Graduating Seniors Penna and Ward Win Fulbright Grants |
When graduating senior Alexander Penna says "I'm very proud of my school," he's referring to a university where he says among other virtues he's "never seen such care and concern from faculty." His enthusiasm is echoed by Colin Ward, who says UMass Boston "has given me so much….It's a great school….The word is getting out." The general enthusiasm for UMass Boston of both of these students is heightened by the fact that, with guidance and help from faculty members who worked closely with them, they recently became UMass Boston's first-ever recipients of highly competitive Fulbright grants.
The Fulbright Program, established in 1946 at the close of WW II, is designed "to foster mutual understanding among nations through educational and cultural exchanges." Each year students from the US compete in a rigorous selection process to study and carry on research in more than 100 other nations.
 Alexander Penna, UMass Boston Fulbright grant winner. |
Penna, whose interests are politics, history, and international affairs, worked closely with Professor Elizabeth Bussiere of the Department of Political Science. He will be spending a year in Oslo, Norway, studying Norwegian immigration policy and its relation to politics, particularly with respect to one particular political party. He has been interested in Norwegian culture and politics for a long time, and began teaching himself to speak the language when he was fifteen. His family now lives in Michigan; he decided to come to Boston--always attractive to him, he says, for its architecture and sense of history--and then initially considered UMass Boston because he was impressed with the testimony of older students he spoke with about the atmosphere and the quality of the education here. |
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Ward, originally from Chicago, spent part of his adolescence in Indiana, training as a competitive figure skater focused on ice-dancing. It was that interest that brought him to Boston as well, where UMass Boston attracted him first because of cost. Then he stayed, as he says, for the education. With the help of a faculty mentor, the Art Department's Professor Nancy Stieber, he developed an individual major focusing on the intersection of aspects of architecture, society, and psychology. He also studied French here, and has an interest in English as a second language. His Fulbright research, to be undertaken in England, will focus on how non-native speakers are influenced by the culture and the material they are given to read as they begin to learn English. |
 Colin Ward, UMass Boston Fulbright grant winner. |
Penna cites the University's Honors Program, and particularly program director Professor Monica McAlpine of the English Department and administrative assistant Joyce Morrissey, for invaluable assistance throughout the Fulbright application process. Both he and Ward credit the Honors Program with providing courses which kindled their intellectual excitement and energy. Others who helped them throughout their years here and in the Fulbright application process include Provost Charles Cnudde; Associate Provost Thomas Ferguson; Dean of the Liberal Arts Faculty Neal Bruss; and faculty members Rose Abendstern, Ann Jenkins, and Vivian Zamel.
In addition to Penna's and Ward's grants, two other UMass Boston students were finalists this year in important grant competitions: Annie Gauger in the Fulbright Program and Chukwuka Okafor in the Rhodes Scholarship Program. In all, as these students have once again demonstrated, when it comes to high-level academic achievement, UMass Boston has much to be proud of.