Seniors Jennifer Guy and Najam Haider were recently awarded Fulbright Scholarships, raising the College's tally to five undergraduates and two alumnae recipients this year, its highest ever.
Including the Fulbrights, six Dartmouth students were awarded two national and two College scholarships in recent weeks. Other awards included a Rockefeller Brothers Fellowship, two Woodbury Law prizes and one McGorrian Fellowship.
Chairman of the Committee on Graduate Fellowships George Demko hailed the results as evidence of the committee's success in getting students to approach professors and apply early.
Anne Janeway, assistant director of Career Services, also expressed excitement. She called the Fulbright "a very prestigious and well-sought after award," she said. "We're very excited about the numbers."
Janeway attributed Dartmouth students' success in attaining Fulbrights to the "international educational experience" they receive through the College's off-Campus programs.
Guy and Haider handed in foreign-study proposals to the Graduate Fellowship Committee for review and later revised them.
The Committee selected their applications and forwarded them to the national presidentially appointed Fulbright Foreign Scholarship Board. The final approval of the applications was the responsibility of the foreign countries.
Haider said he plans to travel to Damascus, Syria to study the history of 19th and 20th century Islamic thinkers. His said he will focus on learning Arabic and getting acquainted with Syrian culture.
Haider, a government and physics double major, will study philosophers' and revolutionaries' reactions to colonialism. He said he will combine his Fulbright award with the Keasbey Scholarship he also received to study Middle East culture at Oxford the following year.
Guy said she will work in the Guanacaste National Park in Costa Rica with other scientists at the Instituto Nacional de Biodiversidad, collecting plants and insects to test them for chemical properties.
She said she hopes to find possible lead compounds to be used for drugs. Guy said she may attend graduate or medical school after next year.
Guy and Haider both expressed excitement about their awards. "I'd never have a chance to do this otherwise ... there are really no limits on what I can do next year," Guy said.
Haider said he was grateful for the scholarship. He said he hopes more Dartmouth students will apply in the future.
He said without programs like the Fulbright Scholarships, education would "get lost to the 'bottom line.'"
"Not enough kids here know about this," he said.
Other recent awards include the Rockefeller Brothers Fellowship for graduate study, which Ku'ulei Reyes '98 received. The award, which is given to 25 students annually, provides up to $18,000 to selected minority students entering the teaching profession.
Reyes said she will begin her study this summer in a seven-week project on her home island of Molokai in Hawaii, working for the Kulakaiapuni O' Koalapu'u Hawaiian Language Immersion Program.
"This allows me to do what I want without worrying about the cost," she said.
After graduate school Reyes is required to teach in public school for three years. She said she hopes to eventually go home and work to incorporate Hawaiian language and culture into children's lives.
In addition, Penn Dodson '97 was awarded the Paul L. and Neil T. McGorrian Fellowship earlier this month. She will work at the Amnesty International headquarters in London for one year as a volunteer, receiving up to $1,000 from the College for her work.
Rain Minns '97 and Marissa Piropato '97 were selected yesterday to receive the Woodbury Law Prize. The $900 award is given annually to two seniors planning to attend law school based on academic records and "fitness for the study of law."
This last round of scholarships and fellowships marks the end of the scholarship season for the Graduate Advising office.
But the process is already underway for next year's scholarships. The deadline for Fulbright applications is Sept. 29.
