Berea College Students and Faculty earn scholarships, fellowships and awards

Berea College presented more than 180 academic awards and scholarships to almost 150 students at the college’s recent Academic Awards Banquet and recognized more than 250 students inducted into national honor societies.

Several students also are the recipients of scholarships, fellowships or awards from organizations or foundations outside Berea:

Fulbright Scholarship for 07-08:

Sarah Griffin, a theatre major from Louisville who graduated at mid-year (Dec. ’06), has been awarded a Fulbright Scholarship for 2007-08 to support her study at the Central School of Speech and Drama in London, England.

Thomas J. Watson Fellowship  - senior Fred Rweru, a senior from Kampala, Uganda, has been awarded a 2007 Thomas J. Watson Fellowship for a year of post-graduate independent study and travel outside the United States.  The $25,000 fellowship is one of only 50 awarded nation-wide to students at 50 of America’s top private liberal arts colleges and universities.  Winners, who come from 24 states and eight countries, are selected on the basis of character, leadership potential, willingness to immerse him or her self in new cultures and personal significance of the project proposed.

The fellowship enables the recipient to explore a topic of their own choosing.  Rweru’s focus will be the game of cricket and how it’s played around the world.  His project “Leather, Willow and Empire:  Cricket’s “Mutation” in former British Colonies” will allow Rweru to study how and why the game has uniquely altered or “mutated” in four major cricketing regions of the world, and take him to the United Kingdom, Trinidad and Tobago, Barbados, India and Australia.  Rweru, a former cricket player in his native Uganda, is a physical education major with a concentration in sports medicine.

Rweru is the 26th Berea College student to be a awarded a Watson Fellowship since 1988, when the College first became involved in the program.

Compton Mentor Fellowship and Morris K Udall “Legacy Bus Tour”
Graduating senior Jessica Fagan, a biology and chemistry major from Blacksburg, Va., has been awarded a $35,000 Compton Mentor Fellowship for 07-08 for her project “Girl Scouts and the Environment:  Changing Extracurricular Education to Address Climate Change.”  Fagan was one of only five graduating seniors nationally to receive the fellowship, which funds a year to implement a self-directed project which contributes the recipient’s talents and energy to real-world situations.  At the core of the Fellowship is the partnership between a fellow and a mentor, who provides guidance, encouragement and impetus for continued learning and service.

Over the course of next year, Fagan will work in her home state with the Girl Scouts of Virginia Skyline Council Inc. (GSVSC) to help address the lack of climate-change awareness through youth education, research, idea circulation and program development.  She plans to develop an online resource to summarize existing actions related to climate change by Girl Scouts across the nation through the many local council organizations. She also plans to develop and implement service projects, assemble an educational demonstration library, and implement a new patch program within GSVSC to specifically and directly address climate change issues, an effort she plans to circulate throughout the Scouting organization to influence similar activities.
Jessica’s mentor will be Jean Ann Hughes, chief operations officer of GSVSC.

Morris K Udall “Legacy Bus Tour” – summer 07 – senior Jessica Fagan

Jessica Fagan also will be taking part this summer in the “Morris K Udall Legacy Bus Tour,” which will celebrate the 10th Anniversary of the Morris K Udall Foundation’s educational programs.  Fagan will be one of 14 former Udall Scholarship award-winners from throughout the U.S. to take part in the 54 day, 8,600 mile bus tour, a public service-focused, educational, biodiesel bus tour honoring the former Arizona Congressman’s legacy by highlighting young people nationwide who are finding solutions to America’s environmental and Native American issues.  Fagan has planned Ecology and National Park stops along the route, which will start in Washington, D.C. June 12 and end in Tucson, Ariz. August 4.  During the tour, Fagan will work with disadvantaged children in the national and state parks the tour will visit, teaching the children about the environment through photography activities.  Her position will be as a Natural History, Ecology and Parks Events Coordinator.  The Tour will pass through Kentucky at the end of June.  More info about the bus tour is available at www.udall.gov
Jessica was awarded a $5,000 Udall Scholarship last year, for 2006-07.

2007 Phi Kappa Phi Award of Excellence
Virginia Senkomago, a senior chemistry major from Uganda, has received a 2007 Phi Kappa Phi Award of Excellence.  The award was one of 40 this year the national honor society made to members entering the first year of graduate or professional study.  Each Phi Kappa Phi chapter may select one candidate from among its local applicants to compete for the Society-wide awards.  Founded in 1897 at the University of Maine, Phi Kappa Phi is the nation’s oldest, largest, and most selective honor society for all academic disciplines. Its chapters are on nearly 300 campuses in the United States, Puerto Rico, and the Philippines. Each year, approximately 30,000 members are initiated.

Humanity in Action Summer Fellowship
Berea junior Kateryna Peremanova, a political science major from Ukraine, has been awarded a 2007 Summer Fellowship with Humanity in Action.  She is one of 57 undergraduates from American colleges and universities selected for the 2007 summer programs in Denmark, France, Germany, The Netherlands, Poland and the United States.  In each program, the American students will join university students from Europe for five weeks of intensive study of contemporary minority and human rights issues in the United States and Europe.  Peremanova will be part of the German program, based in Berlin.

BEREA COLLEGE FACULTY AWARDS AND HONORS
Dr. Janice Blythe, associate provost for advising and academic success at Berea College was honored recently as part of the University of Kentucky’s College of Health Sciences 40th anniversary celebration.  Blythe was named as one of the College of Health Sciences’ 40 Outstanding Alumni.
After earning her bachelor’s degree from Eastern Kentucky University, the Lancaster native earned her Masters of Science from the College of Health Sciences in Clinical Nutrition, then went on to earn her Ph.D. at the University of Kentucky’s College of Agriculture in Animal Science and Nutrition.  She began her teaching career in the Dietetics program at EKU. She joined Berea’s faculty in 1986 as Chair of the Department of Child and Family Studies, where she served as chair for 12 years.  At Berea, Blythe holds the rank of Full Professor and has received several honors and recognitions for excellence in teaching, advising, and publishing.  While serving as Associate Provost, she continues to teaches courses in food and nutrition.  In the community, Blythe is active in her church and also involved in several organizations addressing food security and meeting the needs of children and families.  She also is an officer in the Richmond-Madison County Chapter of the NAACP.

Lexington resident Lisa Kriner, associate professor of art at Berea and a fiber artist, has been awarded a fellowship by the Jentel Artist Residency Program.  The fellowship will allow Kriner to spend four weeks this summer focusing on her own creative projects at Jentel’s retreat for artists and writers located on a working cattle ranch near Sheridan, Wyoming.  The fellowship provides accommodation, a small studio and a stipend.

Dr. Billy Wooten, assistant professor in the Department of English, Theatre and Speech Communications at Berea College, was named Outstand New Teacher at the 77th Annual Convention of the Southern States Communication Association, held recently in Louisville.  The Dwight L. Freshley Outstanding New Teacher Award honors association members who have demonstrated teaching excellence early in their careers.  Wooten, a 1998 Berea College alumnus, has been teaching at Berea since 2002.