.
Sarah Ludin ’08, of Aurora, Colo., is a philosophy major who will spend her Fulbright year in Berlin where she plans to explore the nexus of Muslim organizations in Germany and the German federal government. Her goal, she says, is to examine “how Muslims conceive of themselves (and are conceived) as citizens in Germany and as a religious community in the public space.” From her Fulbright research, she hopes to develop a topic for Ph.D. work.
Beinecke Scholar
Jodi Guinn ’09 of Barre, Vt., has been awarded one of 22 Beinecke Scholarships for 2008. The endowment supports graduate study, providing $4,000 immediately prior to entering graduate school and an additional $30,000 while attending graduate school. Guinn, an English and women’s and gender studies double major, is interested in gender and colonial/postcolonial studies, and plans to pursue those fields in graduate work at Stanford University’s English literature program. “I would like to become an English professor,” says Guinn. “I hope to combine my interest in literature with my passion for gender studies. As a professor, I want to reach students like myself, to challenge them to explore new cultures and ideas, and to expand their visions of what they believe they can achieve.”
Morris K. Udall Scholar
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Daniel Becker ’09 is one of 80 national winners of a 2008 Morris K. Udall scholarship. Becker is Yup’ik and is from Anchorage, Alaska. He was awarded the scholarship based on his essay about the 1978 Indian Child Welfare Act (ICWA), and his personal family connection to the act. The Udall Scholarships support students planning careers in the environment, or Native American/Alaskan Native students who plan to work on tribal policy issues. “The village where my family’s from was the first Alaskan Native village to use the ICWA,” says Becker. “Throughout the 1940s, ’50s, ’60s, and ’70s, a much larger portion of Indian and Alaskan Native children were taken away from their homes—more than any other race, and often with very little reason. They were nearly always sent away to a non-native family, usually in a different state.” Becker says he plans to apply for a Senior Fellowship and, upon graduating, is considering applying to law school and hopes to work on tribal policy issues.
Alumni Fulbright winners include James Redfield ’06 (Israel), Helen Kang ’06 (China), Christina Stoltz ’06 (Kyrgyszstan), Rikker Dockum ’04 (Thailand), and Asa Tapely ’02 (Bolivia). Alternates include Desmond Ang ’08 (Indonesia) and Alejo Cabranes ’08 (Slovenia). Alisa Yamasaki ’08 and Matthew Schenker ’09 received honorable mentions from the Goldwater Scholarship Program.
BY GENEVIEVE HAAS
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