Senior snags coveted Watson

Author: Dan Stevens

Ali Shapiro, a senior English major, has been awarded the prestigious Watson Fellowship by the Thomas J. Watson Foundation. At the conclusion of her senior year, Shapiro will embark on a year long tour studying the role tattooing plays in the lives of women in diverse cultures around the world.??

Every year the Thomas J. Watson Foundation awards 50 liberal arts students the chance to explore the world for the purpose of independent study completely designed and planned by the graduating student. Shapiro is the 22nd Middlebury student since 1981 to receive a Watson Fellowship.

Shapiro's research project, titled "Painted Ladies: A Cultural Exploration of Women and Tattooing," will explore the nature of tattooing in far flung areas of the world including Samoa, Tahiti, New Zealand, India, Morocco and Tanzania. Shapiro said the project stems from a personal desire to explore how tattoos have meaning in other cultures.??

"I want to explore the role of women in tattoo cultures outside the United States, where tattooing still retains a sense of meaning, community and ritual, and the full participation of women is not an aberration from the norm, but a specific norm all its own," Shapiro wrote in her project proposal.

Watson Fellowship projects are as diverse as the students and the universities represented. Shapiro's fellow awardees will be studying topics ranging from the way baseball enhances cultural immersion to tracking the Arctic Tern from the North Pole to the South Pole.??

The process for selecting Watson Fellows is rigorous and competitive. Each member institution first requires an application with a project proposal from each student. The College then limits the applicants to a smaller group for interviews. Following this restriction, the institution then reduces the pool to an even smaller group to nominate to the Watson Foundation.

Once nominated, the Watson Foundation designates a former fellow to interview each applicant. The highly selective process results in awarding fellowships to students that are highly motivated and largely independent.??

"The awards are long-term investments in people likely to lead or innovate," said Beverly Larson, the executive director of the Watson Fellowship program and a former Watson Fellow. "We look for people with passion, a feasible plan, leadership potential and creativity. The recipients get unusual freedom in global experiential learning."

Watson Fellows are awarded $25,000 to spend largely independent of guidance or oversight. Fellows are required to submit quarterly reports and explicit financial statements. Another major restriction is a ban on travel to the Fellow's home country for an entire calendar year.

The Fellowship is named for Thomas J.Watson, the legendary CEO of IBM. The foundation was founded by Watson's children and largely run by Watson's eldest son Thomas J. Watson, Jr., also a CEO of IBM. Watson Jr. is largely remembered for the role he played in piloting the computer revolution at IBM. The entire Watson family demonstrated the importance of international travel, many serving as foreign ambassadors - Thomas Watson Jr. himself served as ambassador to the Soviet Union under Jimmy Carter.