Manchester student named Fulbright Teaching Assistant

Jeff Bastien, a Bates College senior from Manchester, N.H., has been named a Fulbright Teaching Assistant by the J. William Fulbright Foreign Scholarship Board and will spend the 2000-2001 academic year assisting a teacher of English in a German school.

Fulbright Teaching Assistants teach foreign students ages 12 to 18 lessons on American studies, politics, religion, geography, family life, sports and hobbies for up to 12 hours per week. Fulbright Teaching Assistants also are expected to enrich their host schools’ extracurricular programs by volunteering their time and expertise for activities concerned with American culture.

Fulbright Teaching Assistants are selected on the basis of their academic record, foreign language preparation, personal qualifications and the extent to which they will promote mutual understanding among nations.

The U.S. Congress created the Fulbright Program in 1946, immediately after World War II, to foster mutual understanding among nations through educational and cultural exchanges. Senator J. William Fulbright, sponsor of the legislation, saw it as a step toward building an alternative to armed conflict.

The Fulbright Program, the U.S. government’s premier scholarship program, enables U.S. students, artists and other professionals to benefit from unique resources in every corner of the world.

Each year the Fulbright Program allows Americans to study or conduct research in more than 100 nations. The Fulbright Program is funded by an annual Congressional appropriation and contributions from other participating countries. Under the policy guidance of the J. William Fulbright Foreign Scholarship Board, the U.S. Department of State sponsors the program in cooperation with binational Fulbright Commissions and Foundations abroad, as well as U.S. embassies.

Also named a Fulbright Teaching Assistant from Bates is senior Kate Kenoyer of Whitefield, Maine, who will serve as a teaching assistant in Hamburg, Germany.

Bastien, a dean’s list German major with a minor in Spanish, will serve as a teaching assistant at the Georgius-Agricola-Gymnasium in Chemnitz, Germany. At Bates, Bastien has been a member of the Martial Arts Society and the men’s tennis team. He spent Short Term 1997 studying in Austria and a junior year abroad in Munich, Germany.

The son of Gerard E. Bastien of 465 Cartier St., Manchester, N.H., and Denise D. Sabol, Bastien is a 1996 graduate of Alvirne High School, Hudson, N.H.