UNT students, alumna win Rotary Scholarships

Two UNT students and a recent graduate received a total of $62,000 in Rotary Scholarships for study abroad during the 2004-05 academic year.

Rotary Scholarships are provided by each of the 521 districts of Rotary International, an organization for business and professional men and women that focuses on providing humanitarian service, encouraging high ethical standards in all vocations and building good will and peace worldwide.

Kelly Doley, a sophomore Spanish and international studies major, and Rachel Harris, who received a bachelor's degree in English in December, each competed successfully for $25,000 Rotary Ambassadorial Scholarships for full academic years at foreign universities.

Laura Dominguez, a senior Spanish and international studies major, received a $12,000 Rotary Cultural Scholarship to study abroad for three months.

James Duban, director of UNT's Office for Nationally Competitive Scholarships and chair of UNT's Rotary Ambassadorial Scholarship Mentoring Committee, says all three students "are wonderful students whose intellect, personalities and public service brought them and UNT added international recognition."

"I join my colleagues in celebrating the accomplishments of Laura, Kelly and Rachel. We are very proud of them and know that they will make the most of their international travel and studies," he says.

Duban and other committee members helped the students prepare for the scholarships' interview processes.

Committee members include Les Brothers, professor of music; Ishmael Bustinza, assistant professor of foreign languages and literatures; Mary Beth Butler, director of the Study Abroad Center; Gloria Cox, director of the UNT Honors Program; Diana Elrod and Judy Morris, Ronald E. McNair Postbaccalaureate Program coordinators; and Jerry Nash, chair of the Department of Foreign Languages and Literatures.

Doley will study at Tec de Monterrey in Monterrey, Mexico. He plans to prepare to work in a management position in a non-governmental, nonprofit organization in Latin America.

He says his experience as a volunteer in Paraguay, where he helped to build stoves, gardens and a park for Amigos de las Americas, led to his interest in working in Latin America.

"One of the problems that I found in Paraguay was the major economic gap that is present today between the Americas. I believe that all humans possess a basic right to read, write and have an adequate amount of food. Seeing the lack of these rights firsthand bothered me, and I aspire to dedicating my life to generating solutions to these problems," he says.

At UNT, Doley is a member of the University Honors Program and Circle K International. He spent Fall 2003 at the University of Massachusetts through the National Student Exchange Program.

Harris plans to earn a master's degree in global citizenship and education from the University of York in England to prepare for a career as a teacher of English as a second language.

"I'm really looking forward to being part of an international community at York. Not only will I meet many international students, but I will experience being an international student myself," she says. "Studying at York is a perfect opportunity to increase international communication and understanding."

While at UNT, Harris was a member of the English Club, Women's Choir, College Life Ministry and Sigma Tau Delta honor society.

Dominguez will live with a family in Cuernavaca, Mexico, for three months and study Spanish at the Cuauhnahuac Intensive Spanish Language School. She plans to become fluent in the language to join the Peace Corps and work in international development for the United Nations, Amnesty International or another international organization.

"Spanish is one of the languages that comprise my roots; yet I learned it through my classes in school and not from a family member," she says. "Given the fact that Cuernavaca is both renowned for its language schools and is in a country that is still developing in many ways, I feel that this city and country will provide me with a unique opportunity to strengthen my Spanish as well as to experience and come to understand the reality of the obstacles facing so many countries."

At UNT, Dominguez is a member of the University Honors Program, Golden Key National Honor Society and Gamma Beta Phi Honor Society. She was the language director of the international club World Echoes and worked to provide free language classes taught by the organization's members. She is also a volunteer Spanish tutor for the UNT Learning Center.

BY NANCY KOLSTI nkolsti@unt.edu

Other featured articles in this issue

• $1 million gift to help fund construction of new UNT athletic center
• UNT launches e-Campus web site
• UNT to host annual law conference March 1-2
• Faculty and staff can vote now for 2004 UNT Homecoming theme
• Cowboy historian to speak to Friends of the UNT Libraries
• UNT professor finds that women's civic clubs led to suffrage movement in Texas
• Familiar faces should rule at 76th Academy Awards
• Totten named to National Commission on Libraries and Information Science

homepage