Eight members of the Class of 2007 and three alumni have received grants from the Fulbright Program or its German equivalent to fund their plans for international research or teaching. The Fulbright Program, which is administered and funded by the United States Department of State, gives grants to approximately 6,000 students, teachers and professionals in the United States each year. This year's Dartmouth recipients plan to embark on a variety of projects ranging from teaching in an Indonesian high school to conducting research in a German laboratory.
This year's Fulbright scholars are Katherine Amato '07, Nadia Khamis '07, Celia Kujala '07, Samuel Lipkin '07, Hans Stege '07, Benjamin Taylor '07, Ezra Tzfadya '07 and recent alumni Brett Martin '04 and Jesse Sweet '98. The scholars for the Deutscher Adadmischer Austach Dient, the German equivalent of the Fulbright Program, are William Stork '07 and recent alumna Theresa Hughes '04.
The Fulbright Program, established by Congress in 1946, is the largest international exchange program for American scholars to participate in fieldwork and teaching abroad. According to the Fulbright Program website, the government gave over $235 million in Fulbright grants last year. Host countries also contribute to the financial cost by offering recipients tuition wavers, housing and other various stipends.
The application process for a Fulbright grant is lengthy, with Dartmouth requiring applicants to turn in proposal drafts in June after their junior year, four months before the application is officially due. During this time, an applicant's proposal must first be approved by Dartmouth's scholarship advising office. The scholarship advising office then offers suggestions to strengthen the applications.
Applicants also go before a faculty panel where faculty members ask the applicants questions to ensure their proposals are well-founded and legitimate. Amato said that she thinks the application process was long but in the end contributed to her success.
"Dartmouth makes sure you get the best application you can possibly have," Amato said. "By the end, I was ready to never look at that application again."
Students who wish to do their research or teaching in Germany often apply for both the Fulbright and DAAD to increase their chances of receiving a grant.
Many of the recipients expressed interest in pursuing a doctorate following their project and said that they hope their experiences will allow them to better determine their future goals.
Lipkin is the only Dartmouth student taking advantage of a Fulbright teaching grant. He will co-teach English as a second language at a small Indonesian high school. Lipkin is planning a career in education and hopes that this experience will give him a better understanding of education abroad.
Stork, a recipient of the DAAD, will conduct research in the small town in eastern Germany where he interned last summer. He intends to study the natural defenses of certain plants against their predators, and particularly the relationship between the wild tobacco plant and sphinx moth larvae. Stork said he is also looking forward to other benefits of the program beyond his research.
"It's a great opportunity for me to become fluent in German," he said. "Seems like a really good opportunity to travel, too. You can travel by train anywhere in Europe, which is a huge draw."
Fulbright projects last between eight and 10 months and take place in approximately 150 countries worldwide.
