Two New College Students Win Gilman Scholarships

Two New College of Florida students have been awarded prestigious Gilman Scholarships, sponsored by the U.S. Department of State’s Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs.

Madeleine Yount was awarded $5,000 – the maximum award possible – for a proposal to study social justice and sustainable development in rural northeast Brazil. Shana Bergman was awarded $4,500 to study biology, mathematics and chemistry in Norway. Both are third-year students at New College.

With the awards to Yount and Bergman, New College has had 14 Gilman Scholars since 2008. Nationally, only 30 percent of applicants are selected for a Gilman award.

Yount is a first-generation college student from Fort Pierce, Fla., concentrating in international studies with an issue track in development, and has written papers on educational disparities and the Afro-Brazilian culture of northeast Brazil. She plans to study Portuguese (Brazil’s official language) and Brazilian culture, then travel to the region to study agrarian reform and sustainable development, and work in a rural primary school.

Yount is working three campus jobs, as a resident advisor, writing tutor and teaching assistant, to provide the rest of her funds for studying abroad. She also is a teaching volunteer with the Sarasota Ballet’s “Dance – The Next Generation” program for at-risk children.

Bergman, from Plantation, Fla., is studying a combined program of biology, mathematics and chemistry, and her projects include a mathematical modeling of G-protein pathways. She plans to continue those studies at the University of Oslo, while volunteering at an animal shelter and visiting the remote Svalbard Islands to study rare wildlife, including polar bears and arctic foxes.

Bergman is a teaching assistant in the General Chemistry and Ordinary Differential Equations classes, and also is working three jobs to raise additional funds for her study abroad.

The Benjamin A. Gilman International Scholarship Program was created in 2000 to provide scholarships for study abroad to U.S. undergraduates with financial need, including students from diverse backgrounds and students going to non-traditional study abroad destinations. The federally funded program is administered by the Institute of International Education.