News On Campus
Senior Wins Fulbright Award Isabel Juvan ’17 will work as an English teaching assistant in the Slovak Republic during the 2017–18 academic year, thanks to a prestigious fellowship from the Fulbright U.S. Student Program. “It’s still kind of a shock,” said Juvan, an English and secondary education major who graduated in May as an Honors Program Global Scholar, the highest distinction available in the College’s Honors Program. The sixth Elmhurst College student ever to have won a Fulbright award, Juvan was one of two Elmhurst seniors to be named semifinalists this year—the first time two students have achieved that distinction in the same year. The other semifinalist, history major Mary Dickey ’17, had applied to be a teaching assistant in Germany. She also graduated as an Honors Program Global Scholar. The Fulbright English Teaching Assistant program places scholars in classrooms across the world to assist local English language teachers and to serve as cultural ambassadors for the U.S. To succeed, students need excellent grades, experience studying abroad, community or campus involvement and excellent interpersonal skills, said Mary Kay Mulvaney, an English professor who is director of the Honors Program and the College’s Fulbright Program advisor. The application process is rigorous and the competition is steep, she said. “To move from applicant to semifinalist (which is just one step from winning a scholarship) is very, very difficult,” she said. Having the College’s only two applicants get to that level speaks both to the caliber of student at Elmhurst and the way the College nurtures and encourages its outstanding scholars, she said. Mulvaney starts touting the Fulbright program to students as early as their first year. “I tell them a Fulbright Scholarship is a four-year process and they should start now.” Once potential applicants are identified, Mulvaney and Professor Emeritus Earl Thompson work closely with them on the application process. Dickey described the competition as an amazing learning experience on its own. “The support from across campus has been phenomenal,” she said, estimating that she wrote 14 drafts of her application essay at Thompson’s prodding. Juvan agreed, saying the faculty “were with me every step of the way.” English Department Chair Ann Frank Wake said spending the year immersed in a foreign culture will be of immense benefit to Juvan, who in her student teaching has always been “very focused on making sure
3
students from diverse backgrounds feel integrated into the classroom.” Teaching at a high school in Prešov, on the eastern side of the Slovak Republic, will give Juvan a chance to experience what it feels like to be the new person, to be the person learning a new language and culture, and having to work to fit in, she said. “This is only going to make her a more brilliant teacher,” Wake said. Mulvaney concurred. “She is a very deserving candidate and a wonderful young woman who has really maximized her opportunities at Elmhurst,” she said. “I couldn’t be prouder of her.”