Alumnae Receive Fulbright Teaching Fellowships

Kirsch at Commencement 2012 with French professor Emmanuel Yewah, her academic adviser.Recent graduates Katie Kirsch, '12, and Sarah Julian, '09, are the latest in a streak of Albion graduate Fulbright winners. As 2012 recipients of Fulbright Teaching Scholarships, Kirsch heads to Rwanda in early 2013 to teach English, while Julian will teach English in Austria.

"I started dancing, screaming, and laughing with my coworkers," said Kirsch, who received the news at her summer internship. "The Fulbright is an amazing, all-expenses paid fellowship that will let me travel halfway across the world to a culture that I love. I hope in the future to work in international relations and development, and this will help greatly."

Kirsch graduated with degrees in English and French, summa cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa. During her Albion career, she was one of the first undergraduate interns accepted by the U.S. Embassy in Suriname, and studied in Cameroon for a semester. Her senior thesis, "Globalization and Its Discontent: The Case of Batchingou [Cameroon]" won one of the College's Jenkins Awards for outstanding research. At Albion, Kirsch was a member of Kappa Delta sorority and Relay for Life.

Kirsch is the daughter of Don and Cheryl Ulsh from Schoolcraft and a graduate of Schoolcraft High School.

Julian graduated magna cum laude with degrees in German and communication studies. She is the daughter of William and Cynthia Julian of Clarkston and a graduate of Clarkston High School.

Albion College young alumni have received a total of eleven Fulbright Scholarships over the past nine years; nine were named teaching fellows and two research fellows in Tanzania and Brazil.

Related story: Students Pursue Diplomacy Research in Suriname