A dean’s list history major, Stodolsky work at Bates includes a concentration in East Asian studies and a minor in Russian. Before being awarded the Beinecke Scholarship, Stodolsky received an Albion Morse Stevens Award for his work in foreign language and a Hoffman-Mellon grant in support of teaching English and studying Russian in Russia.

Stodolsky, recently named a 2001 Phillips Student Fellow at Bates College, will receive a grant of up to $10,000 supporting a summer research project for which he will travel to Sarejavo to conduct an oral history project interviewing Bosnian Muslims who were children and teenagers during the Bosnian War. He will also explore the relationship between war and cultural identity and investigate the myth of “ancient hatreds” used to explain longstanding conflicts in the region.

“During my Bates Fall Semester Abroad in Croatia, we had an expedition to Sarajevo, and even though this beautiful city was under siege for 1,395 days – the longest military siege of modern history – the whole world had watched day after day for four years and had done nothing,” Stodolsky says. “Nevertheless, the people of Sarajevo were very hospitable and warm toward us.” Stodolsky believes studying a contrast between experience and attitude will be interesting and rewarding. “My greatest passion is to communicate with different cultures,” he says. Bates has allowed him to do that, he says. “I was able to travel to some of the most interesting and complicated regions of the world, from Siberia to Sarajevo.”

The Phillips Student Fellowships provide major funding to students who design exceptional international or cross-cultural projects focusing on research, service-learning, or career exploration, or some combination of the three.  Projects must involve substantial immersion in a different culture. The Phillips Student Fellowships at Bates are part of the Phillips Endowment Program, an ambitious initiative of awards, honors and opportunities for faculty and students funded by a $9-million endowment bequest to the College from former Bates President Charles F. Phillips and his wife, Evelyn Minard Phillips, in 1999.

Bates College junior Jason Surdukowski of Concord, N.H., a double major in studio art and political science, has been named a 2001 Harry S. Truman Scholar, one of 70 students nationwide to receive a $30,000 scholarship awarded on the basis of leadership potential, intellectual ability and the likelihood of “making a difference.”

The 70 scholars were selected from among 592 candidates nominated by 303 colleges and universities. Each scholar will receive $3,000 for the senior undergraduate year and $27,000 for two or three years of graduate study. Those selected must be committed to careers in government or the not-for-profit sector. “I am humbled by the faith the Truman Foundation has expressed in my potential to live a life of active public service,” Surdukowski said. “The graduate work that the scholarship supports will bring me another step closer to my goal of working to ‘make gentle the life of this world.’”

Surdukowski hopes to complete M.A. and J.D. degrees and pursue a career that includes international law and public office. An art critic for The Bates Student, the campus newspaper, and president of The Representative Assembly, Bates’ student government, Surdukowski is planning a senior thesis that relates the discourse of law to the reality of genocide. A show of his work that focuses on human rights issues will travel to Amherst and Swarthmore colleges this year. The Center for Maine Contemporary Art in Rockport recently selected two of his pieces for display it its 2001 exhibit “The Next Generation.”

Surdukowski’s artistic expression often reflects his political concerns. “My art is one kind of activism for me,” he said. “Art is a power, a bully pulpit, a concentrated and strong discourse.” When Surdukowski won a Humanity and Action Foundation Fellowship to study human rights and the Holocaust in Holland last summer, he immediately knew that his required outreach project would be artistic. “Art is the way I can most concretely reach people,” he explained. Surdukowski is a 1998 graduate of Concord High School.

Seven Bates juniors have been named 2001 Phillips Student Fellows and will each receive grants of up to $10,000 for summer research projects. The 2001 Phillips Student Fellows are Smadar Bakovic of Neve Ilan, Israel; Jenny Blau of Greenbrae, Calif.; Abdelfetah Jibril of Addis Ababa, Ethiopia; Brian O’Doherty of Kennebunkport, Maine; Diana Sepehri of Rancho Cordova, Calif.; Volkan Stodolsky of Germantown, Md.; and Jason Surdukowski of Concord, N.H.Phillips Student Fellowships provide major funding to students who design exceptional international or cross-cultural projects focusing on research, service-learning, or career exploration, or some combination of the three. Projects must involve substantial immersion in a different culture.Bakovic will live in Arab villages and Bedouin settlements in her native Israel, in an effort to understand the non-Jewish cultures of Israel, she will reflect, from the Arab side, on the history of mistrust among Arabs and Jews in that country. She will create a documentary upon her return to Bates.

