Imagine competing against graduate students, scholars and professionals for the opportunity to study, teach or research abroad for a year in a country of your choice.
Aaron Baker ’04 and Jessica Dolan ’05, two Fairfield University alumni, have done just that by winning a Fulbright grant for the 2005-2006 academic year.
The Fulbright Grant was created in 1946 by former Senator J. William Fulbright as a way of increasing “mutual understanding between the people of the United States and the people of other countries…” according to the United States Fulbright Commission’s website.
Fairfield University, which has had 35 Fulbright scholars between 1993 and 2006, had four winners in 2004-2005, making it number one in universities that have masters programs, according to a June 29 school press release.
Miriam Gogol, associate dean of the college of Arts and Sciences, believes that Fairfield has had such a high number of Fulbright recipients because of its dedicated students and faculty who she says are “significantly engaged in the process” and act as a “support system” for the students or alumni.
“We have an exceptional university,” said Gogol. “We have faculty that are not only willing, but eager to support its students.”
Baker, who graduated with a degree in psychology and minors in religious studies, Judaic studies and classical studies from Fairfield University in 2004, is currently utilizing his Fulbright scholarship to study post-traumatic stress disorder in children in Israel who have been affected by terrorist attacks.
Baker said in the release that he wanted to work with children because he feels “like a lot of research tends to overlook children in some areas.”
Baker, who took at job as a psychophysiology researcher at Yale University’s Psychiatry Department at West Haven Veterans Affairs Hospital after he graduated in May 2004, is spending his Fulbright at Hadassah University Hospital under Arieh Shalev, a well-known post-traumatic stress disorder researcher.
Dolan, who graduated with an international studies and Spanish degree and economics and Latin and Caribbean studies minor in May 2005, is taking a slightly different path than Baker. She is utilizing her Fulbright scholarship as an English teaching assistant in South Korea.
Dolan, who spent her junior year in college teaching English to students in Chile, said in the release that she wants to experience new things and “branch out” by volunteering in a region that is “becoming increasingly more globally important.”
President of Fairfield University, Fr. Jeffrey von Arx, S.J., says that he and the University are proud of “what they [Baker and Dolan] have accomplished in winning this most competitive and prestigious scholarship.”
“Their [Baker and Dolan’s] success follows that of other Fairfield students who have won Fulbrights in the last few years…this is a tribute not only to our students, but to the faculty who work with them and to Dr. Gogol who coordinates our program,” said von Arx.
Gogol feels that winning a Fulbright scholarship is beneficial to students, faculty and the University as a whole.
“I am proud of our students and their ability to really help us put Fairfield on the map in terms of intellectual capacity on an international level,” said Gogol.The application process for a Fulbright is extensive. Students or alumni at Fairfield University must write a pre-application essay, meet with Gogol to go over their proposal, go before a five-person faculty committee, attend a writing seminar headed by Beth Boquet, director of the writing center, or a teaching seminar headed by Wendy Kohli, associate professor of curriculum and instruction, and then go before the faculty committee again.
The committee then meets to evaluate each student’s proposal before sending it along to the U.S. Fulbright Commission in New York where a first cut is made during the last week in January.
The Fulbright is a prestigious award and although anyone can apply, Gogol strongly urges those students and alumni who have a grade point average of at keast 3.2, are creative, know more than one language and are “adventurous intellectually” to apply for the grant.
Gogol says that just the process alone is an incredible learning experience because the student learns how to write up a grant proposal, present it before a committee and how to engage in international networking.
“They really get a lot out of this [process],” he said. “It is a win-win situation.”
Timothy Snyder, dean of the college of Arts and Sciences, said that the Fulbright grant is “one of Fairfield’s premier programs.”
“It allows Fairfield students to pursue their dreams of sculpting a better world through international cooperation, research and learning,” said Snyder.
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