By the Numbers
It's a great year for major fellowships at Centre

First Udall Scholar
A strong commitment to protecting the environment earned Bethany Pratt ’10 of Richmond, Ky., a Udall Scholarship. She is the first Udall scholar ever from Centre.

The awards, honoring the late Rep. Morris K. Udall (D.-Ariz.), were announced in April while Pratt was in Merida with the Centre-in-Mexico program.

“I screamed and did a dance when I found out!” she admits.

Growing up on a farm in rural Central Kentucky inspired her love of nature, says Pratt. At Centre she started a pilot vermiculture project (worm composting system) to learn about alternative methods of food- waste disposal at Centre and developed her own major, Environmental Studies: Sustainable Resource Use.
This summer she is collecting and testing water samples from the Upper Cumberland River Watershed in Kentucky for the Appalachian Coal Country Watershed Team in order to determine the health of the headwater streams within the watershed.

But she’s most proud of her work as president of ECCO (Environmentally Conscious Centre Organization) to establish the Green Fund, a $20 comprehensive-fee surcharge that will purchase renewable energy credits from the nearby Mother Ann Lee Hydroelectric Plant. More than 80 percent of students voted in support of the fund, and last October the Centre trustees approved the surcharge, which will go into effect in the fall.

“The green movement at Centre is really hitting its stride,” says Pratt, citing the Green Fund and the LEED certification for Pearl Hall, and she hopes to maintain the momentum next year.
She offers three suggestions for alumni to go green:
1. Support the Green Fund and come up with new creative ways to make our campus greener.
2. Ride a bike or walk to work whenever possible.
3. Enjoy nature and share that love with other people!
“As we have seen, with enough support from alumni and current students, we can certainly do big things on Centre’s campus,” she says.

Eighth Rhodes Scholar
Chase Palisch ’09, a summa cum laude biochemistry and molecular biology graduate from Calvert City, Ky., will use his Rhodes Scholarship to earn a Ph.D. in infection, immunity, and translational medicine. The four-year program at the University of Oxford combines basic science research with clinical applications.
Even before he won the Rhodes, he knew he would be studying at Oxford in the fall, since he had already received a Rotary International Ambassadorial Scholarship to the university. In addition, he was named a Goldwater Scholar last year.

In the last 50 years, more than 70 percent of Rhodes Scholars from Kentucky schools have come from Centre.

Two Rotary Winners
Ben Cooley ’09, a magna cum laude religion major from Batesville, Ind., will spend a year in New Zealand as a Rotary International Ambassadorial Scholar. He plans to earn a Graduate Diploma in Public Health at the University of Auckland, before returning home for medical school.

“The scholarship seemed to fit nicely with my interest in studying public health and my desire for more travel experiences,” says Cooley, who did a CentreTerm trip to Australia and spent a semester in Mexico.
In addition to his public health studies, he will have to brush up on his public speaking skills. Rotary Scholars are required to give 12 speeches while abroad.

“Mostly these are given to Rotary clubs,” he says, “but I can give my speech to just about anyone who will listen.”

Chase Palisch ’09 also won a Rotary award, but turned it down after he was named a Rhodes Scholar (see above).

Centre has had 13 Rotary winners, including seven in the last five years.

Four Fulbrights Include an Alum
The Fulbright Scholar Program extended awards to four from Centre this year, while a Fulbright winner from last year had her grant extended.

Spence Kimball ’09, a summa cum laude international studies and German double major from Fort Thomas, Ky., will spend the year at the Free University of Berlin. He received a Fulbright grant to look at changing perspectives on military intervention in a united Germany.

“The radical changes in the international political landscape have challenged a reunited, resurgent Germany to re-evaluate its traditional aversion to participating in peacekeeping operations,” he says.
Kimball is interested in international law. However, his ultimate career ambition reflects more his writing experience with the Cento and the Danville Advocate-Messenger. He hopes to use law as a foundation for working as an international journalist. His goal is, he admits, “really just an excuse to travel and to learn as many languages as I can.”

Michael Henry ’09, a magna cum laude math and Spanish double major from Maryville, Tenn., will be a teaching assistant in an inner-city high school in Madrid, Spain. He will work with classes in math, social studies, English, technology, “and wherever else I’m needed,” he says. It is a bilingual program, so the classes are taught in English.

“I’m so lucky to have been able to explore the world through Centre’s study abroad program,” says Henry, who did programs in France, Mexico, and Cameroon and traveled through China, where he got to interact with pandas, with another Centre student one summer. “I’m now hooked.”

Jessie Clark ’09, a summa cum laude English major from Louisville, has been recommended for a French Embassy-sponsored teaching assistantship. She will be an English language assistant in the public school system at the Académie de Nantes, in a port city on the west coast of France.

Clark chose a homestay for her earlier studies in Strasbourg, France, and “loved the experience,” she says. “I can’t wait to go back to France. Three months was great, but I felt just as I was starting to get acclimated, we had to leave.”

Lillian Tuttle ’08, who has been studying fish immune systems on a Fulbright in France, received an additional $3,000 travel grant. It was the only extension grant given to an American Fulbrighter this year. The grant will enable her to visit collaborating labs throughout the country.

In addition, Ross Lovely ’04 won a Fulbright to study polar law in Iceland, but decided to turn it down in favor of starting a Ph.D. program in chemistry at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. A philosophy major at Centre, he earned an M.A. in diplomacy and international commerce and a J.D., both at the University of Kentucky, but denies being a permanent student.

“I do have a plan and a goal,” he says. Chemistry offers the opportunity “to study and solve whatever your creativity will allow. Ultimately, I want to wind up at a place like Centre, teaching, creating, and thinking for a living.”

Created by Congress in 1946, the Fulbright Program is the U.S. government’s premier scholarship program, designed to foster mutual understanding among nations.

Centre has had 40 Fulbright winners since 1991, when Harry Landreth, then the campus Fulbright advisor as well as an economics professor, worked with Dana Bland (now Cowlishaw) ’91 on her successful application. A German major at Centre, Cowlishaw spent her Fulbright year as an English language teaching assistant at a high school in Tubingen, Germany.

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