Emily Grady ’10 has received an English Teaching Assistantship from the Fulbright U.S. Student Program. These grants support recipients in positions as teaching assistants abroad who work with local students on their English language skills and knowledge of the United States. As the same time, the teaching assistants pursue individual research.

Grady will teach in Argentina. As an environmental studies major at Bates, she co-founded two student environmental organizations, lobbied Maine’s senators for comprehensive climate legislation and co-founded an environmental leadership training program for Bates students.

Now, as she teaches English in Argentina, she hopes also to continue her environmental advocacy, both with local organizations and, hopefully, in her own curriculum.

“I hope to partner with an environmental organization or government agency to first, learn about the ways environmental issues are perceived, discussed and managed in Argentina,” she says, “and second, to couple that knowledge with my experience working in sustainability education.”

Three Bates College seniors and one alumna received 2008-09 grants for postgraduate research from the Fulbright U.S. Student Program.

Dana Burgard of Kinnelon, N.J.; Allison Caine, a member of the Bates class of 2007 from Bar Harbor; Caitlin deWilde of East Hampton, Conn.; and Brandt Miller of Westfield, N.J., plan to pursue comprehensive studies in Europe, South America and Asia.

The Fulbright Program, established in 1946, is sponsored by the U.S. State Department. Fulbright recipients come from all 50 states, the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico and from more than 250 U.S. institutions, representing a diverse cross-section of American higher education. About 1,200 U.S. Student Program grants are awarded each year.

“Four Fulbright awards, we believe, is the highest number in the history of Bates,” says Elizabeth Eames, associate professor of anthropology and chair of the college’s Graduate Fellowships Committee. The committee helps Bates students learn about and apply for prestigious grants such as the Fulbrights and the Watson Fellowship, one of which also went to a Bates senior this year.

Burgard received a Fulbright English Teaching Assistantship for work in Germany. She will teach in a “gymnasium,” a type of school for students aged 12 to 18. In addition to teaching English, she wants to take courses on modern German literature with an emphasis on themes of justice.

She spent her junior year in Munich, and immediately felt a deep sense of connection with the country. “While I was there, I fell in love with German culture and began to seriously consider teaching as a future career option,” she says.

Burgard feels the Fulbright is “the perfect way to spend more time in Germany and to gain what I believe will be invaluable experience both in and out of the classroom.”

Caine plans to conduct research in Cuzco, Peru. She wants to study the 20th-century Peruvian cultural movement that Peruvian anthropologist Jorge Flores Ochoa termed “Incanismo,” a widespread fascination and identification with Incan culture. It has pervaded modern Peruvian nationalist discourse and is an essential component of the tourism industry, particularly in Cuzco.

Caine, who spent time in Peru in 2006 to do research for her Bates senior thesis, was intrigued by Cuzco’s “Inti Raymi,” or festival of the sun. She found it to be a “powerful expression of Peruvian cultural identity” and decided after graduation to return to Peru to explore the roots of Incanismo.

Caine will perform her research through the Instituto Latinamericano de Investigacion. In addition to her research, she plans to take courses on tourism at a local public university and to work with organizations that promote responsible tourism.

DeWilde received a Fulbright English Teaching Assistantship. Influenced by a junior year in Nantes, France, deWilde will teach English to university students at the Université Libre de Bruxelles in Brussels, Belgium. She will also study Belgian attitudes toward East Asian immigrants and hopes to compare the challenges those immigrants and native Belgians face when learning English.

“Belgium is a fascinating country from linguistic and pedagogical perspectives,” she says. “Language has always been a source of political tension and national division because Belgium has three spoken national languages.”

DeWilde plans to research how these cultural tensions influence Belgian attitudes towards the East Asian immigrant population, particularly in the classroom, which she sees as a microcosm of Belgian society.

“At Bates, I have discovered that I learn about myself by learning other languages and exploring other cultures,” she says. “While in Belgium, I hope to promote a similar attitude that encourages students to break down undefined cultural frontiers.”

Miller received a research fellowship for work in Mongolia. Through cultural immersion and a survey of oral and written narratives, he hopes to investigate changing Mongolian masculinities. He hopes his subject groups — nomadic herders, urban dwellers and Buddhist monks — will provide insight into how forces such as tourism, entertainment and business are changing men’s lives and modifying traditional ideals.

