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As members of the Class of 2010 officially complete their undergraduate education, the 13 fellowship recipients of the senior class have already made plans to continue their studies.
Nicole Weindling was awarded a fellowship by the Fulbright Program, an “international exchange program offering opportunities for students, scholars and professionals to undertake international graduate study, advanced research, university teaching and [non-university] teaching,” according to the official website.
The Compton Mentor Fellowship, which requires its fellows to “design a project of social merit that focuses on the environment, peace and conflict resolution, reproductive health, and/or equal opportunity,” was awarded to Dorien Ediger-Seto and Jackson Kroopf.
Seniors Ece Dogrucu, Elizabeth Husson, Kwang Yeon Lee, Sarah Matherly and Maria Ribadeneira have received the Vassar Maguire Fellowship for study abroad, and Maria Mendez, David Mungo, Anh Ngo, Silvana Rueda and Jamie Stevenson were awarded the Ann Cornelisen Fellowship for Language Study Abroad.
According to Director of the Office for Fellowships and Pre-Health Advising Lisa Kooperman, the number of seniors applying for and getting fellowships is not so different in 2010 as it has been in recent years. “The applicant pool has been pretty consistent, and the results are pretty similar, too. Vassar seniors tend to seek out opportunities and are successful,” said Kooperman. As an indicator of this success, Kooperman noted that Vassar is ranked no. 4 this year among undergraduate institutions whose recent graduates have been awarded Fulbright fellowships, and has been ranked in the top 10 for the past four years.
Kooperman encourages rising seniors to think about fellowships early given the level of involvement required by the application processes and the extremely competitive nature of the programs. Weindling agreed, writing in an e-mailed statement: “To put it bluntly, the process [of applying] was quite challenging and required a lot of persistence.” She described the hours spent researching programs, locating contacts and developing her proposal, confessing that she “truly could not have managed it” without the help of her professors, the Office for Fellowships and even her high school Chinese teacher.
Weindling knew she wanted to return to China after studying abroad in Qingdao during the summer of 2008, and chose to apply for the Fulbright because of its flexibility. “With Fulbright, I am able to combine studying with volunteer work, research and community interaction,” she wrote, adding that she wanted to incorporate her art historical studies in her program.
This September she will begin intensive language training in Hangzhou, made possible by the Critical Language Enhancement Award, a separate grant sponsored by Fulbright. Weindling will begin her 10-month Fulbright grant in December; she plans to audit museum studies courses at Shaanxi Normal University while volunteering and researching at museums in different Chinese provinces with the aim of studying “how these provincial institutions articulate a distinct regional history and cultural identity.”
Edgier-Seto also sees her Compton Mentor Fellowship project as a continuation of her career at Vassar. A geography and Latin American and Latino/a studies major, Edgier-Seto has “been really interested in immigration and border issues throughout college.” During her time at Vassar, she explored these interests during summer break through work with the Florence Immigrant and Refugee Rights Project, an Arizona-based non-profit organization that provides legal services to men, women and children detained by immigration authorities.
Edgier-Seto will be working with the Florence Project again as a Compton Mentor fellow. She will be dealing mainly with children who are caught up in the immigration process, helping them make difficult decisions and explaing their options. “My project is a much bigger version of what I’ve been doing during the summer,” she said.
For Mendez, however, the Ann Cornelisan Fellowship was a means to explore a newfound interest. She explained in an e-mailed statement, “I started taking Portuguese lessons my senior year and really regretted the fact that I hadn’t started earlier. I was enamored by the language and felt the urge to keep learning it.” After speaking with some friends who had completed the Ann Cornelisen Fellowship in the past, Mendez decided to apply.
Following graduation, Mendez will be headed to Rio de Janiero, Brazil in order to study Portuguese, anthropology and Latin-American history and relations at the Pontifical Catholic University. Mendez would also like to pursue experiential learning during her time in Brazil: “I’m also hoping to explore issues concerning [the] theology of liberation in Brazil through volunteering opportunities at centers…that help many social movements organize in their struggles [for] justice.”
“I would say that the most difficult part of the application process was choosing the program [and] designing what I was going to do next year,” wrote Mendez.
Kooperman agrees that many students are hesitant about crafting a unique proposal. “It can be intimidating,” she admits, but adds, “All projects start with an idea—people don’t come in with full project proposals. As they move through the process, the pieces come together. I would encourage people to not be afraid; there’s lots of support between me and the faculty.”
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