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Paula Ortiz ’18, Kureem Nugent ’18, Isabel O'Malley ’18, and Marquis Palmer ’18

Kureem Nugent ’18, Isabel O'Malley ’18, Paula Ortiz ’18, and Marquis Palmer ’18 have been named Watson Fellows providing them a $30,000 stipend to pursue a “year of independent, purposeful exploration” abroad. Although students from 40 peer schools are eligible to receive these awards, no other school had more than three recipients this year.

Student Fellowships Coordinator Virginia Dosch can’t remember a year in which another school had four recipients. The recipients’ projects are briefly described below. In the next month, profiles and complete descriptions of their year of travel will be presented on the news site.

Kureem Nugent "18Kureem Nugent

Sociology major
Jamaica, N.Y.
Project

Cultivating Cultural Capital: Exploring the Path to College

Countries Nugent will visit

Chile, Finland, Germany, and Japan

Summary

What does it mean to have equal access to higher education? This year I will explore different cultures’ pedagogical and social strategies to prepare students for postsecondary education, to build a greater understanding of the role cultural capital plays in the path to higher education.

Isabel O"Malley "18Isabel O'Malley

Psychology major,  creative writing and music minors
Chevy Chase, Md.
Project

Therapeutic Radio: Storytelling, Self-help, & Community Health Care

Countries O'Malley will visit

Russia, United Kingdom, Spain, South Africa, and Brazil

Summary

Therapeutic radio programs have been shown to assist people with mental and chronic health conditions. Volunteering with hospital and community radio programs I will learn the creative and practical ways that people suffering from mental and physical illness share their stories and facilitate their own mental health care.

Paula Ortiz "18Paula Ortiz

Art major, philosophy minor
Quito, Ecuador 
Project

Active Meditation Across Disciplines of Impermanence

Countries Ortiz will visit

India, Japan, New Zealand, and Bolivia

Summary

This year I will engage devoted practices of active meditation by living in religious, agricultural and artisan communities around the world. My goal is to explore how meditative states of mind are experienced and induced across varied contexts and how awareness and transcendence, across cultures, shape meaning in people’s lives.

Marquis Palmer "18Marquis Palmer

Philosophy major, literature minor
Utica, N.Y.
Project

Skateboarding Communities

Countries Palmer will visit

Germany, Argentina, Spain, Japan

Summary

Joining skateboarding communities around the world, I will explore the defining values and practices that create them, and how they shape a way of life that is sustained among the societies in which they are embedded.

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