Wellesley Senior Wins Marshall Scholarship
Wellesley, MA -- Wellesley College senior Jocelyn
Benson is one of 40 Americans to be awarded the Marshall
Scholarship to study at a university in Britain next year.
Winners are selected for their intellectual distinction and
their potential to become leaders in their fields and make a
contribution to society.
A nationally recognized student leader, Benson will earn
her bachelor's degree in political science this month after
an accelerated three and one half years of study at
Wellesley. In January, she will work full time at the
Southern Poverty Law
Center (SPLC) in Montgomery, Ala., where she had an
internship this past summer tracking and reporting on hate
groups in the United States. When her Marshall Scholarship
to Oxford University begins this fall, Benson will study
race relations and the ties between hate groups in the U.S.
and Great Britain.
Benson's leadership skills recently earned her a place in
Glamour magazine's Top Ten College
Women for 1998. She was profiled in the magazine's
October 1998 issue.
In her junior year, Benson founded the Women in American
Political Activism Conference at Wellesley, which attracted
300 participants to its debut. She is the co-author of a
book chapter, "California's 46th District: The
Sanchez-Dornan Rematch," that will appear in The Road to
Congress 1998, to be published next year. While a
sophomore, Benson was elected a member of Wellesley Town
Meeting.
Her future career goals include attending law school and
then working ensure equal access to housing, education,
employment and health care. When it comes to activism,
Benson says she encourages those around her "never to take
'no' for an answer."
Benson is the eighth Wellesley College graduate to be
awarded the Marshall Scholarship since its inception 45
years ago by the British government as a 'thank you' to the
United States for instituting the Marshall Plan after World
War II. Duke
University President Nannerl Overholser Keohane '61,
former Wellesley College president (1981-1993), was the
first Wellesley recipient of the award.
Benson is from McMurray, Pa., and is a 1995 graduate of
Peter Township High School there.
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Marshall Scholarship winner
Wellesley College senior and political science major Jocelyn
Benson will study sociology at Oxford University this
fall.
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