News Archives

For the third time in the college’s history and the third consecutive year, SUNY Geneseo has been named a Top Producer of U.S. Student Fulbright awards, the State Department’s Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs announced in its annual article in The Chronicle of Higher Education.

History majors Isabel Owen ’19 and Catherine Shields ’19 have won 2019–20 U.S. Student Fulbright awards for Brazil and Turkey, respectively. They will serve as English Teaching Assistants in a university or post-secondary institution for a year. The grants cap off a record-breaking year for Geneseo Fulbrights with seven awards and 12 semifinalists.

Annie Renaud ’19, from Glastonbury, CT, has won a 2019–20 U.S Student Fulbright award for Russia, where she will work as an English Teaching Assistant at a university or post-secondary institution. The award is the culmination of Renaud’s five-year journey with mentor Cynthia Klima, an associate professor of German at Geneseo.

Lorenzo Rodriguez ’19, from Jamestown, NY, has won a U.S. Student Fulbright Research Grant for Bulgaria for 2019–20. An anthropology major with an emphasis in sociomedical science, he will research the ways in which funding and staffing challenges within health care facilities impact local communities.

Geneseo alumna Janine Rossi ’18 and Kelsey Kwandrans ’19 have won 2019–20 U.S. Student Fulbright awards to Uruguay and Spain respectively. Rossi and Kwandrans become the 28th and 29th Geneseo student or alumni to win a U.S. Student Fulbright award.

Leah Christman '19. an English literature and Honors Program major, has won a 2019–20 U.S. Student Fulbright award. She will serve as a Fulbright-Nehru English Teaching Assistant (ETA) in either a middle or secondary school in a community in India.

Leandra Marie Griffith ’16, a 2018-19 U.S. Student Fulbright English Teaching Assistant, provided a group of Belgian university students who were keen to learn more about the American political system, with a discussion on civics during last year's mid-term elections.

For the second time in the College’s history, SUNY Geneseo has been named a Top Producer of U.S. Student Fulbright awards, the State Department’s Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs has announced in its annual article in The Chronicle of Higher Education.

As a Fulbright English Teaching Assistant in Malaysia, Kate Dunn '15 is living her dream of becoming a global citizen and helping build positive relationships among nations.

Two SUNY Geneseo faculty members have received highly competitive Fulbright Awards for the Spring 2019 semester. Denise Scott, professor of sociology, will conduct research at the H.N.B. Garhwal University in Srinagar, India, and Jun Okada, associate professor of English, will teach and conduct research at the Escola Superior de Teatro e Cinema, Instituto Politécnico de Lisboa, in Lisbon, Portugal.

Aspiring film producer Shauna Ricketts ’18 fell in love with the art and educational power of documentaries while studying abroad during the spring 2017 semester in Southeast Asia at Thailand’s Mahidol University. Ricketts will have an opportunity to continue her cultural education abroad in September when she begins her year as a 2018-19 U.S. Student Fulbright English Teaching Assistant (ETA) in Bulgaria.

For Sarah Phillips ’18, winning a U.S. Student Fulbright award to Colombia as an English Teaching Assistant (ETA) means infinitely more than just being given the opportunity to represent her country, travel, and teach. She will have a chance to share the gift of potentially life-changing language abilities that so many of the world’s citizens are never afforded.

A few weeks into her 2017 study abroad semester in Córdoba, Amanda Langan’s Argentine friend Pilar Herrera asked a tricky but familiar question, “¿Por qué todos los estadounidenses se llaman americanos?,” which roughly means, “Why do all ‘unitedstates-ians’ call themselves Americans?”

When asked to explain what winning a 2018-19 U.S. Student Fulbright English Teaching Assistant (ETA) award to Uruguay means to her, Sarah Simon ’17 replies in Spanish, “No fue el pez el que descubrió el agua” or “It wasn't the fish that discovered water.” This maxim has guided her journey since Geneseo.

SUNY Geneseo alumnus Matthew McClure ’16 is among Geneseo’s latest 2018-19 U.S. Student Fulbright award winners. McClure won an award as an English Teaching Assistant (ETA) for South Korea. Simon’s award is for Uruguay. Sarah Phillips ’18 also has been notified that she is an alternate candidate for Colombia.

Alumna Leandra Marie Griffith ’16 has won a 2018-19 U.S. Student Fulbright English Teaching Assistant (ETA) award for Belgium.

SUNY Geneseo is experiencing a banner year for Fulbright Awards with the selection of a record four honorees – three grant recipients and one alternate – from six Geneseo applications. All recipients received English teaching assistantships (ETA) and will be teaching English part-time to non-native English-speakers, while also completing projects of the own part-time and serving as cultural ambassadors for the United States.

SUNY Geneseo Professor of Education Leigh O’Brien has won a prestigious Fulbright Scholar grant to teach and conduct research at the University of Iceland in Reykjavik during the fall 2015 semester.