Holy Cross Student Awarded Watson Fellowship

WORCESTER, Mass. – Holy Cross senior, Brent Otto, has been awarded one of 60 fellowships from the Thomas J. Watson Foundation to pursue a year-long independent study of "The Faces of Catholic Education in India and Sri Lanka."

Otto, of Framingham, Mass., is a history major participating in the College's teacher certification program. He is fascinated by the role of Catholic secondary schools in cultures where the dominant religion is not Christianity. He plans to visit schools for extended periods of observation and conversation with students, their families, and faculty to try to determine the schools’ roles both as educational institutions and as representatives of Catholicism. Members of the Holy Cross Jesuit community have been particularly helpful in identifying sites in the region where Otto's project could be effectively pursued.

This project is personally significant to Otto, since his mother was raised in colonial India and educated in a Catholic school there. It will also allow him to consider the broad spectrum of approaches to teaching, which he plans to make his life work.

Holy Cross is among 50 selective liberal arts colleges and universities invited to nominate up to four students each year for this prestigious award. More than 1,000 students applied this year. The winners for 2001 range from physicists to studio artists with such individual interests as roller coaster design, classification of tropical frogs, and the international art market. They will be awarded $22,000 to support a year of travel and to pursue in-depth independent study. The goal of the Watson program is to open up the Fellows to the wider world and foster an appreciation for cultural differences and a more informed sense of international concern.