Geneseo has been recognized for three consecutive years at the Fulbright awards of almost 750 colleges and universities. The Fulbright awards recognize institutions with scholarship funds that allow graduate students to research, study and teach in foreign countries (Xavier Delcid/Photo Editor).
For the third year in a row, and third time in the institution’s history, Geneseo has been given the distinction as one of the Top Producers of U.S. Student Fulbright awards.
Geneseo ranked third out of 742 institutions in the master’s degree institutions division, one award shy from the second-place winner, Loyola University Maryland and eight behind James Madison University. Geneseo was the only SUNY school recognized with this achievement.
The Fulbright scholarship is a scholarship that enables students who graduate from school to research, study and teach in foreign countries. These students are immersed in the culture of their host country, allowing them to interact within the communities and become engaged in a new environment.
For the 2019-2020 cycle, Geneseo saw seven out of its 19 applicants win awards. The awards include grants to cover living expenses in the countries that students will be living in.
Director of National Fellowships and Scholarships Michael Mills said that the one-year program covers a great amount of a student’s living expenses.
“I like to call it ‘all but souvenirs expenses’ because pretty much everything is paid for during the year,” Mills said.
Winners can expect to have their round-trip expenses and room and board expenses paid for, as well as other benefits such as a 24/7 hotline for urgent and nonurgent situations. Along with these, grants in various countries can include full or partial tuition, language study programs and book and research allowances.
Considering the student’s desire to leave the United States and immerse themselves in foreign culture, Mills said that the program is not purely academic. Rather, it is also an ambassadorship program with students representing the United States and its values abroad.
“It is a one-year program and not only is it scholar based, but it is also an ambassadorship program,” Mill said. “You are representing the United States as an ambassador of the country.”
After this recent crop of winners, Geneseo has now had 33 recipients of this award dating back to 1985. According to Mills, Geneseo’s success regarding both student success in achieving their individual awards and institutional success in being nationally recognized can be attributed to the fact that Geneseo students are multifaceted.
“I think one of the things that I enjoy about Geneseo is the fact that Geneseo students tend not to be one or two things, but three or four things. They’re multilayered and they have many interests,” Mills said. “The fact that nearly half of our students study abroad means that they have international experiences and they see themselves as citizens.”
Mills said that in addition to Geneseo’s multifaceted students, Geneseo’s small size also helps students when applying for scholarships.
“The relationship with faculty a lot of times are what make it,” Mills said. “Almost all of these Fulbrights come from ‘my Spanish teacher was working with the immigrant communities and so I got involved with the Together Program and I was working with immigrant families or kids in school. I want to go to Columbia and teach English there or Ecuador.’”
Thus far, Geneseo has continued its recent success with 17 semi-finalists coming from 36 applicants. Previously, the greatest number of semi-finalists in a given cycle was 12.
Mills said that the culture at Geneseo sets up students to find success in pursuit of the scholarship.
“These are very competitive programs and Geneseo does it because that’s what Geneseo is, the kind of place where students are successful in applying for major scholarships and fellowships because of who they are and what the school is,” Mills said.
The newest group of semi-finalists will discover their measure of success in March.