fulbright-logo4Fulbright recipients are among the academic elite. The program gives just 8,000 awards each year — 1,600 to U.S. college students and 1,200 to U.S. scholars. Since its inception in 1946, only 310,000 “Fulbrighters” have participated in the Program.

This year, five Fulbrighters—three students, two professors—call Elizabethtown College home. One professor is a third time recipient.

 

 

 

  • Katie Appleby, a senior Spanish education major, will be an English teaching assistant in Mexico.  Appleby said she has known since seventh grade that she wanted to become a teacher and has dedicated herself to learning how to teach in every way possible—from informal sports coaching to formal classroom instruction in various school districts. Those real-life experiences confirmed her teaching passion, she said. Appleby studied abroad in Ecuador in a deep-immersion home-stay and in Xalapa, Mexico, where she taught grade school and university students. Following her Fulbright appointment, Appleby said she wants to return to the United States to teach in a school with a large Mexican population while earning her master’s degree in English as a Second Language.

 

  • Matt Walters, a senior English secondary education major, will be an English teaching assistant in South Korea. Being a Fulbrighter, he said, is an incredible opportunity to experience a different kind of teaching—sharing English with non-native speakers. He said the Fulbright is an opportunity for adventure and challenge—adjusting to Korean culture will be an exercise in vulnerability, he said, but he’s excited to meet his host family, teach and travel. With a minor in music and years of vocal and instrumental music experience, he’ll also offer voice lessons in South Korea and work toward establishing a community-choir. He is especially interested in exploring native Korean song. As part of four music groups on campus, Walters toured in Brazil and Colombia. At Elizabethtown he also took part in Called to Lead, was an event programmer for the Office of Student Activities and the opinion editor for Etownian, the College student newspaper, and was As part of four music groups on campus.

 

  • Jessica “Jess” Leidy, a senior mathematics secondary education major, was selected for the Fulbright U.S. Student Program as an English teaching assistant in Malaysia. Her background as a math educator will help her to create a student group focusing on building mathematical knowledge. The group will invite people within science, technology, engineering and mathematics fields to talk with students about the opportunities available their careers. Leidy traveled abroad to The Gambia in the spring of 2014, is active in the College’s Called to Lead program and has been a section leader in Concert Choir since 2013. She also has worked as a mentor in the Moving Forward Together program and has been part of the Better Together interfaith initiative and Relay for Life. Leidy was a planning co-chair for Into the Streets in 2013, holds dean’s list honors and was an AmeriCorps Scholar in Service to PA in the 2012-2013 academic year. In 2013 she earned the Interfaith Leadership and Service Award and the Grubb Student Peace Award for a cross-cultural relationship building project in The Gambia. Leidy is a member of the Alpha Lambda Delta Honor Society and earned a Presidential Scholarship for her four years at Elizabethtown. She is a 2012 SIFE regional champion for a presentation on social enterprise.

 

In 1925, after J. William Fulbright graduated from college, he left Arkansas to continue his studies at Oxford University. During his travel across Europe he learned about lives of those he met along the way. Twenty years after graduation from law school and service as a university president, Fulbright became a junior senator. In this position he introduced legislation to use funds from surplus war materials for an international educational exchange program. In 1946 President Harry Truman signed legislation to support the Fulbright Program, an international scholarship. The Fulbright Program has been dedicated to supporting mutual understanding between the United States and other countries since 1946.

Today, through the State Department, the Fulbright Program reaches out to 150 countries around the world with the goal of mutual understanding between the award recipient and the community in which they serve. They become cultural ambassadors who educate others about their home country while taking information about their host country back to their home.

Past Elizabethtown College Fulbright award winners are Peggy McFarland, social work; Wayne Selcher, international studies and students Amy Milligan, class of 2004; Jillian Casey and Julia Ward, class of 2013; and Shanna Kirgan and Tyler Kunkle, class of 2014.