Whitman Students Chosen for Summer Institute

Friday, Jan 20, 2006

WALLA WALLA, Wash. – Whitman College students Laura Hanson and Samuel Clark have been selected to attend the 2006 Public Policy and International Affairs (PPIA) Junior Summer Institute at New Jersey’s Princeton University.

Samuel Clark, Laura Hanson

The summer institute, scheduled for June 15 through Aug. 4, is sponsored by Princeton’s Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs. The goal of the summer program is to help prepare students for graduate study and careers in public policy and international affairs. It includes a mixture of academic coursework, lectures and off-site visits, and typically includes about three dozen college juniors.

A year ago, 35 participants were chosen from an applicant pool of about 220 students. The selected students represented 31 U.S. colleges and universities.

Clark, an economics major from Colorado Springs, Colo., has a minor in Latin American studies. He took a leave of absence from Whitman during the 2005 spring semester to study and work in Paraguay and Argentina for six months.  

Hanson, who is from Tipp City, Ohio, is pursuing an individually planned major (peace and conflict studies) with a minor in French. She is studying this semester in Botswana, Africa. Last summer, she worked with associate professor of politics Bruce Magnuson on a research project involving the role of the census in Africa’s political identity formation, delineation of ethnic boundaries and distribution of state resources.

According to Julia Davis, director of the Whitman grants and fellowships office, Princeton’s summer institute program encourages applications from students with a strong interest in facing the challenges of a multicultural society. “Both Laura and Sam have demonstrated their interest and commitment through academic coursework, campus leadership positions and internships, as well as through the genuine thoughtfulness of their written application statements,” Davis said.

The summer institute program is structured to introduce or strengthen skills in economics, statistics, policy analysis, writing, public speaking, and organization/time management. At the end of the program, students will present a comprehensive final report on a current policy issue.

Students attending the institute receive funding for all costs associated with the program, including textbooks, room and board, and travel expenses, in addition to a $1,500 stipend.

***********

Samuel Clark

Clark sampled his first taste of international affairs early in 2005, when he spent four months in Asuncion, Paraguay, working for a nonprofit, nongovernmental organization focused on economic development for low-income Paraguayans. He arranged for the internship after deciding “I wanted to try something outside of the study abroad experience.”

His work focused on helping a loofah producer seek fair trade certification. The project, run by German expatriate Brigitte Fouzellier, has “Paraguayans all over the nation cultivating loofah sponges in remote fields off desolate roads and under clotheslines in the slums of Asuncion,” Clark said. “This effort is the result of one woman’s hard labors and personal sacrifice, but also her ability to inspire others to her cause, train a talented work corps, and market the fruits of her labor to American and European companies.”

Fouzellier’s example shows that the “sacrifice of one person can lead to positive change for thousands, and that one person can plant the seed for development in her own world and for an entire country,” Clark added. “She showed me that one does not have to be a linguist to learn native Guarani in order to better explain organic practices to farmers. On long car rides we discussed the needs of Latin women in the workplace and how her sponges have created a niche for dozens of women. In her office, she helped me navigate the challenge of working in an office with five different languages and as many nationalities.”

Clark wrapped up his time in South America by working for a regional environmental-political advocacy group based in Mendoza, Argentina. In the future, he said, he wants to remain active in the “movement that changes the economic future for underrepresented groups in Latin America.”

At Whitman, Clark has served as the chief operations officer for the Whitman Investment Company, a club that teaches students about investing by allowing them to manage a real money portfolio of securities. He also is the head intern for a reading tutoring program at a Walla Walla elementary school, and he competes on the varsity cross country team. He has organized Whitman student government elections, led outdoors orientation trips for incoming freshmen, and has lived on campus in La Casa Hispana, a special interest house for students studying the Spanish language and Hispanic culture.

********** 

Laura Hanson

Hanson, who has long held an interest in French-speaking Africa, recently left the U.S. for a study abroad semester in Botswana. She anticipates that her studies will be “inevitably related” to her research last summer, which focused on political theory involving African and colonial conceptions of citizenship and the demarcation of ethnic, racial, religious categories by state.

One possible topic for an independent study project, she said, is the Zimbabwean refugee crisis along the Botswana-Zimbabwe border. There would be some “startling parallels,” she noted, between that situation and what she saw last summer during a week-long experiential learning trip to the U.S.-Mexico border. The trip was organized by BorderLinks, a nonprofit organization dedicated to the issues, culture, economics and lives of people along the border.

Her group met with a “wide range of community activists, government agents, maquiladora workers, immigrants and other actors along both sides of the border,” Hanson said. “Our group spent one night at an immigrant shelter in Altar, Mexico. We shared a meal with 11 Guatemalan refugees departing for the four-day walk across the desert the next morning. They told us how a flood of cheap NAFTA corn had devastated their agricultural way of life.”

During her BorderLinks trip, which took participants to Tucson, Ariz., and Nogales, Mexico, Hanson was struck by the “stark barbed wire barrier reinforced by an antagonistic immigration policy. Simultaneously, border artwork celebrated the emerging identity of Hispanic Americans who blur this line.” The fundamental concept of national borders, and the ways in which they facilitate and prohibit meaningful exchange, is one of the issues Hanson hopes to one day address as a global policy leader.

While studying at Whitman during the 2005 calendar year, Hanson was the resident adviser in La Maison Francaise, a special interest house for students studying the French language and culture. She also served as a task force co-facilitator and board member for Whitman’s fledgling community food cooperative. Other activities have ranged from taking an active role in Whitman student government to volunteering as a mentor and environmental studies instructor at a local elementary school. As secretary for the Whitman Campus Greens, she helped register voters for the 2004 elections.