For Immediate Release

Contact:	
		Director, Public Relations
		(909) 621-8219
		nina_mason@pitzer.edu


Pitzer College Announces Watson Fellowship Nominees


Claremont, Calif. - Oct. 19, 2001 - Showing exceptional promise and an interest in studying abroad, two Pitzer College seniors -- Siobhan O'Hara and Megan Ogle -- have been nominated for Thomas J. Watson fellowships, a program that has awarded more than $25 million to graduating seniors since 1968. The awards will be announced in March 2002.

O'Hara, a resident of Anchorage, Alaska, is a double major in art and environmental studies. The title of her Watson Fellowship project is "Masks: History, Knowledge and Worldview." If selected for the fellowship, she plans to travel to Mali, Cameroon and Bali to study the carving and using of wooden masks. In addition to serving as president of the Pitzer Art Collective, O'Hara was captain of the highly successful Claremont women's rugby team and attended an external-studies program in Venezuela. 

Ogle of Makawao, Hawaii, is a double major in biology and environmental studies. Her project is titled "The Interaction of Island Culture and Environment: A Case Study of Conservation Efforts to Save Native Endangered Birds." If selected for the fellowship, she plans to travel to Ecuador, New Zealand, Philippines, Madagascar, Greece and Ireland.  Ogle works with the Jumpstart program at Pitzer and spent the past summer completing field research in conjunction with the Nature Conservancy of Maui.

"The Watson attempts to identify people who are on their way to doing extraordinary things," says Jim Lehman, professor of economics and Pitzer's liaison to the Watson program. "It gives them a year of as close to total freedom as you are going to get, and support to pursue their heart's desire. The people we have nominated are people of great integrity and creativity and imagination, and with burning desire to do something. [These are] people who are going to make a difference in whatever communities, small or large, they visit."

The Thomas J. Watson Foundation began the Watson Fellowship Program in 1968 to provide exceptional young people the freedom to pursue a year of focused and disciplined independent study and travel abroad. The fellowship provides a stipend of $22,000 for the expenses involved in a yearlong project. 

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Pitzer College, a member of The Claremont Colleges, offers 40 major fields in the liberal arts and sciences with an emphasis on interdisciplinary studies, cultural immersion, social responsibility and community service.