Linfield College senior Erin Carson of Vancouver, Wash., and 2014 graduate Breanna Ribeiro of Hines have been offered Fulbright grants to teach and study abroad.
Carson, an international relations major and Chinese studies minor, will be an English teaching assistant in Taiwan. Carson has long been fascinated by Mandarin and East Asian history, politics and culture, and studied abroad in China during her junior year at Linfield. Her passion drove her to apply for a Fulbright grant.
“My experience with mainland Chinese culture may prove to be of little use in a Taiwanese community,” Carson said. “But my philosophy on living abroad mirrors my developing philosophy as an English teacher: cultural and linguistic fluency must go hand in hand.”
In addition to her studies, Carson has been active at Linfield as the student director of Language in Motion and a member of the Linfield softball team, which recently placed third in the NCAA Division III national tournament. While abroad, she hopes to work with youth and the community to connect through sports.
“Baseball and softball are popular in Taiwan,” Carson said. “Since I have experience teaching the sport of softball, this would be an amazing experience to overlap my academic and athletic passions.”
Upon returning to the U.S., Carson plans to study Mandarin and East Asian history, politics and culture in graduate school. She hopes to continue researching and teaching at a high school or university level.
After earning a degree in religious studies from Linfield, Ribeiro spent four months in Georgia, Eastern Europe, teaching English through the Ministry of Education of Georgia’s Teach and Learn with Georgia Organization. During her time there, she co-taught English language classes to first through ninth grades and organized an English Club.
As a Fulbright scholar, she will spend the next year teaching English, this time to university students in Rwanda. She also plans to volunteer with Shalom Educating for Peace (SEP), a Rwanda-based nonprofit that focuses on teaching cooperation and teamwork through sports. She hopes her experience playing basketball at Linfield and interest in peace-building techniques will be useful to this nonprofit.
At Linfield, Ribeiro was co-founder and president of the Students Advocating for Gender Equality Club, vice president of risk management for Alpha Phi Sorority, student coordinator for PLACE (Program for Liberal Arts and Community Engagement) and more. She also conducted research with Dawn Nowacki, professor of political science, analyzing patterns of violence against women in Middle Eastern and North African countries during times of political upheaval.
Ribeiro’s research into peace-building after conflict helped her decide that Rwanda was the best location for her to expand her experience abroad and gain additional experience teaching.
“Teaching in Rwanda will strengthen my ability to exchange ideas and consider diverse viewpoints, enhance my awareness of global interconnectivity and give me the opportunity to make English more accessible for Rwandan students to progress their own passions,” Ribeiro said.
After returning from Rwanda, she hopes to attend graduate school in sociology with concentrations in gender, political sociology and post-conflict state-building in Sub-Saharan Africa. In doing so, she hopes she will enter a career in academia.
The Fulbright Program is the flagship international educational exchange program sponsored by the U.S. government. The program promotes mutual understanding between the people of the United States and other countries. Recipients of Fulbright grants are selected on the basis of academic or professional achievement, as well as demonstrated leadership potential in their fields. The program operates in more than 155 countries worldwide. Linfield was named a top producer of Fulbright awards for bachelor’s institutions in 2006 and 2010.
