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Filiberto Nolasco Gomez '04, Watson Fellowship

Filiberto Nolasco Gomez '04 was awarded a Thomas J. Watson Fellowship to pursue his project, "Education on the Margins: Pedagogy and Agency in Marginalized Communities." Filiberto's project took him to Guatemala, Brazil, South Africa and Northern Ireland.

Filiberto was one of 50 college seniors nationwide to receive the fellowship, which funds a year of travel and independent inquiry outside the United States.

"We look for people with the passion and creativity to find solutions, work effectively with people and generally weather the bad days on the road while treasuring the glorious ones," said Beverly Larson, the executive director of the Watson Fellowship Program. "The awards are long-term bets on people likely to lead or innovate, giving them unusual flexibility to set and pursue their own global agendas."  

Filiberto, who came from Montebello to attend Pitzer, designed his own major in education with an emphasis on sociopolitical pedagogies. A major component of his education was a trip abroad to the Pitzer in Venezuela External Studies program, where he completed an independent study project titled, "Community Power: Schools as Foci of Community."

 "Filiberto has a life-long concern for agency and self-determination and inclusion, a concern that found expression from his earliest days at the college -- in his support of the dining hall workers' campaign for improved working conditions, in his participation in the Chiapas Support Committee, in his working with the Student Peace Coalition, in his coordinating activities for the Pitzer Volunteer Group, in his working with children in the Jumpstart Program, in his tutoring children in the Upward Bound Program, in his service on the Faculty Executive Committee, the Academic Planning Committee, and the External Studies Committee, and, finally, in his term as President of the Student Senate, where he has modeled access and inclusion in his leadership of that organization, while demonstrating a deft hand at getting things done promptly and well," Pitzer Professor Jim Lehman said.

Thomas J. Watson Fellowship
The Watson Fellowship provides a grant of $25,000 for promising young people to spend the year following graduation in independent study and travel improve their resourcefulness, imagination and leadership to live in the world community.
Watson on the Pitzer Website
www.watsonfellowship.org
Advisers: Jim Lehman, Bernard 201, x72640
Carol Brandt, Scott Hall 110, x18104

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