Blau will volunteer in health education and family planning in a rural health center and examine the complex social, medical, and humans rights issues facing such centers.

Jibril will tutor Jamaican middle-and high-school students in math and physics. He will observe the teaching and learning of math and science at Mannings High School in Sav la Mar, and will hold regular tutoring sessions throughout the summer, in an effort to enrich students’ understanding of physics and math, and to encourage more Jamaican students to continue their studies in the sciences beyond high school.

O’Doherty, a member of the Brooks Quimby Debate Council, will establish in Washington, D.C., high schools an intra-city parliamentary debate league, involving high school teachers and debate team members from area colleges as mentors and coaches.

Sepehri, who participated in the Colby-Bates-Bowdoin Off-Campus Study Program in Ecuador, will study traditional medicine in Ecuador and Bolivia by interviewing shamans of indigenous communities, to explore the natural and spiritual remedies they employ.

Stodolsky will interview Bosnian Muslims in Sarajevo who were children and teenagers during the Bosnian War. He will explore the relationship between war and cultural identity and will investigate in particular the myth of “ancient hatreds” used to explain longstanding conflicts in the region.

Surdukowski will conduct field research and interviews in preparation for his senior thesis in political science connecting the discourse of law with the reality of genocide. Working in Arusha, Tanzania and Rwanda, he will study the intersection of law and reality by examining the views of prosecutors, judges, court staff, witnesses, victims, and defendants, and political dissidents, all players in the Rwandan genocide.

The Phillips Student Fellowships, along with the Phillips Faculty Fellowships and Phillips Professorships at Bates, are part of the Phillips Endowment Program, an ambitious initiative of awards, honors and opportunities for faculty and students funded by a $9-million endowment bequest to the College from former Bates President Charles F. Phillips and his wife, Evelyn Minard Phillips, in 1999.

The Phillips Student Fellowships, along with the Phillips Faculty Fellowships and Phillips Professorships at Bates, are part of the Phillips Endowment Program, an ambitious initiative of awards, honors and opportunities for faculty and students funded by a $9-million endowment bequest to the College from former Bates President Charles F. Phillips and his wife, Evelyn Minard Phillips, in 1999.

Bakovic will live in Arab villages and Bedouin settlements in her native Israel, in an effort to understand the non-Jewish cultures of Israel, she will reflect, from the Arab side, on the history of mistrust among Arabs and Jews in that country. Her work will include intensive Arabic language study and she will interview, photograph, and videotape subjects as a way of widening her own horizons about Arab society in Israel. She will create a documentary upon her return to Bates.

Blau will volunteer in health education and family planning in a rural health center and examine the complex social, medical, and humans rights issues facing such centers. While at Bates, Blau has worked as a Spanish translator and volunteer in Lewiston’s Bates Street Health Center. She will also use her background in pre-medical sciences, her summer 2000 research experience at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, and her junior semester abroad experience in Spain.

Jibril will tutor Jamaican middle-and high-school students in math and physics. He will observe the teaching and learning of math and science at Mannings High School in Sav la Mar, and will hold regular tutoring sessions throughout the summer, in an effort to enrich students’ understanding of physics and math, and to encourage more Jamaican students to continue their studies in the sciences beyond high school.

O’Doherty, a member of the Brooks Quimby Debate Council, will establish in Washington, D.C., high schools an intra-city parliamentary debate league, envolving high school teachers and debate team members from area colleges as mentors and coaches. Debates will take place throughout the fall, and O’Doherty will develop an organizational structure ensuring program continuity after his fellowship ends.

Sepehri, who participated in the Colby–Bates–Bowdoin Off-Campus Study Program in Ecuador, will continue the work in ethnomedicine she began to explore in fall 2000. She will study traditional medicine in Ecuador and Bolivia by interviewing shamans of indigenous communities, to explore the natural and spiritual remedies they employ.

Stodolsky will interview Bosnian Muslims in Sarajevo who were children and teenagers during the Bosnian War. He will explore the relationship between war and cultural identity and will investigate in particular the myth of “ancient hatreds” used to explain longstanding conflicts in the region.

Surdukowski will conduct field research and interviews in preparation for his senior thesis in political science connecting the discourse of law with the reality of genocide. Working in Arusha, Tanzania and Rwanda, he will study the intersection of law and reality by examining the views of prosecutors, judges, court staff, witnesses, victims, and defendants, and political dissidents, all players in the Rwandan genocide.