He plans to live in the Altai Mountains of western Mongolia with the nomadic Kazakhs, the largest minority in Mongolia, during their falconry season. He will then stay in the Gobi desert at the oldest Buddhist monastery in Mongolia. Lastly, he will conduct research amongst urbanized inhabitants in the capital city of Ulaanbaatar.

Miller spent a semester of his junior year in Mongolia, and immediately “fell in love” with the country. “It is a land filled with such contrasts,” he says. “You have ancient traditions mixed with socialist remnants from the years as a Soviet satellite, and combining with new influences from the U.S. and China. Living in yurts, nomadic herders of camel, reindeer and yaks contrast with entrepreneurs of the capital city exposed to discos and the Internet.”

Miller hopes to use his education as an English major with a creative writing concentration and a minor in anthropology to write a creative nonfiction piece about his experiences in Mongolia during this transition.

“The intimate environment of Bates, the access to the wonderful minds of professors and the intellectually curious student body have fueled my desire to push myself into intellectual and emotional arenas that I never thought possible,” Miller says.

“A fellowship such as the Fulbright is the ideal opportunity to utilize my academic and personal interests during the first step in my post-college journey.”

Cristin McKnight, of Los Angeles, is the second Bates College graduate to receive a 2004-05 grant for postgraduate research from the Fulbright U.S. Student Program.

McKnight, a 2002 Bates graduate and art history major, arrived in India in August and will stay through May 2005, researching traditional “kalamkari” textiles in the country’s south. Michael Roberts, who graduated this year from Bates, received a Fulbright to research traditional music in Mongolia.

McKnight will pursue a comprehensive study of contemporary kalamkari fabrics. The Fulbright award covers her travel costs and affords a monthly stipend during her stay. She is dividing her time between the city of Bangalore and a small town, Sri Kalahasti, that is a center of traditional kalamkari work.

In the Hindi-Urdu languages, McKnight explains, “kalamkari” means “pen work” and refers to a traditional technique of painting fabric with dye and, specifically, to wall-hangings with mythological or religious themes made from such cloth.

“I’m examining the way older traditions and techniques have informed contemporary practice of the art,” McKnight writes in an e-mail from Bangalore. “I’m particularly interested in the way women have positioned themselves in the production and exchange of kalamkari cloth and Indian textiles in general.”

McKnight first studied in India during the spring semester of her junior year at Bates. Visiting Jaipur, in the north, she studied traditional hand block-printing and investigated social issues involving the sari, the traditional dress.

McKnight hopes to establish a career involving some combination of curating, teaching and textile design, with the focus on Indian fabrics and art. Since graduation, she has done gallery and museum work in Los Angeles while studying fabric design and Hindi language.

At Bates, she worked in the theater department costume shop with the late Ellen Seeling, of South Portland, an assistant professor of theater and highly respected theatrical designer.

“She opened my eyes to the many different ways that fabric can be used and appreciated,” McKnight writes. “Ellen was an incredible mentor for me, and we shared a passionate love for fabric.”

“The Bates family really does extend around the world,” adds McKnight, noting that her circle in Bangalore includes the mother of a friend from the college.

The Fulbright Program, established in 1946, is sponsored by the U.S. Department of State. This year’s U.S. Fulbright students were selected from among more than 5,000 applicants. Coming from all 50 states, the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico, recipients are drawn from a diverse cross-section of American higher education representing more than 250 U.S. institutions.

By Anne Conway ’04

Michael P. Roberts, a recent Bates College graduate from Longmeadow, Mass., has received an award to support postgraduate research in Mongolia from the Fulbright U.S. Student Program.

A double major in music and anthropology, Roberts will travel for nine months in Mongolia researching the horse-head fiddle, a traditional stringed instrument and a national symbol for the Mongolian people. The Fulbright award covers Roberts’ travel costs and provides a monthly stipend from September 2004 to May 2005.

“It is such a prestigious award and the competition is so stiff,” says Roberts. “I don’t think I could have done it without the help of a few Bates professors who pointed me in the right direction” — such as music faculty members Rose Pruiksma and Gina Fatone, and Steve Kemper, an anthropology professor who alerted Roberts to the Fulbright opportunity.

