{"id":6661,"date":"2016-12-19T13:15:00","date_gmt":"2016-12-19T13:15:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/160-news\/2016\/12\/seven-juniors-receive-gilman-scholarship\/"},"modified":"2026-02-27T21:44:03","modified_gmt":"2026-02-27T21:44:03","slug":"seven-juniors-receive-gilman-scholarship","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/news\/2016\/12\/seven-juniors-receive-gilman-scholarship\/","title":{"rendered":"Seven Juniors Receive Gilman Scholarship"},"content":{"rendered":"

St. Paul, Minn. \u2013 <\/strong>Seven juniors have received the Benjamin A. Gilman International Scholarship<\/a> sponsored by the U.S. Department of State\u2019s Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs to study or intern abroad during the spring 2017 term.  They are: Sariyya Atasoy<\/strong> from McLean, Va., Cecilia Caro <\/strong>from Iliff, Colo., Ayaan Natala<\/strong> from St. Paul, Minn., Samia Osman<\/strong> from Minneapolis, Minn., Jordana Palmer<\/strong> from Margate, Fla., Chesterfield Polkey <\/strong>from Jacksonville, Fla., and Kristen Tuttle<\/strong> from Fort Gratiot, Mich.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

They represent seven of over 850 American undergraduate students from 359 colleges and universities across the U.S. selected to receive the prestigious Benjamin A. Gilman International Scholarship.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Gilman scholars receive up to $5,000 to apply towards their study abroad or internship program costs.  The program offers grants for U.S. citizen undergraduate students of limited financial means to pursue academic studies or credit-bearing, career-oriented internships abroad. Such international exchange is intended to better prepare U.S. students to thrive in the global economy and interdependent world. Scholarship recipients have the opportunity to gain a better understanding of other cultures, countries, languages, and economies — making them better prepared to assume leadership roles within government and the private sector.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Atasoy<\/strong> said receiving the Gilman means \u201chaving an opportunity to immerse myself in the study of the language and culture that I wouldn’t have had otherwise.\u201d  She will be going to Shanghai, China, where she\u2019ll be taking both language intensive and economics courses. \u201cSince this is my first time visiting China, I’m planning on travelling around the country, visiting both large cities as well as more rural areas,\u201d Atasoy said. She has not settled on what she\u2019ll do after Macalester but knows she wants to combine languages and travel in her future.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For Caro, <\/strong>receiving the Gilman has made the opportunity to study away, a reality.  \u201cThis scholarship is not only aiding me financially,\u201d she said, \u201cbut validating the need for different perspectives to be centered, shared, challenged, learned from, and built upon.\u201d She will be in Cochabamba, Bolivia, taking classes that focus on the critical global issues of identity, globalization, and resilience as they pertain to an ethnically diverse country like Bolivia and, she\u2019ll be completing an independent study project looking into the social, cultural, and political impact of indigenous communities on multiculturalism in Bolivian education. Caro will be travelling to learn about other communities within the country and looks forward to engaging with and nuancing what \u201cmy Latinx identity means in the context of Latin America.\u201d After Macalester, she plans to pursue a Master’s degree in education.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For Natala, <\/strong>the Gilman allows her to reach her personal and career goals abroad. She will be at the University of Cape Town in South Africa where she will take history and philosophy classes, conduct an independent research project related to her Honors topic, start a blog, study for the GRE, and connect with UCT Mellon Mays Undergraduate Fellows. What will she do after Macalester? \u201cAs a Mellon Fellow, I am currently researching grad school programs and mentors to help me with that process,\u201d Natala said. \u201cHowever, I will take a gap year to work on art and social justice projects in the Twin Cities before I go back into academia.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Osman\u2019s<\/strong> program is in Rabat, Morocco, and focuses on the impact of transnational migration and it\u2019s influence on personal identities and culture. \u201cWith this research,\u201d she said, \u201cI hope to be able to understand how the forced migration of groups of people, especially refugees, alters their understanding of who they are and their perceived sense of home.\u201d She also wants to improve her Arabic so she can interact on a more personal level with her research participants and get a more nuanced view of their reality. Osman is planning on law school to \u201cfurther study the legal side of much of what I learned from my Human Rights and Humanitarianism Concentration at Macalester.\u201d But after graduation, she will conduct further research on the identity of refugees and \u201ccontinue to make efforts to understand what is currently a significant part of global politics and the human rights regime.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Palmer, <\/strong>who will be in Shanghai, China, sees the Gilman as an opportunity to be able to travel and study internationally. She will be studying political science and sociology as well as taking Mandarin Chinese classes. During her time abroad, she said she looks forward to \u201ctravelling to different cities, interacting with the locals and explore Chinese culture.\u201d Once she graduates from Macalester and before she applies to graduate school, she would like to intern at a think tank in DC or work with an international non-profit within Asia.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Polkey<\/strong> will be going to Senegal where, for the first seven weeks of his program, he will be taking courses all taught in French. \u201cThe classes will center specifically around international development,\u201d he said. \u201cDuring the last six weeks, I will be interning with an NGO where I\u2019ll learn about the ways the Senegalese are combatting poverty in their country.\u201d After graduating from Macalester, Polkey plans to work as a researcher at a public policy and advocacy institute. From there, he hopes to earn a joint PhD in public policy and sociology. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Tuttle<\/strong> said receiving the Gilman is a huge honor. \u201cThe Gilman program connects so many students who are planning to study away or who have previously studied away,\u201d Tuttle said, \u201cand already I can see how helpful this network is. I’m honored to be a part of it.\u201d She will be studying abroad in Belo Horizonte, Brazil, where she plans to direct-enroll in the university (Pontifical Catholic University of Minas Gerais) and work at an internship. Tuttle is a Hispanic Studies and Educational Studies double major, and after Macalester, she wants to teach, preferably in an elementary school.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

