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Smith Scholars Win Big with Fellowships

Smith undergraduates and alumnae set new records in 2003 with the number of prestigious scholarly prizes they captured in fellowship competitions. The fellowships, announced in the spring as the semester was nearing completion, reached an unprecedented total of 32, including a Smith record of eight Fulbrights, three DAAD fellowships for alumnae and one DAAD for an undergraduate, as well as several Smith firsts -- among them the selection of a Smith student as a Goldman Sachs Global Leader and the awarding of a Rotary World Peace Scholarship to a Smith alumna.

Congratulating the winners, President Carol T. Christ said, "Your success both enriches you, in providing means and opportunity to study, and enriches the college. It demonstrates in the judgment of people outside the college what we know inside -- the extraordinary quality of our students and the excellence of a Smith education. Wherever you pursue your studies, I hope that the things you have learned at Smith continue to enrich your life."

The Rotary World Peace Scholarship went to Electra Gorski '99, who is the first Smith alumna known to have received this award. She will use it to complete a master's in public administration in Tokyo, Japan.

Other Smith winners were Heather Dyson and Eva LaDow, both rising seniors, who were among 250 undergraduates nationwide to receive scholarships for the 2003-04 academic year from the Barry M. Goldwater Scholarship and Excellence in Education Foundation. The scholarship is intended to encourage excellence in science and mathematics. Dyson, a math major, plans to pursue a doctorate in theoretical mathematics. LaDow, a neuroscience major, plans a doctorate in pharmacology.

The fellowships and grants program of the Office of International Study guides students through the application process. Professors and administration mentors volunteer as fellowship mentors. When Carrie Gaiser '03J -- an Ada Comstock Program Scholar, religion major and former professional ballet dancer -- won the Andrew W. Mellon Fellowship in Humanistic Studies, she commended her on-campus Smith mentors.

"I want to say how grateful I am to Justina Gregory, my Mellon faculty mentor, and to Don Andrew, the director of fellowships and grants, and to all the faculty of the religion department, who have all supported me in ways too numerous to list," Gaiser wrote in an e-mail. She enters a doctoral program in performance studies at the University of California, Berkeley, this fall.

Smith sophomore Lauren Wolfe, too, said it was the Smith community that steered her toward winning the competitive Goldman Sachs Global Leader award. She is the first Smith student ever to win this distinction and one of 20 undergraduates nationwide selected for the award and participation in a program that trains university students for global leadership roles. "The Smith community fosters the ability for women to pursue their goals," she said. "If I did not live in such an amazingly supportive community, I do not believe that I would ever have been able to achieve what I have."

Students interested in fellowships ideally begin the pursuit in February each year. For more information, visit www.smith.edu/fellowships.

2003-04 Fellowship Recipients