Undergraduate Student News

Undergraduate Student Honors and Awards

Rachel Di Pietro-James Scholarship

Allison Yates

Ashley Crouse Memorial Scholarship

Lisa Fink

Theodore Dorf Scholarship

Miranda Cascione

Pedro Díaz Seijas Scholarship

Kourtney Liepelt

Hutton Honors College Scholarship

Rachel Geissler
Stephanie Iden
Rebekah Neidner
Sarah TeKolste

College of Arts & Sciences Abel Scholarship

Rachel Geissler
Tess Kuntz

Graduated with Department Honors

Amy Fuhs, advisor Erik Willis
Alba Rivera, advisor Catherine Larson
Jessica Wehr, advisor Laura Gurzynski-Weiss

Phi Beta Kappa Inductees

Daniel Avon Emily Barbe Stacy Blank Lauren Buchanan Arefin Chowdhury Luke Claflin Adam Fer Rachel Frantz Rachel Geissler Mark Hoff

Tiffany Hogan Alexis Howard Jessica Hunt Risa Hurwich Benjamin Ivers Andrew Johns Tess Kuntz Samantha Little Christopher Mattson Zachary Meyer

Jessica Miller Rebekah Niedner Rebecca Payne Kristin Sayler Clarissa Shinn Caroline Stone Morgan Thune Cristina Vanko Nathan Wavle Philip Wharton

Undergraduate Student Perspective: Kourtney Liepelt

When I learned that I had received the Pedro Díaz Seijas scholarship last spring, I could not have been more excited. I knew it would help me at some point down the road to further my dreams of becoming a journalist at a Spanish publication, so I set the money aside for later use.

Now, I have been accepted to study abroad in Lima, Peru this upcoming spring, and the money I saved will help to offset the costs of the program. Of course, the scholarship will do so much more than pay for a few fees. It will allow me to live in a nation I have been passionate about for years. It provides me with an opportunity to become fluent in a language that will be crucial to my future. But most importantly, I now have the chance to immerse myself in a very unique culture, and that is more than I could have ever asked for from a study abroad program.

I am looking forward to my semester abroad, and I am more than grateful for the Pedro Díaz Seijas scholarship and the ways it will assist me to pursue my goals.

Undergraduate Student Perspective: Miranda Cascione

Before I stepped onto the plane that would vault me from my Indiana home to a country I had never seen, I doubted that just a month of study would have a significant impact on my life beyond the additional six credits that I needed in order to graduate from IU. Even despite the testimonies and stories that friends and other students had told, I was reluctant to believe that thirty days in another country would constitute a moment in my life that would inspire and even challenge me. Fortunately, Spain proved me wrong.

In that country, I met people that pushed me to understand the characteristics that separate as well as bind the human race. This sort of comprehension is not easily obtained from a text book or a documentary. Instead, it comes from moments such as passing the afternoon with six Spanish students as they spend their summer by the pool, riding the metro with a hundred different faces that never stopped peering at each other, or even sitting side by side for hours in the plaza at 1 a.m. with your grandparents, total strangers and a cute two-year-old boy that keeps playing ball with you. While I lived in Alcalá de Henares, I was no longer an American or a tourist in Spain; I was a sister, a daughter and a friend.

These concepts are difficult to put into words because they arise from experience, which is best first-hand. I am so thankful that I was able to go abroad before I graduated with the assistance of the Dorf Scholarship. Now, as I finish my third month in law school at UCLA, I see how my time in Spain has already helped me to adjust to living, working and interacting with new people. I will always keep with me the warmth of the Spanish people and their love of community as I move on to new stages of my life.