They represent seven of over 850 American undergraduate students from 359 colleges and universities across the U.S.<\/p>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":6662,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6661","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-college-newswire","mediatype-articles"],"acf":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"fields":{"square_thumbnail":{"ID":6663,"id":6663,"title":"Seven Juniors Receive Gilman Scholarship","filename":"gilman600.jpg","filesize":45684,"url":"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/653\/2017\/01\/gilman600.jpg","link":"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/news\/2016\/12\/seven-juniors-receive-gilman-scholarship\/seven-juniors-receive-gilman-scholarship-3\/","alt":"","author":"1","description":"","caption":"","name":"seven-juniors-receive-gilman-scholarship-3","status":"inherit","uploaded_to":6661,"date":"2016-12-19 13:15:00","modified":"2016-12-19 13:15:00","menu_order":0,"mime_type":"image\/jpeg","type":"image","subtype":"jpeg","icon":"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/news\/wp-includes\/images\/media\/default.png","width":600,"height":600,"sizes":{"thumbnail":"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/653\/2017\/01\/gilman600-150x150.jpg","thumbnail-width":150,"thumbnail-height":150,"medium":"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/653\/2017\/01\/gilman600-300x300.jpg","medium-width":300,"medium-height":300,"medium_large":"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/653\/2017\/01\/gilman600.jpg","medium_large-width":600,"medium_large-height":600,"large":"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/653\/2017\/01\/gilman600.jpg","large-width":600,"large-height":600,"1536x1536":"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/653\/2017\/01\/gilman600.jpg","1536x1536-width":600,"1536x1536-height":600,"2048x2048":"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/653\/2017\/01\/gilman600.jpg","2048x2048-width":600,"2048x2048-height":600}},"main_feature_story":"","custom_image":false,"custom_link_url":"","custom_feature_title":"","custom_feature_caption":"","custom_markup":"","custom_markup_link":"","custom_markup_title":"","custom_markup_caption":"","byline":"","article_type":[8],"post_thumbnail_style":"default","flickr_photoset_id":"","youtube_id":"","press_downloads":false,"press_photos":false,"story_title":"","story_caption":"","rotations":false,"maps":false,"marker_title":"","marker_text":"","geographic_location":false,"feature_embed":"","news_icon_name":"","image_options":false},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6661","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6661"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6661\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":30569,"href":"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6661\/revisions\/30569"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6662"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6661"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6661"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6661"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}