KU News Release

Five KU students win Gilman scholarships to study abroad

LAWRENCE — Five University of Kansas students have won prestigious Benjamin A. Gilman International Scholarships for study abroad, the most Gilman awards KU has received at one time.

With five student winners, KU earned recognition from the Gilman program as one of the top recipient institutions for the fall 2008 study abroad cycle. Since the awards were first made in 2002, 18 KU students have earned Gilman scholarships.

Winners are Michael Bourbon, Emporia senior; Sarah Neff, Tulsa, Okla., senior; Osman Nur, Overland Park senior; and Duy Pham and Rebecca Russell, both juniors from Wichita.

About 700 outstanding American undergraduate students from more than 320 colleges and universities were selected. They will participate in study abroad programs worldwide this fall or for an entire academic year

The congressionally funded Gilman program aims to diversify the kinds of students who study abroad and the countries and regions to which they go. The program is sponsored by the U.S. Department of State’s Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs and administered by the Institute of International Education’s Southern Regional Center in Houston, Texas.

The KU students selected as Gilman scholarship recipients are listed below by hometown, level in school, major(s), parents’ names, high schools and where they will be studying.

JOHNSON COUNTY
From Overland Park 66202
Osman Nur, senior majoring in architecture, is the son of Hawa Sheikh and a graduate of Shawnee Mission North High School in Overland Park. Nur, his mother and five siblings immigrated from Somalia in 1999. He will spend the fall 2008 semester at the University of New South Wales in Sydney, Australia, and study with Glenn Murcutt, who won the 2002 Pritzker Prize, considered architecture’s highest honor.

LYON COUNTY
From Emporia 66801
Michael Bourbon, senior majoring in East Asian languages and cultures and in art with a concentration in painting, is the son of Anita Bourbon and a graduate of Emporia Senior High School. He will study Japanese during the 2008-09 academic year at J. F. Oberlin University in Tokyo, Japan.

SEDGWICK COUNTY
From Wichita 67212
Duy Hoang Pham, junior majoring in political science and international studies, is the son of Dao and Hai Pham and a graduate of Northeast Magnet School in Wichita. Pham will spend the 2008-09 academic year studying through the International Student Exchange Program at Thammasat University in Bangkok, Thailand.

From Wichita 67220
Rebecca Russell, junior majoring in East Asian languages and cultures with a co-major in international studies, is the daughter of Leola Wong and Thomas Russell and a graduate of Wichita High School Northwest. During the 2008-09 academic year, she will study at the Beijing Institute of Education, Tsinghwa University in China.

OKLAHOMA
From Tulsa 74145
Sarah Neff, senior majoring in journalism and mass communications with an emphasis in news and information, is the daughter of Mike and Julie Almohandis and a graduate of Union High School in Tulsa. She will spend the fall semester studying at the Arabic Language Institute in Fez, Morocco. At KU, Neff was the summer 2008 editor of the University Daily Kansan and has been a reporter and producer for KUJH-TV. She is a McNair Scholar.

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