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TWO WELLESLEY STUDENTS
WIN WATSON FELLOWSHIPS
FOR INDEPENDENT STUDY ABROAD
WELLESLEY, Mass. -- Wellesley College seniors
Jennifer Lorenz and Rebecca Padnos have been awarded the
prestigious Watson Fellowship for a year of independent
study abroad. Each Watson Fellow receives a stipend of
$22,000. The Thomas J. Watson Fellowship Program was
established in 1968 to provide exceptional college graduates
the opportunity for a focused and disciplined year of
international study and travel. Thirty-four Wellesley
College students have been named Watson Fellows since 1981
when Wellesley became a participating institution in the
program.
 Jennifer Lorenz is a native of Waldron
Island, Washington, and a 1994 graduate of Lakeside High
School in Seattle. An
anthropology
major at Wellesley, Lorenz plans to use her Watson
Fellowship to study mother-daughter relationships and
mother-loss among the Fulani, Kanuri, and Sorko peoples of
Niger and Mali in West Africa. During her junior year, she
studied at the Universite Abdou Monmouni of Niamey, the
capital of Niger. While in Niger, Lorenz participated in an
internship on camel care and riding with a Tuareg professor.
She also worked as an assistant to an English teacher in
Niamey and as a doctor's assistant at the National Hospital
of Niamey.
At Wellesley, Lorenz, whose mother died of breast cancer
four and a half years ago, founded a motherless daughters
support group. She has been a disc jockey at
WZLY,
the student-run radio station, and a member of
Yanvalou,
a student-faculty Afro-Caribbean dance group. She has
volunteered at the Horizons Project, an after-school
mentoring program in Jamaica Plain, a neighborhood of
Boston. After completing her Watson Fellowship, Lorenz plans
to work in international development.
Rebecca Padnos is a native of Holland, Michigan, and a
1995 graduate of the Cranbrook Kingswood School in
Bloomfield Hills, Michigan. A
psychology
major with a minor in
English,
Ms. Padnos will study the art of weaving in the Andes
Mountains of Ecuador, Bolivia, and Peru.
At Wellesley, Ms. Padnos has been a member of the sailing
team and is an officer of the Zeta Alpha literary society.
This year, she lives in Cervantes, the Spanish house. Padnos
studied at Dartmouth
College during her junior year and last winter taught
English and geography to seventh graders in a rural village
in Zimbabwe. Upon completion of her Watson Fellowship,
Padnos plans to attend graduate school in education and to
teach English to middle school students.
Wellesley College is a prominent liberal arts college and
has been a leader in the education of women for more than
120 years. The College's 500-acre campus near Boston is home
to about 2,300 undergraduate students. Wellesley's
distinguished alumnae include First Lady Hillary Rodham
Clinton, Secretary of State Madeleine K. Albright, Madame
Chiang Kai-shek, and broadcast journalists Cokie Roberts,
Diane Sawyer, and Lynn Sherr.
The Thomas J. Watson Fellowship Program was established
in 1968 by the
Thomas J. Watson
Foundation of Providence, Rhode Island. Since its
establishment, the program has granted more than 2,000
Watson Fellowship awards with stipends totalling
approximately $22 million.
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Wellesley College: Providing an excellent
liberal arts education
for women who will make a difference in the world.
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