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Meet
This Year's Global Stride Fellows
By
Hélène Visentin, associate professor of French studies and
faculty mentor for Global Stride fellows
Now in its third year, the
Global Stride program has again brought together six wonderful
first-year students, ready for challenge.
The
STRIDE (Student Research in Departments) program teams high-achieving
first-year students with faculty members in a two-year paid
research assistantship. The Global Stride program offers
the opportunity for the fellows to apply their STRIDE stipend
to study abroad or take an intensive language program during
the summer between their first and second years at Smith.
This year’s Global
Stride fellows—Zoë Falk, Kimberly Fong, Marichuy Gomez, Adrienne
Horne, Katie Paulson-Smith, and Chelsea Villareal— have in
common the eagerness to make their college education meaningful
in a global society and to diversify their curriculum through
foreign language study and field courses that offer new perspectives
on the world. In addition, they enjoy sharing knowledge during
our weekly meetings, and having the space to think critically
about the process of learning a foreign language and studying
abroad. As part of their Global Stride scholarship, each
of the six fellows interviewed and profiled international
students in the college’s
graduate program in American Studies, to help familiarize
them with people who have made cultural transitions and exchange
ideas about culture shock. The Gate will feature
their profiles in the coming months.
 Mostly acquainted with Romance
languages (French, Spanish, and Latin), Adrienne
Horne decided
to study Chinese at Smith not only to try something completely
different, but also because she is interested in China's
position toward engineering sustainability. Currently enrolled
in Engineering 100, Horne enjoys studying engineering
at a women’s college (her high
school engineering class was all guys and
her, she describes) because
she feels more confident, and she already plans to major
in this field. Down the road, she wants to bring
together her love for languages and cultures and her engineering
aspirations by working for Engineers Without Borders. During
her sophomore year in high school, she traveled to Italy
with her Latin class, and after graduation she went to France
on a school trip with her French class. Although these
were only short trips, Adrienne was amazed at how much
it opened her mind. "I knew it [a different
world] was out there,” she
says, “but until you see it, it's not really concrete, real,
you don't fully believe it. It's in the back of your mind." Because
her focus on engineering won't give her much time to take
classes about world cultures, Adrienne enjoys
being part of the Global Stride program for its potential
to round out her academic program.
 As a second generation Chinese-American,
Kimberly Fong is deepening her pride in
her cultural heritage through the study of Chinese, which
she began six years ago and is continuing
at Smith. In summer 2009, she attended Mandarin immersion
classes at Beijing Capital Normal University. "It was so
powerful to live in a country in such an amazing
state of rapid transformation,”
she says. "During her stay, she
visited five different cities, which allowed her to witness
the cultural differences among Chinese people, and she made
a point to take every opportunity to interact with as many
people as possible to learn more about the country and hear
some of their views on the United States. Over all, Fong’s
stay in China was a transformative experience that made
her more interested in global issues and in U.S.-China
relations. One of her first
priorities at Smith was to enroll in an economics course. "If
you want to understand how the world works, you have to take
economics," she
notes. Fong also plans in the near future to fulfill her
love for painting by taking an art history course. "It's
fascinating to see how art can reflect society," she
says, mentioning the influential work of artist Jackson Pollock.
At Smith, where she attends on a regular basis a variety
of conferences and public lectures, Fong
tries to make every day meaningful, hoping that some day
she will be in a position to make a contribution to the world. "For
now, there is no other place for me," she states
with a satisfied smile.
 Born in Los Angeles
but raised in a little Mexican town, Villa Hidalgo, until
age 14, when her parents decided to
return with their family to the United
States, Marichuy Gomez is not sure of her
own identity. She does not feel Mexican, she says, nor
American. But she is sure of two things: on one hand,
she knows there are many ways of living
in this world; on the other hand, living in the U.S.
at this stage of her life offers her more opportunities for
higher education and bigger career aspirations.
