June 13, 2000
Contact: Hodgie Bricke, International Programs, (785) 864-6161
LAWRENCE--Nine University of Kansas students have received Fulbright and other prestigious international awards for study and research abroad in the 2000-01 academic year.
KU's Office of International Programs recently announced that six KU students have received Fulbright awards and three more students received international study awards as a result of the Fulbright competition. The benefits of these awards are exactly the same as those of the Fulbright.
KU's international program office coordinates the applications for Fulbright and other graduate fellowships for study and research abroad.
Since the Fulbright program's beginnings in 1947, 351 KU students have received these grants. Funded in large part by Congress, but also by many participating countries and private corporations, a Fulbright grant covers round-trip travel, health insurance, tuition, if relevant, and living expenses for an academic year. More than 140 countries participate in this bilateral exchange program.
The international award winners are:
DOUGLAS COUNTY
From Lawrence
Cameron Kent McCormick, 173 Pinecone Drive, doctoral student in geography,
has a Fulbright grant for Cameroon, where he will investigate and compare
the effect of water resource development on two rural communities.
McCormick has previously worked in Africa as a Peace Corps volunteer in the
Congo.
Michael Thomas Schmitt, 1423 Ohio, #105, doctoral student in psychology, has a Fulbright award to the Netherlands to conduct research on the different strategies that immigrants develop to adapt to their new national culture. He will be affiliated with research groups at the University of Amsterdam and the University of Leiden.
SHAWNEE COUNTY
From Topeka
Elizabeth Jane King, daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Jon P. King, 6125A SW 26th
St., a May 2000 graduate with bachelor's degrees in psychology and in
Slavic languages and literatures, has a Fulbright award to study at St.
Petersburg State University in St. Petersburg, Russia. King is studying the
attitudes of young women toward areas such as family, career and politics.
As a KU undergraduate, King was a university scholar and previously studied
in Russia with a National Security Education Program award. This is the
second year the U.S. Fulbright student program has operated in Russia.
JOHNSON COUNTY
From Overland Park
Betty Ellen Cook, 7985 Antioch, a doctoral student in anthropology, has a
Netherland-America Foundation grant. She is conducting a cross-cultural
comparison of the way that labor pain within childbirth is understood and
managed within the U.S. and the Netherlands and how that understanding
shapes and affects midwifery. Cook will spend part of her time observing in
hospitals and part of her time interviewing midwives in both countries.
From Roeland Park
James (Jay) Scott Sheperd, son of Mr. and Mrs. Leonard Rangel, 5608 W.
50th, a May graduate with bachelor's degrees in microbiology and in
journalism, has a German Academic Exchange Service annual grant to
investigate the ability of the bacteria Citobacter to cause meningitis in
newborns. He will join the research group of Professor Tobias Élschl¹ger at
the University of WŁrzburg. After his year in Germany, Sheperd plans to
enter KU's School of Medicine in Kansas City, Kan.
IOWA
From Humboldt
Matthew Richard Lindaman, son of Richard Lindaman, 1005 10th Ave. S.W.,
doctoral student in history, has a German Academic Exchange Service annual
grant to conduct research for his doctoral dissertation on the migration of
the East Friesians from their homeland in northwest Germany to the Midwest.
MICHIGAN
From Detroit
Stacey Kathryn Sowards, 5200 Anthony Wayne Drive 101, doctoral student in
communication studies, has a Fulbright award to Indonesia to study
environmental communication and the use of rhetorical acts in international
environmental nongovernmental organizations like World Wildlife Fund. She
will be based in Jakarta, Indonesia's capital city.
TEXAS
From Austin
David Monroe Cochran Jr., son of David M. Cochran, 3909 Cresthill, doctoral
student in geography, has a Fulbright award to analyze the sustainability
of indigenous Mosquito agriculture in the context of conservation
management in the RÕo Plątano Biosphere Reserve in Honduras. Members of the
Wampusiirpi village, a Miskito community, will assist him in conducting his
survey.
From Bedford
Kristen Elizabeth Field, daughter of Mr. and Mrs. John Field, 312
Shenandoah Court, a May 2000 graduate with a bachelor's degree in German,
has a Fulbright award to study in Bremen, Germany, at a research institute
dedicated to German women writers since 1945. Field is studying the effect
of exile during the Nazi regime on the writings of the novelist Irmgard
Keun.