Three Centre students win Fulbright Awards

RELEASED: May 10, 2007

DANVILLE, KY—Three Centre seniors have won 2007 Fulbright Awards. The prestigious studying/teaching-abroad award is named for the late Sen. J William Fulbright and is funded by the United States Department of State.

Anna Cable, a senior anthropology and sociology major from Chattanooga, Tenn., will teach and conduct research in Japan for a year. Cable spent her entire sophomore year at Centre studying in Japan, where she lived with a host family.

"I always had an interest in Asia," Cable says. "I think because it's so different. I chose the Japanese program and was really excited because it would be literally around the globe."

Cable has applied to work at a military base in Iwakuni, in Yamaguchi, Japan. She is interested in exploring the relationship between families and couples at the American military base and the surrounding Japanese community.

"I've always been interested in this, especially after talking to a lot of people who have done stints over there in the military with their families, and I've heard of a whole wide variety of experiences—whether they really took an interest in the Japanese culture or whether they tended to stay and live within the base." Cable will leave for Japan in September. After her year in Japan is over, Cable says she is interested in joining the Peace Corps.

"And following that I'd really like to go to grad school. But right now I have such broad interests, and I also want to take some time off from school."

Hillary Eason, a senior English and international relations double major from Johnson City, Tenn., will teach English in Korea for a year.

"I really loved the idea of getting the opportunity to immerse myself in this new language and culture," Eason says. "Also, I was motivated by questions of identity. My father is from Vietnam, so it'll be really interesting to immerse myself in a totally different country that at the same time bears some parallels to my own past."

Eason will be living with a host family during her stay and also hopes to conduct some independent research and work while she is in Korea.

"I have a serious interest in non-profit work, and I'm really interested to see how simple society manifests itself in a different culture and whether or not services and volunteers that exist in the U.S. are universal."

After spending a year in Korea, Eason hopes to return to join the Teach for America Institute and then attend graduate school.

Rachel Tapley, a senior French major from Danville, Ky., will be teaching English in primary school for nine months in Grenoble, a town in the Alps along the border of Italy and Switzerland.

"I'm really looking forward to being able to use what I've learned and also learn more French," Tapley says. "I think it's going to be really fun to teach those kids what I can."

During her years at Centre, Tapley studied abroad twice in France, once for an entire semester and again during CentreTerm, the College's unique three-week January term. She also has served as the editor of Vantage Point, Centre's literary magazine.

"I've always been interested in languages in general, and I think French is beautiful and I've really enjoyed being a French major here at Centre," she says. While at Centre, Tapley has also taken classes in Spanish and Biblical Hebrew. Last summer, Tapley took a two-month intensive Hindi course at the University of Wisconsin.

"The two months I was there was equivalent to a year of studying it normally," she says. "Part of the reason I learn languages is because it's a really good way to go other places and not just as a tourist in a superficial way."

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