Twenty-three Boston College students, including 19 graduating seniors and four graduate students, earned Fulbright Grants this year, breaking a University record of 21 awardees set in 2007. Seven other students were selected as alternates for the award, which is sponsored by the U.S. State Department and funds a year of research or teaching in a foreign country. This year’s research topics include “Grassroots effects of the EU structural fund on business development in Hungary” and “Researching the duality of Guatemalan immigrants in Mexico.”

According to Margaret Thomas, a professor in the department of Slavic and Eastern languages and literatures and, since 1997, coordinator of the University’s participation in the undergraduate Fulbright program, the Class of 2009 had great success in earning grants to the Middle East—notably, Israel, Jordan, Kuwait, Oman, and Turkey—which she describes as “a notoriously competitive region” in terms of Fulbrights. Thomas also notes that the range of destinations continues to expand for Boston College Fulbright recipients. In addition to the eight students heading to Germany to teach English, grants will send students to Mexico, India, Nepal, and Taiwan, and to three countries new to Boston College Fulbright scholars: Andorra, Hungary, and Ireland.

—Tim Czerwienski

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