Northfield student wins Fulbright Scholarship
Kari M. Jorgensen, formerly of Northfield, Minn., received a Fulbright scholarship to conduct research in Turkey on the transition of women’s roles in Islamic mysticism and Turkish politics between the late Ottoman and early Republican periods. Jorgensen also will be studying Ottoman and modern Turkish.
Jorgensen, a 1999 graduate of Bates College in Lewiston, Maine, was a member of the Bates College Orchestra and worked at the college’s multicultural center. A member of the Bates Leadership Academy, she participated in a service-learning internship at the National Council on U.S./Arab Relations in 1997. In the 1996-1997 academic year, Jorgensen volunteered at the Lewiston Community Center, teaching English as a second language. In 1997-1998 she participated in the Arabic Language Institute. A dean’s list political science major, Jorgensen was awarded honors for her senior thesis.
From August 1999 through April 2000, Jorgensen taught English and social studies at the American School, Sana’a, and is currently working at the U.S. Embassy in the Consular Section while studying Arabic in Yemen.
Following the completion of her Fulbright research, Jorgensen plans to enroll in the M.A. program in contemporary Arab studies at Georgetown University.
As a Fulbright recipient, Jorgensen joins the ranks of some 225,000 distinguished scholars and professionals worldwide who are leaders in the educational, political, economic, social and cultural ranks of their countries. The U.S. Congress created the Fulbright Program in 1946, immediately after World War II, to foster mutual understanding among nations through educational and cultural exchanges. Senator J. William Fulbright, sponsor of the legislation, saw it as a step toward building an alternative to armed conflict.
Today the Fulbright Program is the U.S. Government’s premier scholarship program. It enables U.S. students, artists and other professionals to benefit from unique resources in every corner of the world and to gain international competence in an increasingly interdependent world.
Jorgensen is the daughter of Daniel and Susan Jorgensen, 505 Wilson Court. She is a 1994 graduate of Northfield High School.
