Six students at New College of Florida have been awarded prestigious Fulbright grants for 2013 and will study and teach in Germany, Sweden, Taiwan and the Czech Republic.
This year’s recipients are Claire Albiez (Sarasota, Fla.) , Seth Borden (Sarasota, Fla.), Elizabeth Burger (Monroe, N.J.), Rosalia Maier-Katkin (Tallahassee, Fla.), Amelia Nordin (Orange Park, Fla.) and Silvia Ulloa (Bradenton, Fla.).
New College now has 43 Fulbright recipients since 2007 and 75 in its history. The Chronicle of Higher Education ranks New College as one of the top producers of Fulbright scholars, and the College has more Fulbright recipients per student than almost any other college.
Fulbright recipients often go on to significant positions in government, academia and the arts: 44 have received the Nobel Prize, 78 have won the Pulitzer Prize and 10 have been elected to Congress.
Here are snapshots of New College’s Fulbright recipients.
Claire Albiez
Claire Albiez has already built a resume of international experience. She was born in Hong Kong, has dual German-American citizenship, grew up in England and has traveled to Mexico, Italy, Switzerland, the Netherlands, Belgium, France, Spain, Hungary, Poland and the Czech Republic.
She moved to Florida in 2001 and graduated from Pine View School, Florida’s only all-gifted high school, where she was in the first violin section of the chamber orchestra.
At New College, she embraced her heritage, studying German language and history along with art history. She traveled twice to Germany, studying art history and architecture. She also learned about teaching, volunteering at Children First Head Start in Sarasota and at the New College Child Care Center.
The experiences proved to be good preparation. Albiez will teach English in Germany during her Fulbright year, and hopes to go to graduate school for a doctorate in art history, then teach at the undergraduate level.
Seth Borden
Seth Borden has built a record of leadership, public speaking and academic success on the way to his Fulbright grant.
While studying economics and political science at New College, he also has taken four semester of Chinese language. Outside of classes, Borden has served as a resident advisor, chair of a student government allocation committee, a teaching intern at St. Stephens Preparatory School and a reporter with radio station WSRQ. He also trained volunteers as a community organizer for President Obama’s re-election campaign. While attending Pine View School, he also rowed with Sarasota Crew.
Borden will teach English in Taiwan during his Fulbright year, where he also hopes to sharpen his understanding of Chinese language and international relations. He plans to return to the United States and teach before entering graduate school and preparing for a career in foreign policy.
Elizabeth Burger
Elizabeth Burger will teach English in Germany during her Fulbright year, and brings a special talent to the task of teaching language: She sings with New College’s a cappella group, and plans to use song to help students master grammar and pronunciation.
Her Fulbright grant also will allow her to weave together her strong secular and religious interests.
Burger was raised in a Reform Jewish household, attended Jewish day schools, is fluent in Hebrew and currently is president of New College Hillel, which promotes Jewish life on campus. Her studies have concentrated on European history, and German history and language in particular. She envisions pursuing both interests by learning about the growth of Reform Jewish communities in German cities.
On campus, Burger also serves as a resident advisor and a counselor with the admissions office. She plans to attend law school and build a career in international European law.
Rosalia Maier-Katkin
Rosalia Maier-Katkin grew up in a bilingual German-English home, but for her Fulbright year she will teach English in the Czech Republic.
The interest stems from her childhood, when she traveled to the Czech Republic several times. Her father, a Florida State University professor and dean, was working there on a State Department grant to help the country develop its judicial system.
At New College, she has concentrated in International Studies, with a focus on European politics, and has studied in Germany, visited the Balkans and taken classes in German and Russian. During study abroad at the University of Tubingen, she picked up a course in Czech language. She was determined to continue learning the language, so she found a tutor to continue her studies when she returned.
Maier-Katkin hopes to build her Czech skills as she teaches in the city of Plzen, and then study international law for a career with the International Criminal Court or the United Nations.
Amelia Nordin
Amelia Nordin already is a talented musical composer and performer, and her Fulbright research grant will let her expand her New College studies of history and music at the University of Heidelberg and the Theater and Orchestra of Heidelberg.
At New College, she has been a teaching assistant in music theory, a pianist and accompanist, composed two pieces performed in concert series, and interned with Sarasota Opera. Her studies have been in a field known as musicology, in which disciplines such as history, philosophy, psychology and even mathematics are used to analyze music. She also is an advanced-level German speaker.
At Heidelberg, famed for its music program, she plans to examine the political and social influences of foreign music on 18th-century opera. Nordin expects that deeper understanding of German opera will help her with a long-term goal of working in opera management or a doctoral program in musicological business.
Silvia Ulloa
Silvia Ulloa will travel to Sweden under her Fulbright research grant to study resettled Iraqi refugees, an experience she understands on a personal level.
As the daughter of a U.S. Foreign Service family, Ulloa spent her childhood in four countries. The family lived in Saudi Arabia when the second Iraq War began, and had to be evacuated twice. She came away with concern over the plight families face when they flee a war. So during her New College work in anthropology and gender studies, she traveled to Jordan to work with agencies that assist Iraqi refugees.
Her Fulbright grant will allow her to compare the experiences of the Iraqi refugees in Jordan and Sodertalje. The city, near Stockholm, has an established Iraqi community that has taken in more refugees than the entire United States.
She hopes to develop a framework for better meeting the needs of a refugee community, which would prepare her for graduate school in public policy and a career with organizations working in international migration.