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2009 | 2008 | past archives

Student Success Stories Archives

Jedediah McKee
Boren Scholarship

Boren Scholarship recipient Jed McKee takes time out of his study schedule to explore and gain an appreciation for the cultural topography of Amman. He is pictured here at a local amphitheater.

Jennifer Kimball
Truman Scholarship

Jennifer Kimball is the co-founder and former president of Stop Traffic, Mizzou’s anti-human trafficking organization. In its first year Stop Traffic hosted a nationally attended anti human trafficking conference. For Kimball, the most exciting outcome of the conference has been the creation of a multi-sector anti trafficking coalition focusing on Central Missouri; she has taken a leadership role in facilitating the development of this coalition and continues to work with Stop Traffic as student advisor.

In addition to her work with Stop Traffic, Kimball is the director of the KOPN Community Radio Reel-to-Reel Reformatting Project and founder of Students As Neighbors, a group that worked with families who evacuated to Columbia after Hurricane Katrina. She is a member of LSV and Mortar Board, and she participated in the Undergraduate Research Mentor Program and is an e-Research Fellow.

Last spring she interned for State Representative Judy Baker. This summer she had the opportunity to represent Missouri at the Inaugural Student Congress at the Henry Clay Center for Statesmanship. The program brought together one rising senior from each state and the District of Columbia for a week-long graduate level short course in diplomacy and conflict resolution.

After graduation Kimball plans to participate in the Truman Scholars Summer Institute Program in Washington D.C. where she hopes to intern at the Department of State’s Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons; she also hopes to participate in the Truman/Albright Fellows program and remain in D.C. for a year working for an anti-trafficking organization before pursuing graduate education in public policy and public health.

Kimball says that the key to a successful Truman Application is connecting the different aspects of yourself into a cohesive, interesting story. “Remember that the readers will look at your application as a whole even though you will write several short essays. Also, during the process remember that the people who seem like your greatest challengers – the people who strongly critique your essays ahead of time, the people who seem most antagonistic in the finalist interview – are really your greatest allies.” She also urges people to apply, “I had to be told that I should apply and I did not think I was a particularly good candidate; I would definitely encourage anyone who is thinking about applying to do it. Preparing for the Truman was an incredible experience.”

Michelle Forbes
Fulbright Scholarship

Michelle is a doctoral candidate in the department of Romance Languages (Spanish) with a special concentration in linguistics and language contact.  The Fulbright scholarship has afforded her an opportunity to complete her dissertation research in Guatemala, where the subjects of her project live. Michelle's dissertation is a linguistic and sociohistorical background of the Garífuna – African descendants who live on the Atlantic coast of much of Central America.  The inclusion of Africans’ contributions will make her project one of the most complete histories on the Garífuna to date.  Through the Fulbright scholarship, she has been invited to teach one semester at the Universidad del Valle de Guatemala on Garífuna studies. She will be introduced to Garífuna leaders with permission to interview individuals in the community, and she will have full access to national archive material not available in the United States.

The Fulbright was designed to promote healthy relationships between nations through a mutual understanding of one another’s culture.  Michelle says, "One thing that was stressed in the Fulbright orientation I attended recently was that although you are abroad to work on some project, it is also important to get out and about and make friendships that could last a lifetime.  Two pieces of advice that I would give to someone who is interested in applying for a Fulbright is to make sure that you obtain institutional support from a reputable and well-known institution, and that you include in your statement that you are willing to participate in some way that will benefit the community in which you want to spend your Fulbright year (volunteering, teaching) in addition to your project."

Matt Velker
David L. Boren Award

Matt will spend this academic year studying Mandarin Chinese and Chinese government, economics, and philosophy at the Beijing Foreign Studies University (北京外国语大学) while pursuing a for-credit internship at Chinese media outlets there. He will also have the pleasure of staying for a week with his Chinese friend and language partner in Shandong (山东), with whom he will attend the Olympics (the marathon race) in the Bird's Nest stadium. When asked to describe his experience applying for the Boren, Matt says, “You can't tell someone about yourself in a deep and meaningful way before you truly understand who you are and what you stand for. Before I applied for my award, I took stock of what the world was like right now, how I believed the United States needed to change, and where I could see myself working in five years to help make concrete changes in that direction.  Writing the application after researching each of these questions helped me break the fellowship elephant down into digestible chunks.  By the time I was done, I found that I understood myself better than I had before and that the government had decided it understood me, too.  Another piece of advice:  Don't forget about those who have enabled you to improve yourself.  When looking for recommendation letters, I started with the places in my life I had improved, and asked myself who had made that improvement possible.  These people know you best.”

