Eleven Fordham students and alumni, including four graduating seniors, have been selected to receive international Fulbright Scholarships for the 2008-2009 academic year, setting a new record for the coveted awards at Fordham.
This year’s number of winners broke last year’s previous record of eight Fulbrights, marking the second consecutive year that Fordham has attracted more of the highly competitive awards. The awardees, who will be traveling to four continents, represent three undergraduate schools and four graduate schools. In addition, five of the awardees are first-generation Americans.
“Fordham has long promoted close collaboration among its faculty and students; now we see those efforts bearing fruit,” said Regina Plunkett-Dowling, Ph.D., Fordham’s Fulbright Program Adviser. “The intellectual vitality and generous commitment of Fordham students will make them not only valued scholars and teachers, but fine representatives of the United States abroad.”
The Fulbright program is an international study and exchange program that seeks to build intellectual and cultural relationships between the United States and other countries.
Fordham’s 11 student fellowships are among approximately 1,400 awarded nationally for the academic year. The winners are:
Afua Atta-Mensah (LAW ‘04), who received a Fulbright Scholarship to Ghana to study marriage and property rights of women and the law;
Douglas J. Ballas (FCLC ‘08), who received a Fulbright English Teaching Assistantship to Germany;
Christopher D. Beck, a doctoral student of history in the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences (GSAS), who has received a Fulbright Scholarship to France to research “Letters of Marque and the State in Medieval Marseille;”
Brendan G. Coffey (FCRH ‘08), who received a Fulbright English Teaching Assistantship to Korea;
Marcia J. Harr, a doctoral candidate in the Graduate School of Education (GSE), who received a Fulbright Scholarship to Laos to study “Progress through Service: Service Learning to Advance Communities with Education;”
Jonathan J. Hogan (FCRH ‘08), who has won a Fulbright Scholarship to Brazil to study the role of horror comic books in the expression of popular culture under a dictatorship;
Mohsin Mohi-Ud-Din (FCRH ‘07), who won a Fulbright Scholarship to Morocco to develop a pilot arts education program for children;
Emily Murphy (GSE ‘08), who received a Fulbright English Teaching Assistantship to Hong Kong;
Kara Noran (FCRH ‘08), who received a Fulbright Scholarship to Germany to study the struggles of immigrants and social inequalities within the German school system;
Andrew Puntel (FCRH ‘04), who received a Fulbright Scholarship to Latvia to explore Latvian Choir Culture and the Song Festival Tradition;
Andres Romero (GSAS ‘08), who received a Fulbright Scholarship to Indonesia to study child protection efforts following the 2004 Tsunami.
In addition, Jennifer Chang (GSS ‘08), received alternate status for a scholarship to Taiwan for a project, “Social Work, Counseling, and Culture in Taiwan.”
Another Fordham alumnus, Hillel Bavli (LAW ‘06) applying as an “at-large candidate,” won a Fulbright to study Quantum Game Theory at Hebrew University in Israel.
