Year-end honors for Baylor students come in from all over the world

May 13, 2011 // Posted In Academics, Alumni, Honors, Student life

Austin Cook-Lindsay and Chelsea Mitcham With the end of the year upon us, awards and honors for Baylor students have come in fast and furious over the past month — so many that we really haven’t been able to keep up with it all. Rather than let such recognition slip by, we thought we’d offer this roundup of some of the honors that really stick out:

* Seniors Austin Cook-Lindsay and Chelsea Mitcham (pictured) have been selected as recipients of Fulbright grants, the flagship international educational exchange program sponsored by the U.S. Department of State. Cook-Lindsay will teach English in Kyrgyzstan, while Mitcham will teach in Mexico. [Update: Amanda Randolph, a senior from La Vernia, Texas, has also been selected for a Fulbright award; she will be conducting gerontology research in Finland.] Since 2001, 24 25 Baylor students have been Fulbright recipients.

* Out of more than 1,000 applicants, senior Chris Russell and junior Hannah Lee received two of 10 slots for Columbia University’s Summer Fellowship Painting Program. The program, based in New York City, includes six weeks of intense painting, gallery tours and workshops on topics concerning an artist’s future. A final exhibition will be shown in Columbia’s gallery.

* Senior Haley Dermody earned a spot in the highly competitive “Teaching Assistant Program in France,” sponsored by the French Ministry of Education. The French major from Carrollton, Texas, will spend the next year living in Lille, France, working in an elementary, middle or high school as a teacher’s assistant.

* In the wake of the Japanese earthquake, sophomore Andrew Leistensnider will join students from across the United States and Japan for a month as a delegate to the annual Japan-American Student Conference. The Greenwich, Conn., native will visit Niigata, Kyoto, Okinawa and Tokyo, Japan during the conference, which for more than 60 years has worked to develop relations between the two countries.

So many interesting summer and post-graduation opportunities!

Sic ’em, Bears!