Five Students Receive Inaugural International Research Travel Grants

Author: Jonathan White

The Rohatyn Center for International Affairs initiated a new program of International Research Travel Grants last month in the announcement of five awardees. Those receiving awards for research and travel are Lila Buckley '04, Brian Hoyer '03.5, Rituraj Mathru '04, Kristina Rudd '03.5 and Andrei Takhteyev '03. The students will travel from China to Uganda to pursue research on topics ranging from refugees to immigration policies.
The Rohatyn Center offered a maximum of $3500 per award and this year's recipients garnered funding ranging from just under $1000 to the maximum of $3500. The awardees were chosen by the International Committee based on the strength of their proposals.
Director of the Rohatyn Center for International Affairs Allison Stanger originated the idea of grants for research abroad after spending a year as a guest professor at Harvard University's Center for European Studies. At Harvard, Stanger served on a committee responsible for the awarding of $350,000 to various students for research in Europe and Africa. Upon her return to Middlebury College, Stanger reflected on Middlebury's lack of such a program. "It struck me that we pride ourselves on international studies but we did not have this as an option," she said. She also commented that such grants are found not only at Harvard, but at other top institutions such as Princeton University.
Through the program's conception, Stanger noted that the Rohatyn Center set out to create a stronger program than that found at peer institutions. Stanger believes that close faculty guidance and interaction with students receiving awards, both before and after they travel, will optimize the experience for awardees.
Until the Rohatyn Center began awarding grants this year, Stanger observed that tackling research abroad for senior work was limited to students with financial resources. The grants create a more even spectrum of opportunity and Stanger hopes that they will "enliven" senior work and research.
For several of this year's recipients, the grants will allow them build to upon research already undertaken or on experiences they had while living and studying abroad.
Hoyer said that his proposal was inspired by visits to refugee settlements in Tanzania during his semester abroad last spring. An African Studies major, Hoyer will research the development and function of power relations in regards to food aid in refugee camps.
Hoyer, who spent the spring of 2002 in Africa with the School for International Training, looks to return to Tanzania again this summer. "After witnessing the power of food aid in shaping life in the refugee settlement I was working in for a segment of my semester abroad, I decided this could be a fascinating and dangerously important subject to study," Hoyer said. Hoyer also hopes to further learn the Kiswahili language while in Tanzania.
Buckley also commented on the correspondence between her grant research and prior interests. "I chose my topic based on long-term interests in traditional medicines and human ecology," she explained. Buckley said that her project takes shape from indispensable assistance provided by Professor of Sociology & Anthropology Michael Sheridan.
Buckley, who is in China now for part of her junior year abroad, will travel to southern China to research childbirth. In China, childbirth is structured by government policy and Buckley plans to conduct her research into the impact of this structure by interviewing pregnant women and midwives.
She is enthusiastic about her work in an area that has received little attention thus far from scholars.
Rudd, too, sees the grant as an opportunity to enhance her planned senior thesis work on the impact of resettlement on the Batwa people of Uganda. Rudd studied in Uganda last year and was alarmed to hear that the Batwa people have, in some instances, a mortality rate four to five times that of other regional ethnic groups.
In her thesis, Rudd plans to use information gathered this summer in Uganda to look at how poverty, minimal education, a lack of shelter and the impact of resettlement has adversely impacted the Batwa. The Batwa were removed from their forest communities in the 1990s when Uganda established wilderness-only national parks to protect the mountain gorilla.
Buckley, like Rudd, aspires to use her work for her senior thesis, as well as furthering her post-graduation research.
Hoyer and Rudd said that the grant would greatly enhance their research.
"I am extremely grateful for this opportunity," Hoyer said.
Mathru, who is studying abroad in Paris, will use the grant to observe the impact of violence on development in Assam, India. Mathru is an International Politics and Economics major from New Delhi.
Takhteyev, the fifth recipient, will travel to Mainz, Germany. There Takhteyev will look at immigration practices in Germany with a focus on the immigration process encountered by Russians settling in Germany.
Upon return to Middlebury next fall, all five awardees will be granted titles of Undergraduate Research Fellows through the Rohatyn Center. They will discuss their findings at senior thesis presentations.