Oxy to Send Record Number of 11 Fulbright Scholars Into the World

A record number of 11 Occidental College students and alumni, including one freshman, will travel overseas this summer as part of the prestigious Fulbright U.S. Scholar Program, breaking Oxy’s single-year record of 10 Fulbright scholars set five years ago.

The 11 Fulbright scholars from Oxy are among 61 students and alumni from the college who have won the scholarship since 2003, according to Occidental College Director of Communications Jim Tranquada. Oxy had nine Fulbright scholars in 2012 and eight in the preceding year, making it one of the nation’s
leading producers of Fulbright Scholars.

Each of the Fulbright scholars from Oxy will teach English in a specific country, while pursuing a research project on the side.

For example, Jennifer Wang, who graduated from Oxy last month with a double major in Spanish and psychology, will take up an English-teaching assistantship at the Universidad de la Salle in Bogota, the capital of Colombia.

Wang, who departs for Bogota on July 22, doesn’t quite have her research project lined up, but she’s not too worried about that. “Once I arrive in Bogota I’ll be able to figure out what’s feasible to research there,” she said, adding: “A lot of people say that when you get there the focus of the project can change.”

For her research project, Wang said she is hoping to do “something related to social housing and its relationship to education.”

But she also wants to dip into the arts. “I want to look at the use of the performing arts in brining together communities” in Colombian culture, where salsa dancing and salsa music is used very intimately in family celebrations, she explained.

The 11 Fulbright scholars include winners of numerous other impressive scholarships, including a Truman, a Goldwater, a Coro, a Gates Cambridge Scholarship, two National Science Foundation Graduate Fellowship recipients, a Luce Scholar, a Pickering Graduate Fellowship, a Davis Project for Peace award, two State Department Critical Languages scholarships and a Strauss Foundation scholarship.

Oxy's 11 Fulbright Scholars will join more than 800 U.S. citizens who will travel abroad to 130 different countries for the 2013-2014 academic year through the Fulbright program.

Oxy's Fulbright scholars are:

• Henry Carr (2012 graduate) and Jennifer Wang (2013), who will teach English in Colombia;
• Thuy Hua (2013) will conduct research in the Czech Republic;
• Elizabeth Kennedy (2012) will teach English in Indonesia;
• Alexandra McHenry (2012) will teach in Malaysia;
• Mariah Napoles (2013) will teach English in Mexico;
• Gabriella Ochoa (2012) will teach English in Brazil;
• Michael Patton (2013) is headed to India as an instructor;
• Valerie Walker (2013) was scheduled to teach English in Korea but has declined to go overseas as a Fulbright scholar and will be replaced by an alternate candidate;
• Renata Rocha (2011) will conduct research in Mexico;
• Karen Romero, a freshman who will be part of Oxy's 2016 class of graduates, has received a United Kingdom Fulbright Summer Institute Fellowship to study at the University of Bristol for four weeks.