Four recent graduates of Fairfield receive Fulbrights | Press Releases

Four recent graduates of Fairfield University, including three who received their degrees on May 17, have been selected as J. William Fulbright Scholars, the U.S. government's premier scholarship program for study and research abroad. Approximately 4,500 of America's outstanding students competed for the 700 Fulbrights.

In the past six years, 16 Fairfield students or recent graduates have been selected for the prestigious scholarship.

The newly selected scholarship recipients and their host countries are: Angela Allen of Long lake, Minn., to go to Germany; Kristen Cammarata of Walpole, Mass., to Morocco; Stacey Pascarella of Milford, Conn., to Canada; and Robert Varley of Yonkers, N.Y., to Korea. A fifth candidate, Edward Siuda, formerly of Enfield, Conn., was named as an alternate to Sweden pending further governmental funding.

The U.S. Congress created the Fulbright program in 1946 in the aftermath of World War II in order to build mutual understanding among nations through educational and cultural exchanges. Sen. J. William Fulbright of Arkansas sponsored the legislation.

Angela Allen plans to serve as an assistant in a German high school teaching English. Upon return to the U.S. , she will enter a graduate program for a master's degree and teach English and German at a high school. Her long-range plans are to earn a Ph.D. and teach at a university.

This will be her third trip to Germany following a 1993 trip to Geislingen as a high school exchange student and her 1997 junior year study abroad at Freiburg. At Fairfield, she was active as a Head Start volunteer, campus tour guide, staff writer for the student weekly newspaper, volunteer mentor, and in the Honors Program.

She was a triple major in German, English literature and writing. Her senior thesis compared the American and German educational systems.

Angela attributed her interest in studying German to growing up in Minnesota, a state deeply rooted in German traditions. During her stay in Germany, she plans to share the experiences she gained while traveling in the United States. She explained that the day after Christmas each year her family would drive to Colorado for a ski trip and her father never drove on the interstate. He said he was giving them "a taste of what spanned between our house and the mountains."

Kristen Cammarata, a 1991 graduate with an M.A. from Brown University, was selected for environmental studies in Morocco in order to assess the potential for marine-based aquaculture. After her return to the U.S., she plans to continue working on aquaculture and food security issues. She also hopes to pursue a doctorate and work for an international development organization.

At Fairfield, she majored in politics with an English literature minor and she also has been an assistant language teacher for four years in Japan and a research assistant in environmental studies at Brown. In regard to her project, she explained, "As a result of over-harvesting, poor management, pollution and abuses of technology, many of the world's fisheries are approaching maximum sustainable yields. Aquaculture - the cultivation and harvesting of fish and other marine species for food - is a possible solution to satisfy the demand as well as a potential means to conserve the resources of wild fisheries."

Stacey Pascarella, a senior from Milford, Conn., will combine two of her interests-sports and psychology-for her project as an intern in the National Hockey League office while attending the University of Toronto. Stacey pointed out that Canada is losing franchises and players to the United States. The franchises in Winnipeg and Quebec moved to the U.S., Edmonton "is on the endangered list," and the league is considering creating four more teams, all in the U.S. She added, "Fan reaction seems to reflect a lost sense of history."

As a result, for her project "Psychology of Sport: National Hockey League in Canada," she will study such areas as fan development, violence in hockey, and demographics pertaining to the number of Canadian children playing hockey and Canadian NHL players.

At Fairfield, she majored in psychology with a minor in sociology and was also a member of the varsity volleyball team, a marketing assistant in the Athletic Department, assistant trainer in Sports Medicine, an intern for the bowling industry, and a member of the Student Athletic Advisory Committee. Her interest in sports began early as she followed her father, the head football coach and athletic director at Milford Academy, to the gym and practice fields, and absorbed a love for sports. She was also a volunteer for Head Start, helping inner-city children prepare for kindergarten, and for Giant Steps, a private institution for autistic children. Her long-range plans include earning a master's degree in sports marketing. She previously studied abroad at the University's campus in Florence, Italy.

Robert Varley, with a major in English and a minor in film production, plans to teach English in Korea. As a freshman at Fairfield, he began learning Tang Soo Do, a Korean martial art, and found himself engaged in the mental and spiritual dimensions. He began studying Asian films and developed interests at the same time in English, American and Australian literature and films, freelance journalism and volunteer service with children, becoming a literacy coach for the Head Start Program in Bridgeport.

He has traveled previously to Australia, spending six months at the University of Melbourne, and will go to Duran, Ecuador with the University's Mission Volunteer Program this summer.

As a member of the martial art club, he won two trophies at a local tournament and through the Ham Channel, he produced a short film that won the student film festival's Best Editing and Best Sound Awards.

In Korea, he plans to live with a family, improve his Korean language ability and continue his study of Tang Soo Do and films.

Edward Siuda earned a degree in biology at Fairfield in 1996 and is now a research coordinator in cell anatomy at Mt. Sinai Medical Center in New York City.