In this regard, she feels lucky
compared with her friends in Villa Hidalgo, who
do not have the same educational opportunities, and is highly
motivated to succeed. When she
started learning English four years ago upon her return to
her place of birth, she realized how much she likes foreign
languages and decided to study other languages in
college. She has in mind to learn Portuguese and French
at some point, but for now is taking an intensive introductory
Italian course, as she would like to study the rich cultural
history of Italy during her JYA in Florence. Also, taking
a course this semester on the history of Latin America in
the colonial times opens up new avenues for Marichuy. Contrary
to her expectations, she’s considing
majoring in history and would be interested in researching
the way we teach Mexican history in Mexico and in the U.S.
in order to compare the two perspectives. It may be an excellent
way for her to better understand her identity.
 Katie Paulson-Smith likes
to push her limits, and feels challenged in a good way at
Smith. She is already involved in several student
organizations (e.g., Students for Social Justice and Institutional
Change, the Smith College Model United Nations, and Spirituality
in Action) and she is part of the cross-country team.
She arrives on campus with a goal of trying new
things,
she says, so she put aside for a while her interest
in environmental studies to explore different fields, such
as anthropology, English literature (through a first-year
seminar on Shakespeare), and Swahili (through a mentored
program offered by the Five College Center for the Study
of World Language). Studying Swahili, which is spoken in
Tanzania, Kenya, Uganda and the democratic Republic of Congo,
allows her to envision a trip to the eastern part of Africa
for her Global Stride summer study abroad in 2011 in order
to immerse herself in the language and undertake either community
work or an internship. As an active citizen and someone passionate
about saving the earth, Paulson-Smith feels she has
the responsibility to make a difference and take action for
making a better world. Last December, she was fortunate enough
to attend the United Nations Convention on Climate Change
in Copenhaguen, Demark, as an accredited observer, and she
hopes to have the chance to take part in this kind
of global initiative while studying at Smith.
 For Chelsea
Villareal, Northampton
was no secret as she grew up near Westfield,
Mass. Although she is happy to be close to home while studying
at Smith, she is eager to explore the world, and
traveling abroad to experience different cultures is among
her life goals. It is the main reason she was interested
in the Global Stride program. After studying French and
Spanish in high school, she planned to learn
a new foreign language in college, and Arabic was
her first choice. "The first time
I was interested in learning Arabic, it was during my second
year of French when the instructor was away and a substitute
teacher in French and Arabic shared with us her passion for
Arabic culture and language,” recalls Villareal. To
deepen her understanding of Islamic culture,
she is taking a history course, "The
Making of the Modern Middle East," as
well as religion class. Villareal wants
to combine her interest in Middle East studies and psychology
by studying behavior analysis because she aspires to work
in the field of counter-terrorism with suspected criminals.
This summer, she plans to pursue the study of Arabic in Jordan,
where she plans to immerse
herself in the culture she has been studying in the classroom.
To reach this goal, she is in the process of applying to
the Critical Language Scholarship (CLS) Program, funded by
the U.S. Department of State.
 Coming from a very liberal school
located in a tiny town in New Hampshire, where she felt she
was at the top of her game, Zoë Falk is
happy to be challenged at Smith and to live in a diverse
environment. She also feels that she is at the right place
because of the open curriculum at Smith, which allows her
to fulfill her interest in science and other fields while
pursuing her love for French culture and language. The
summer before her junior year in high school Falk spent
three months in Switzerland and France as a nanny to three
Swiss children. "Going abroad
by myself was the best experience of my life, " she declares
enthusiastically. She had the opportunity to speak French
on a daily basis, and came to realize that what she learned
in the language lab was not necessarily the way local
people spoke. "I
used to say to the children I was in charge of, 'Allons-y'
when we were ready to go out,” she
explains. “But they were laughing at me saying, 'On dit “On
y va,” pas “Allons-y!"'" Zoë's
ideal career goal would be to combine her double interest
in French and medicine and go to a French-speaking African
country with Doctors Without Borders. While at Smith, she
wants to master the French language and gain knowledge of
current affairs in France. For this reason, she feels
that the Global Stride program is a good fit and will offer
her various opportunities for studying abroad.
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