DeAnna Bevilacqua (left) and Alexandra (Ali) Dubin (right) both grew up in East Greenbush, New York and both are the recipients of scholarships housed in the College of Arts and Sciences. In this article, DeAnna and Ali each write about the importance scholarships have had in shaping their individual achievements and future goals.
I am a junior from East Greenbush, New York and am a Psychology major and Studio Art minor. Currently, I am working towards my goal of one day becoming a psychologist specializing in women’s and gender issues. Through my work as a Research Assistant in the UVM Sexual Health Research Clinic as well as my summer position as a Program Assistant at Vermont Works for Women, I have gained ample knowledge and experience regarding various facets of women’s health and life issues. I am currently planning my honors thesis around the concepts of sexual abuse and sexual aggression in women, and hope to pursue a doctorate in Psychology upon completing my Bachelor’s degree.
In addition, I work as an Academic Counselor and Tutor at the Learning Co-Op and am a Teacher’s Assistant for General Psychology. Presently, I’m preparing to be a facilitator at the Next Step Social Justice Retreat and am looking forward to embarking on a Taglit Birthright Israel trip with UVM Hillel this winter. Bikram yoga is a favorite regular pastime of mine.
As a recipient of the Clymer and Tinkham Rowell scholarships, I feel incredibly fortunate and honored to have such gifts to my education. I would like to extend infinite thanks to all the sponsors and generous donors who have dedicated their time and efforts to providing so many students with the ability to have the UVM experience. For many students, like myself, these contributions make a huge difference for us and our families, particularly during these financially difficult times. I can’t explain how amazing it felt for my family and me when we didn’t have to worry about the burden of paying all of my out-of-state tuition this year. Aside from the practical element, these scholarships also tell a story and offer a unique piece of UVM history. After being awarded two of these scholarships, I feel as though I have become further connected to this history and to the UVM community.
Overall, my experience at UVM has been essential to my personal and intellectual growth, and has left me feeling confident and ready to conquer life’s next steps. No words can express how much this experience has meant to me, and I am so appreciative of the efforts of the scholarship donors who have helped make it possible.
My name is Ali Dubin. I am a junior Art History major and Anthropology minor from East Greenbush, New York. I am a member of the Honors College and served as the college’s First Year Mentor last year. I currently volunteer at Wheeler Elementary School in an English as a Second Language classroom where I interact with kids who have recently come to the US to encourage their English skills, which has been most rewarding. I am spending this semester preparing to study art and Italian language in Florence, Italy this spring, an experience for which I am very excited and can thank the Kidder Scholarship for in large part.
Going abroad is an experience I think is very formative in the lives of young people and is one for which I have been excited since coming to college. As an art history major, going abroad is critical because it allows you to see first-hand the works that are studied in the classroom and live in the cultures that produced them. In this economy where going to college is itself a privilege, going abroad can be extremely difficult. In light of this, I realize and appreciate what an extraordinary opportunity it is that I am able to do so. I was overjoyed when I learned that I had received the Kidder Scholarship because I knew that the merit scholarships I was awarded through UVM would not travel overseas with me, and the prospect of paying tuition without any aid was daunting to say the least. I didn’t know whether to cry or laugh when I called home to tell my parents, and in the end I did both. I hope that while I am abroad I can enrich the knowledge that I have gained here at UVM and come back with a wider perspective and greater appreciation for art history as a discipline and as a facet of culture. Receiving this scholarship is a great honor and I hope to live up to the expectations that such an honor entails.
Community service is a great passion of mine and I really appreciate and admire that the Kidder Scholarship rewards service. I think too often students get entirely caught up in the grade-oriented college mindset and forget about the big picture. Obviously doing well in school and learning as much from classes as possible is very important, and is why we’re all here. But there are so many lessons that cannot be taught or learned in a classroom because they need to be lived to be understood. I like to think that when I am 40 years old and I look back on my time in college the memory of the grade I got on my first art history paper will pale in comparison to the first time a previously quiet and reserved ESL student chased me down on the playground asking “Teacher, teacher, please push me on the swing!” That is the true benefit of community service - reaching and impacting a life just as much as it has impacted your own. This is also the spirit that I feel is embodied in scholarships like the Kidder, whose generosity touches the lives of many students each year and hopefully can be paid in kind in the future.