Four University of Vermont students have been awarded prestigious Benjamin A Gilman Scholarships. The Gilman is a nationally competitive award given to accomplished students with financial need who wish to study abroad.

Hannah Doughty '13 was awarded a Gilman to study in Russia for the fall 2012 semester. Doughty, a double anthropology and Russian major, is from Rochester, Vt. and will be spending the semester in St. Petersburg. Earlier this year she was also awarded a Critical Language Scholarship, which is a prestigious award to study at a U.S. State Department-funded language institute in Russia

Madeleine Gibson '13 was awarded a Gilman to study in Finland for the fall 2012 semester. Gibson is an environmental studies major from Kingston, R.I.

Jamie Sharken '14 was awarded a Gilman to study in Buenos Aires, Argentina for the fall 2012 semester. Sharken is from Amherst, Mass.

Amanda St. Hilaire '14, an environmental studies major from Cumberland, Me., also received an award. St. Hilaire will spend the fall of 2012 studying in Scotland.

UVM students received a total of $34,000 in study abroad scholarship money from the Gilman awards for the 2011-2012 academic year. The Institute for International Education recently ranked the University of Vermont fifth in the nation among public doctoral universities for the percentage of its undergraduate students -- 32.5 percent -- who participate in study abroad programs.

The Gilman Scholarship Program aims to diversify the kinds of students who study abroad and the countries and regions where they go. The program provides awards that allow American undergraduate students who receive federal Pell Grant funding at a two-year or four-year college or university to participate in study abroad programs worldwide.

Since 2005, when the university put a centralized fellowship outreach and support program in place, 95 UVM students have won or been finalists in the country’s most prestigious and competitive competitions, including the Fulbright, Rhodes, Goldwater, Marshall, Udall, Truman, Madison, Gilman and Boren Overseas scholarships.

PUBLISHED

06-05-2012
Britten Elaine Chase