Berea College Kelly Cutchin, a May 2004 graduate, has been awarded a Thomas J. Watson Fellowship for a year of post-graduate independent study and travel outside the United States.

The $22,000 fellowship is one of 50 fellowshipsawarded nation-wide to students at 50 of America's top private liberal arts colleges and universities. Winners 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 choosing. During her year-long project, Cutchin will study traditional buildings around the world and their application to modern ecological design and construction.

Ecological design emphasizes working with nature to create buildings and landscapes that are responsive to the local environment, energy efficient and healthy, maximize the use of local and natural construction materials and minimize a building’s impact on the natural environment. Traveling to Turkey, Tunisia, South Africa, Japan and Italy, Cutchin will study a wide variety of traditional buildings and also take part in modern construction projects using natural materials in each country.

At Berea, where she double majoried in German and Sustainability and
Environmental Studies with an emphasis in ecological design, Cutchin has been involved with many of the College’s efforts to both teach and practice sustainability. She helped design and build the information kiosk and SENS demonstration house in the College’s new Ecovillage, where she was a resident this spring, studied ecological design in courses in California, Arizona and Mexico and has led several natural building workshops on campus.

Following her year of independent study, Cutchin plans to continue studying natural building techniques in the United States and ultimately to start a natural building school and resource center in Maine.

The Watson Foundation is a charitable trust founded in 1961 by the widow of Thomas J. Watson Sr., to honor her husband, the founder of IBM. In 1968, their children established the fellowship program in recognition of their parents' longstanding interest in education and world affairs.

Cutchin is the 22nd Berea College student to be awarded a Watson Fellowship since 1988, when the College first became involved in the program.