Travel to France, Italy, Spain, Ireland, and South Africa is on the summer academic agenda for some 30 Boston College undergraduate recipients of McGillycuddy-Logue grants, which provide the opportunity for study abroad through faculty-led programs, or for professional experience via international internships.
This year's awardees, who represent the Morrissey College of Arts & Sciences, Lynch School of Education, and Carroll School of Management, are studying local language, art, history, and food writing, among other topics—while immersed in rich cultures of their respective host countries. Â
Awarded through the OIP’s McGillycuddy-Logue Center for Undergraduate Global Studies, the summer travel grants provide enriching experiences for academically excellent ĂŰĚŇ´«Ă˝ undergraduate students, for whom such opportunities would otherwise remain out of reach.
"Summer awards are instrumental in helping students—regardless of background or means—take full advantage of study, research, and internship opportunities abroad,” said OIP Director Nick Gozik. “Such awards would not have been possible without the generosity of donors, who recognize the value of preparing ĂŰĚŇ´«Ă˝ students for an increasingly competitive and globally-oriented workforce."
During the upcoming fall semester, the grant program will fund study-abroad opportunities for some 20 juniors, from a range of the University’s undergraduate schools, at universities in South Korea, South Africa, the United Kingdom, United Arab Emirates, New Zealand, Italy, Ireland, Spain, Norway, Ecuador, Australia, Japan, and France.
The McGillycuddy-Logue Center, established in 2008 through a generous gift from alumni Kathleen McGillycuddy and Ron Logue, fosters innovative international learning for ĂŰĚŇ´«Ă˝ undergraduates. McGillycuddy—former chair and current member of the Boston College Board of Trustees--is a 1971 graduate of Newton College of the Sacred Heart, which was acquired by ĂŰĚŇ´«Ă˝ in 1975. Logue received bachelor of science and master of business administration degrees from ĂŰĚŇ´«Ă˝.
The McGillycuddy-Logue awardees are among many other undergraduate and graduate student scholarship recipients, whose prestigious awards support study-abroad plans during the summer as well as in the upcoming academic year. Their awards include Boren Scholarships, Gilman International Scholarships, U.S. State Department Critical Language Scholarships, and other OPI-administered fellowships. An overview of the most recent awards:
•Bemnet Zewdie ’19 will study in Ghana via a Fund for Education Abroad Scholarship, which provides increased access to international scholarship by supporting students from a variety of racial, ethnic and socioeconomic backgrounds.
•Sabrina Black ’19 received a DAAD (German Academic Exchange Service) Undergraduate Scholarship to study at the Catholic University of Eichstätt in Germany.
•Three undergraduates won Benjamin A. Gilman International Scholarships–-which enable students of limited financial means to study or intern abroad, and gain skills critical to American national security and economic competitiveness: Layla Aboukhater ’18 (France), Tenzin Pelzom ’20 (Ecuador), Francesca von Krauland ’20 (Italy).
•U.S. Department of State Critical Language Scholarships were awarded to Daniela Benitez ’19 and Enise Koc ’18 for study in, respectively, Oman and Russia. The CLS program is part of a government effort to expand the number of Americans studying and mastering foreign languages, to contribute to American economic competitiveness and national security.
•Taylor Green JD’18 received funds for a fellowship in Japan via a David L. Boren National Security Education Program Award-–designed to build a broader and more qualified pool of U.S. citizens with foreign language and international skills.
•Stephen Ferguson ’15, who is pursuing a master’s degree in philosophy at ĂŰĚŇ´«Ă˝, was named a Lilly Graduate Fellow by the Lilly Foundation. The fellows program allows outstanding graduate students to explore the connections among Christianity, higher education, and the vocation of the teacher-scholar as they pursue degrees in humanities and the arts.
•Omar Aggad Travel and Research Fellowships—to expand the understanding of the Arab world, and the relationships between Arab societies and the West—were awarded to the following students: Echo Yiyang Zhuge ’20, to study “Qatar through Art, internship at the Museum of Islamic Art” in Doha, Qatar; Sarya Baladi ’19, to study “Colloquial Arabic Language Acquisition to Study the Palestinian and Syrian Refugee Crisis in Lebanon” in Beirut, Lebanon; Selene Campion PhD ’20, for colloquial Arabic language study at the Moroccan Center for Arabic Studies in Rabat, Morocco; and Austin Bodetti ’18, for “Studying the Role of the Emirates in the War in Afghanistan” in United Arab Emirates.
•Mizna Fellowships—which fund research, language study, internships and service learning initiatives throughout the Islamic world—were awarded to two rising sophomores: Echo Yiyang Zhuge, for “Bridging Two Worlds: Understanding Modern Islam and Moroccan Society through a Chinese Lens” in Rabat, Morocco; and Trevor R. Jones, for “Religious Minorities Seeking Refuge in the Hashemite Kingdom: Investigating the Political, Economic and Social Role of Religious Minority Refugees in the Sunni-Majority Jordan” in Amman, Jordan.
•Lidya Mesgna ’17 won a Humanity in Action Fellowship that enables her to build on her interest in issues of inclusivity and tolerance. An international studies major with a political science concentration and economics minor, she will study minority rights in a German historical context and conduct research on how and why individual and societies have resisted intolerance and protected democratic values.
Jesse Mu ’17 won a Winston Churchill Scholarship for graduate study in the United Kingdom at the University of Cambridge, where he will continue to explore his research interests at the intersection of psychology, computer science, and language.
Rosanne Pellegrini | University Communications