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Earlham Ranks High for Fulbright Production For Immediate Release: 
RICHMOND, Ind. — Earlham College ranks among the top schools in the nation for producing Fulbright Scholars for the 2005-06 academic year. According to an article in The Chronicle of Higher Education, Earlham ranked 20th among bachelor’s degree-granting institutions, tied with such well-known national liberal arts colleges as Carleton and Swarthmore, and ahead of Bryn Mawr, Colby, Williams and others. The article studied Fulbright production among the 549 other liberal arts and general baccalaureate institutions as categorized by the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching. Four Earlhamites received awards for the 2005-06 school year. Garrett Bucks ’03 is pursuing graduate work in international development at the University of Stockholm, Sweden. Mollie Cripe ’05 won a teaching assistantship through a new program in Argentina and is researching the role of Jewish culture in the Argentine society. Kelsey Mann ’05 earned a teaching assistantship in Germany where she also plans to explore the Turkish immigrant community. Kjersti Knox ’03 is studying public health concepts at the Karolinska Institute in Sweden. Related Links:
Earlham is one of the smallest colleges to make the Chronicle list, which includes many considerably larger colleges including such top producers as Smith, Wellesley and College of the Holy Cross. No other small college in Indiana was among the top Fulbright producers. Among Great Lakes College Association schools, only Oberlin and Kenyon joined Earlham on the list. Earlham also managed an unusually high yield, with four out of six applicants receiving grants. Among the top bachelor’s degree institutions, most had at least 10 applications. At large research universities, it was common to have four or five times as many applicants and grant recipients. 
Associate Professor of French and Francophone Studies Aletha Stahl, an associate professor of French and francophone studies, has served as Earlham’s Fulbright adviser for the past three years. She says that this is the first year in recent memory when multiple Earlhamites have received Fulbrights. Stahl expects that success to lead to more applications, and grants, in the future. “I think this success will encourage Earlham students to start thinking about Fulbrights as a possibility and to start working toward that goal as early as sophomore year,” says Stahl. “Planning ahead will give students more time to reflect on what sort of study they want to pursue and an opportunity to polish the way they present themselves — both on paper and during interviews.” The Fulbright process for students and recent graduates begins on campus with an application review and interviews with a committee of faculty. Applications are then submitted to a national review board, which in turn forwards the most promising candidates to potential host countries where the final decisions are made. Stahl, who completed her own dissertation research in Martinique thanks to a Fulbright grant, says that Earlham’s increasingly systematic approach to shepherding students and recent graduates through the application process bodes well for future applicants. She suggests that Earlham students are a particularly good match for the increasing number of teaching assistantships offered through the program. “I think the College does a wonderful job of preparing students for those positions,” Stahl says. “The applications for teaching assistantships ask for an experiential background, and Earlham students tend to have that through tutoring, internships and study abroad.” Stahl notes that the nature of the Fulbright program requires applicants to begin working on their applications long before the deadline. Those seeking research grants need to plan to enroll in a university on their own and find a faculty member who can direct their work in advance of applying. Teaching assistants must both demonstrate teaching ability and develop research plans that are flexible enough for them to be placed at various locations in the host country. “I’d attribute much of our success this year to the dedication of the students who applied and the extra guidance that Kevin Miles and Sara Penhale provided as members of our Fulbright committee,” Stahl says. “Our successful candidates developed contacts months before the application deadline and polished their proposals in accordance with the human and institutional resources available in the countries where they planned to study.” In total, 1,200 recent graduates of colleges and universities across the United States will travel abroad this academic year to take classes, conduct research or teach English with the support of the Fulbright program. The program also funds study in America for thousands of students from outside the United States as well as offering research and teaching fellowships for American and foreign scholars who have already completed their formal training. Fulbright grants are funded jointly by the U.S. government and the governments of host nations. “Things came together very well last year,” says Stahl. “We hope to build on this success in the future.” — EC — Contact:
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Earlham
College · 801 National Road West · Richmond,
Indiana 47374-4095 |