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2006 Centre grad wins Fulbright to South Korea
RELEASED: May 25, 2006
DANVILLE, KY—Jenny Anderson '06 has successfully navigated four years of college, graduating magna cum laude on Sunday, May 21. In July she will set off on a new challenge: 13 months in South Korea on a Fulbright teaching fellowship.
After six weeks of orientation to the language and culture at Kangwon National University in the provincial capital of Chuncheon, she will learn where she'll spend the rest of her Fulbright year. She will be teaching conversation English and American culture to either middle or high school students and living with a Korean family.
Although she does not speak any Korean (at Centre, she studied Spanish and Biblical Hebrew), she chose Korea because "it's such a different culture" from what she grew up with in Nashville, Tenn.
"I'm scared and nervous, but I'm also very excited," she says. "It will be a life-altering experience."
As a religion major, she's especially interested in the country as the "intersection of Confucianism and Buddhism." And as a government minor, she's looking forward to exploring the idea of a civil religion and seeing such public celebrations as the lantern festival in honor of Buddha's birthday.
"South Korea is about the size of Indiana," she notes, "so hopefully I will be able to see most of the country and many of the temples."
She is also eager to learn first hand the Asian perspective of the United States.
"East Asia, especially China, is going to be the powerhouse in the world soon enough," she says. "It will be good to have a better grasp on what that perspective is."
Anderson has some experience of other countries, having spent at term with Centre's program in London, England. She has also traveled in Spain and several other European countries. (More than 80 percent of Centre students study abroad one or more times during their four years at the College.)
At Centre, she was president of the Mock Trial team, which enjoyed regional success last year. She did an internship with the Tennessee Justice Project last summer, working with director Bill Redick '65 on death row cases, and was also an intern on Capital Hill. After her Fulbright year, she plans to return to her interest in government, with law school a likely possibility.
She is the 27th Fulbright winner from Centre since 1991, and the second to take a Fulbright to South Korea (following Leann Dikes '02 in 2002-03).
Congress established the Fulbright program in 1946, sponsored by Sen. William Fulbright (D-Ark.), to "foster mutual understanding among nations through educational and cultural exchanges." The first scholars went in 1948. The program gives recent graduates the chance to study and/or teach English in one of 140 countries.
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