Brian Pellot
Rotary Ambassador

Brian is a junior at Mizzou dual majoring in Convergence Journalism and International Studies, focusing primarily on Middle Eastern studies. He will be studying at the American University in Dubai (AUD) as a Rotary Ambassadorial Scholar for the entire academic year. As an ambassadorial scholar, Brian says he will try to devote equal time to his studies (mainly Islamic and Middle Eastern studies) and his role as an ambassador representing Rotary International, the U.S. and Mizzou. He plans to visit several of the countries in his host Rotary district to give presentations about his life in the U.S., his role as an ambassadorial scholar, and how he has spent his time in the region so far. He is planning to go to Cairo and Khartoum in the fall, and hopes to get to Jordan, Cyprus, and Bahrain during the winter break to meet other Rotary clubs and immerse his self in different cultures within the region.

While in Dubai, he will also be a William Jefferson Clinton Scholar at AUD for the first semester. Brian says his is an incredible opportunity, not only because he values and respects what the Clinton Foundation does, but because there are several organized events where he will have the opportunity to meet other Clinton scholars who share his passion and interest in learning more about the Middle East.

**UPDATE**

Brian has received the Critical Language Scholarship to study Arabic this summer in Jordan or Morocco and recently finished an internship at Memac Ogilvy Public Relations in Dubai. He has kept busy this year by visiting 10 countries in the Middle East as part of his duties as a Rotary Ambassadorial Scholar.

In February, he met the President of Rotary International and his Rotary District Governor who stopped by to officially sign the charter for Rotaract Jumeirah, a club he helped form in Dubai.

 Brian spent his spring break touring Istanbul and Kuwait and will head to Bahrain in April for his final Rotary presentation in the region.

Jared Cole
Two time Udall Recipient

Jared Cole is the founder of a campus organization named Sustain Mizzou. Under Jared's leadership, the organization spear-headed the drive to increase the prevelance of recycling containers on the MU campus. He used his Udall funding to increase environmental awareness.

Annie Morrison
Truman Scholar

University of Missouri-Columbia junior Annie Morrison hopes to someday make a difference in the lives of less fortunate women. A recently named Truman Scholar, her dream could come true sooner than expected as a result of unique opportunities presented to recipients of this prestigious award.
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Anne Holden
MU's First Gates Scholar

When she was 13-years-old, Anne Holden read a book on human evolution and decided she wanted to work in that field. As a child, she devoured books on the ancient Greeks and Romans. At college parties, she enjoyed people who would chat about subjects such as Plato or Dostoevski.

Jon Coulson
AIIS-India

I graduated in Advertising from the Journalism School in 2005, and am now a 4+1 student studying digital communication. Over the past summer, I traveled to India for just over a month for free. I went with the American Institute of Indian Studies on a State-Sponsored workshop titled “India and Islam” (though we ended up seeing Hindu, Sikh, Buddhist, Jain, Christian and secular sites, as well). The institute chose twelve students from across the nation, and three of them just happened to be from MU - keep this tradition alive! I learned a lot about India, about religion, and about myself, and cherished the life-altering experience.

To apply for the workshop, I had to attend a land-grant institution (MU is one), be a Pell-grant recipient (I was one), and fill out a rather comprehensive application. The application includes three essays, three letters of recommendation, and a letter from the provost. The hardest part about this, of course, was that I had to complete it about two weeks before finals week. But it was totally worth it!

Currently, I am in the process of applying for Teach For America, the Peace Corps, and a Fulbright. All of this will have to wait, however, until after I finish graduate school and write my thesis.

Kaitlyn Faries
Goldwater Applicant

Faries first learned about undergraduate research opportunities during an incoming freshman tour. After volunteering in a DNA extraction lab for a year, Faries received a Life Sciences Undergraduate Research Opportunity Program (LS UROP) grant. Faries says the opportunity for undergraduate research played a major role in her choice to attend Mizzou.

"I am really excited to be working on this project because it will be a fantastic learning experience for me. MU really encourages undergraduate participation in research, and I have been fortunate to receive support from the College of Arts and Science, as well as the Life Sciences Undergraduate Research Opportunity Program to conduct this research," Faries said.

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