Roberts first encountered the horse-head fiddle as a junior during an autumn semester in Mongolia in 2002. He heard it while staying with a family in Ulaanbaatar, the capital, and “fell in love with it,” he says.

Known in Mongolian as the “morin khuur,” the two-stringed instrument is bowed like a cello and made from wood, horsehair and horsehide. The English name comes from the carved horse’s head that typically adorns the instrument’s headstock. The instrument is used in solo and ensemble performance, often with accordion, and also to accompany vocal music.

The horse-head fiddle is rarely played outside of Mongolia, so Roberts’ research and lessons have been limited while he’s been in the States. Though a beginner at that instrument, Roberts is otherwise an accomplished musician. By his senior year at Bates, this bassist and guitarist was attending up to six rehearsals a day, playing with everyone from his jazz-rock band Mango Quickly to Bates’ Javanese gamelan ensemble to the college orchestra.

“I have a problem where I keep jumping to new music,” he says.

“Problem” or not, Roberts’ voracious curiosity has clearly paid off in leading him to the horse-head fiddle. His research abroad will include strictly musical aspects, including lessons and talking with native fiddlers. Moreover, Roberts is fascinated by the relationships among Mongolia’s music, its natural environment and the rapid modernization since its independence from Soviet domination.

Roberts hopes to explore the fiddle’s symbolic significance in Mongolia, particularly to the country’s ethnic minorities. “A lot of their musical styles aren’t really represented by the national culture,” he says. “I want to see what they think about the horse-head fiddle being the national symbol.”

It has been a while since Roberts thought of music in purely Western terms.

“I try to keep things very diverse in playing music,” he says. “I like to learn about different music and know the context it comes from and how to perform it. I try to be able to share it with friends and family and try to get them to listen to other music besides what is on pop radio.”

The Fulbright Program, established in 1946, is sponsored by the U.S. Department of State. This year’s U.S. Fulbright students were selected from among more than 5,000 applicants. Coming from all 50 states, the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico, recipients are drawn from a diverse cross-section of American higher education representing more than 250 U.S. institutions.

A German major, Cavender received the award for her proposal to research representations of the tension between the individual artist and society in 20th-century German literature. The award covers her travel costs and provides a monthly stipend from September 2002 to the following June. During that time Cavender will help teach English in a public school and pursue her research.

“I was ecstatic” upon hearing of the award, says Cavender. She got the good news on the eve of spring break, and “it was a great way to end the semester.”

The U.S. government created the Fulbright Program right after World War II to foster international understanding through educational and cultural exchange. One of a variety of Fulbright programs, the U.S. Student Program awards some 900 grants each year and operates in more than 140 countries.

Such an award is “an entrance into the academic world,” says Gerda Neu-Sokol, a lecturer in German at Bates and Cavender’s adviser. “It’s a prestigious stipend that gets you on your way to a graduate career. It helps you tremendously.”

Cavender is one of 80 national recipients of a “Pädagogischer Austauschdienst” grant, which supports teaching assistantships in Germany. She will combine part-time work helping an English teacher in a public school with her own study and research.

“I want to use the opportunity to narrow my focus in terms of what I want to study in grad school,” says Cavender, who is considering a teaching career.

Cavender began her German studies at James Bowie High School. She has twice taken part in study programs in Munich, during high school and for her junior year at Bates. Although the Fulbright Commission in Germany hasn’t yet notified her of her destination, she has a particular interest in working in Germany’s capital, Berlin.

“There are so many possibilities there,” she says. “There’s so much going on.”

Cavender’s honors thesis at Bates, which she wrote in German, analyzes how the female narrator’s voice evolved in the fiction of Christa Wolf, one of the few authors from the former German Democratic Republic (East Germany) to win international regard.

Cavender, says her adviser, “is a very good writer and a terrific reader” in German. “It is a wonderful achievement, in the course of four years, to learn another language and tradition so well that you can write an honors thesis in it,” Neu-Sokol says.

Although the thesis project was immensely important to her written command of the language, says Cavender, the immersion in everyday German culture that the Fulbright award makes possible will be key to making her an even more effective speaker of the language.

Cavender praises the German program at Bates for its academic rigor and for its size. “You have this intimate class atmosphere,” she says. “You really get to know your classmates and professors.”