Hartford, Conn. — Three Trinity College students and a graduate from the class of ’08 have been awarded grants from the Fulbright U.S. Student Program, the flagship international education program sponsored by the U.S. government.

Christina Seda '09 of Bronx, N.Y. will conduct research in Chile on a Fulbright Full Grant in comparative education and education policy, and Mark Montini '09, of Derby, Conn. (Andorra); Daniel Newman '09, of Katonah, N.Y., (Russia) and Jacqueline Kahan ’08 of Brooklyn, N.Y. (Colombia), were awarded English Teaching Assistantship (ETA) Grants.    
 
“As a student at Trinity College, I truly believe in the power of quality education, and as a Jamaican and Puerto Rican woman, a product of the Bronx public education system and a mentor/tutor for Hartford’s urban youth, I recognize the dire need for change and the important role that communities and schools can play in creating that movement,” Seda, who was also a Rhodes Scholarship finalist, said. 

"I am fascinated by the role of language in the formation of cultural identity,” Montini said about the opportunity.  “In Andorra, I intend to integrate myself into a trilingual society to study the cultural connotations of Spanish, French, and Catalan in this modern, unique, international principality."

Of sixteen applicants from the College, seven were named finalists.  Seniors Melody Mendoza '09 of Wharton, N.J. (Colombia) and Corazón Irizarry '09 of Bethlehem, Penn. (Venezuela) have been named as alternatives for ETA Grants, and Griha Singla ’09 of Ellicott City, Md. was a finalist for an exceptionally competitive research grant to the European Union. 

The Fulbright Program was established in 1946 by the U.S. Congress to "enable the government of the United States to increase mutual understanding between the people of the United States and the people of other countries."

The Program has awarded approximately six thousand grants in 2008, at a cost of more than $275.4 million, to U.S. students, teachers, professionals, and scholars to study, teach, lecture, and conduct research in more than 155 countries, and to their foreign counterparts to engage in similar activities in the United States.

The Fulbright Program receives its primary source of funding through an annual appropriation from Congress to the Department of State. Participating governments and host institutions in foreign countries, and in the United States, also contribute financially through cost-sharing and indirect support, e.g., through salary supplements, tuition waivers, and university housing.
  

---