Claremont, Calif. (February 10, 2020) — For the 12th consecutive year, Pitzer College is a top producer of 2019-2020 Fulbright US Students. The US Department of State’s Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs (ECA) announces the top-producing institutions for the Fulbright Program and the lists are published annually in The Chronicle of Higher Education.
Ten students and alumni from Pitzer received Fulbright Student awards for academic year 2019-2020, nine are counted in this year’s Chronicle list. Pitzer’s 2019-20 Fulbright Fellow awardees include; Dana Alimena ’19; Hannah Chiu ’19; Nicolas Lopez Casertano ’19; Noemi Delgado ’19; Madeline Gould ’19; Molly Hickey ’17; Mason Polk ’19; Lena-Phuong Tran ’18; Sujay Singh ’19 and Whitney Wagner ’19. Since 1994, Pitzer students and alumni have won more than 260 Fulbright Student Fellowships. The Chronicle noted that only “nine baccalaureate institutions have also been top producers of Fulbright US students every year for the past 10 years. They are Amherst, Hamilton, Oberlin, Pitzer, Pomona, Smith, Swarthmore, Vassar and Williams Colleges.”
Professor of Political Studies Nigel Boyle was also named a Fulbright Global Scholar through a Fulbright grant for 2019-20; he is undertaking three extended research trips to Pakistan, Germany and Vietnam as part of a project focused on new liberal arts colleges. In the past three years, six Pitzer professors have received Fulbright Scholar grants, including Gretchen Edwalds-Gilbert, associate professor of biology; Daniel Segal, professor of anthropology and professor of history; Azamat Junisbai, associate professor of sociology; Emma Stephen, professor of economics; and Suyapa Portillo Villeda ’96, associate professor of Chicano/a-Latino/a transnationals studies.
“We are
delighted to see that the colleges and universities we are honoring as
2019-2020 Fulbright top-producing institutions reflect the geographic and
institutional diversity of higher education in the United States,” said Marie
Royce, assistant secretary of State for Educational and Cultural Affairs. “We
are committed to the Fulbright Program’s goals of creating lasting professional
and personal connections by sending passionate and accomplished US students of
all backgrounds to study, research or teach English in communities throughout
the world. These Fulbrighters serve as citizen ambassadors for the United
States in their host communities, and we will benefit from the skills,
knowledge and global connections they build on their exchanges long after they
return home.”
The Fulbright Program was created to increase mutual understanding between the people of the US and the people of other countries. More than 2,200 US students and over 900 US college and university faculty and administrators are awarded Fulbright grants annually. In addition, some 4,000 Fulbright Foreign Students and Visiting Scholars come to the US annually to study, lecture, conduct research or teach their native language.
Since its
inception in 1946, the Fulbright Program has given over 390,000 passionate and
accomplished students, scholars, teachers, artists and professionals of all
backgrounds and fields the opportunity to study, teach and conduct research,
exchange ideas and contribute to finding solutions to important international
problems.
