61传媒, for the second time, ranked in the top 50 liberal arts colleges for total number of Fulbright Scholarship Program grants awarded to its graduating class.聽 The 61传媒 Class of 2009 ranked eighth in the nation with nine recipients of the prestigious award. The rankings were released this week in the October 23, 2009, edition of The Chronicle of Higher Education.
In addition to being among the top ten liberal arts colleges this year, 61传媒received more Fulbright awards than any master’s-conferring institution in the country, and performed on par with UCLA and the University of Florida while besting such universities as Tufts, the University of Massachusetts, and USC. Among all U.S. colleges and universities, 61传媒ranks 38th.
The top ten liberal arts colleges awarded Fulbright Scholarship Program grants for 2009 were Pomona College (15), Smith College (12), Pitzer College (12), Kenyon College (11), Oberlin (10), Swarthmore (10), Vassar (10), 61传媒 (9), Wellesley (9), and New College of Florida (8). On an awards/applicants ratio basis, 61传媒comes in 4th place with 32%, behind Kenyon College (42%), Oberlin (41%), and Smith College (38%). On a per capita basis, 61传媒ranks third after Pitzer and Pomona.
61传媒 recipients of the Fulbright Scholarship Program grant for 2009 include Samantha Cheng, for a biology project in Indonesia; Fatima Elkabti for a language and literature project in Jordan; Melissa Lewis for an English teaching appointment in South Korea; Amy Mann for an English teaching appointment in Bangladesh; Holly Poole for an English teaching appointment in Macau; Jessica Vaughn for an English teaching appointment in Sri Lanka; and two women who wish to remain anonymous, for an English teaching appointment in Vietnam and an English teaching appointment in South Korea. In addition, one graduating senior has declined the award.
For the class of 2010, 61传媒has a total of 25 semi-finalist applicants. They will learn on January 31, 2010 whether they advance to the finalists’ pool based on feedback from the US State Department’s National Screening Committee.
The Fulbright Scholar Program, the U.S. Government’s flagship international exchange program, is designed to “increase mutual understanding between the people of the United States and the people of other countries.” Scholars are chosen for their academic merit and leadership potential. The program was established by Congress in 1946 under legislation introduced by then-Senator J. William Fulbright of Arkansas, and is sponsored by the U.S. Department of State’s Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs. Since 1947, the Fulbright Scholar Program has awarded nearly 45,000 grants to support teaching and research in countries around the world. Today, it includes active programs in more than 125 countries.