Six Holy Cross Students Earn Prestigious Fulbright Awards

WORCESTER, Mass. – Six Holy Cross seniors recently received prestigious Fulbright awards to teach and conduct research in foreign countries upon their graduation from Holy Cross.

Conor Devine, an English major in the pre-med program from Orchard Park, N.Y., has been awarded a grant to work and study in Korea. He will be staying with a host family and teaching English conversation in a Korean secondary school, supervised by a certified Korean teacher. Devine’s career goal is to go to medical school and become a doctor. He would like to participate in the Doctors Without Borders organization, working with people from lesser developed nations. He is also interested in pursuing a writing career.

Carly Fowler, a history major and German minor from Roswell, Georgia, has been awarded a grant to work and study in Austria. She will stay in Vienna and teach English at a local secondary school 12 hours each week, and study diplomacy and international relations. She plans on working in the community with refugees and auditioning for a local choir. Fowler’s career goal is to work in international relations, either at the academic or policy level.

Meagan Gorman, a Russian major from West Babylon, N.Y., has been awarded a grant to work and study in Russia. Gorman’s proposal for the Fulbright includes three components: to travel to an orphanage outside Moscow and teach the children English, set up a Big Brothers Big Sisters-type volunteer group in the community between the elderly and the orphans, and to write and illustrate a series of children’s books describing "summer camp" in America. She sees this work as making the children’s transition less traumatic when they travel and stay with host families in America. In addition to these goals which she hopes to see executed when she goes to Russia, Gorman’s career aspirations include becoming coordinator of a Summer Program that brings orphans to the U.S. for the summer and introduces them to families willing to adopt.

Jennifer Hughes, a history major with a minor in Russian from North Plainfield, N.J., has been awarded a grant to teach English in Russia. She will be teaching English in a Russian secondary school (high school). At Holy Cross, Hughes is in the College Honors Program and the National History Honors Society. Through SPUD (Student Programs for Urban Development), she has been a Big Sister and has worked at Abby’s House, a shelter for abused and battered women in Worcester. She currently has an internship with AIDS Project Worcester, where she also volunteers. She is also involved in the Russian club.

Katie Lamberto, a Classics major from West Boylston, has been awarded a grant to work and study in Slovenia. She will examine how cultural institutions in Slovenia run their museums, how they design exhibitions, what they choose to display and related topics. She also plans to take a Slovenian language class. Lamberto plans on pursuing either a Ph.D. in Classics to become a professor at a liberal arts college or university or a Master of Arts degree in Museum Studies to become a curator. Her time in Slovenia will help her decide, she said.

Megan Osborne, an anthropology and history double major with a concentration in Asian Studies from Redding, Conn., has been awarded a grant to work and study in Singapore. She will work in Asian Civilisations Museum, a new and innovative museum in Singapore. Osborne plans to earn a degree in museum studies and a doctorate in anthropology, leading her into a career as a museum curator.

Each year about 1,000 college students are awarded grants through the Fulbright Program, the U.S. government’s flagship program in international educational exchange. Fulbright grants are made to U.S. citizens and nationals of other countries for a variety of educational activities, primarily university lecturing, advanced research, graduate study and teaching in elementary and secondary schools. Since the program’s inception in 1946, more than 250,000 participants - chosen for their leadership potential - have had the opportunity to observe each other’s political, economic and cultural institutions.