Julia Ward earns Fulbright grant at Elizabethtown College

ELIZABETHTOWN, PA (04/22/2013)(readMedia)-- Julia Ward, Political Science major at Elizabethtown College, received a Fulbright award notification for the 2013-2014 school year. Ward, of Coatesville, Pa., will go to Namibia.

The Fulbright Program, established in 1946 and sponsored by the U.S. Department of State's Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs, is the flagship international educational exchange program. It is designed to increase mutual understanding between people in the United States and those in other countries. The Fulbright Program, which awards approximately 7,500 new grants annually, has provided almost 300,000 participants-chosen for their academic merit and leadership potential-with the opportunity to study, teach and conduct research, exchange ideas and contribute to finding solutions to shared international concerns.

Approximately 294,000 "Fulbrighters"-111,000 from the United States and 183,000 from other countries-have participated in the Program since its inception. Currently, the Fulbright Program operates in more than 155 countries worldwide.

Julia Ward, who will graduate from Elizabethtown College next month with a double major in political science and political philosophy and legal studies, attended the University of The Gambia in West Africa for a semester, studying political science and anthropology. While there, she volunteered for Alliance for Democracy in Africa and as a teacher at the Sheikh Mass Kah Senior Islamic Secondary School. Ward has been a travel correspondent with Reach The World Organization and a presenter at the United States Embassy in The Gambia, the Southern Political Science Association 84th Annual Meeting and the Mid-Atlantic Undergraduate Social Research Conference at Messiah College in Grantham, Pa.

She was an intern with the Department of Public Welfare, Department of General Services and the Office of the Attorney General in state government and has been a student research assistant at Elizabethtown.

Ward is a member of Elizabethtown College Honors Program, Pi Sigma Alpha political science honor society, Alpha Lambda Delta first-year honor society and has been a resident assistant in the College's Office of Residence Life. She also has been a Study Abroad mentor and has served on committees for the College's Diversity Committee in the Office of Residence Life; the American Cancer Society, Central Chester County Division; and was a Relay for Life, Colleges Against Cancer, committee chair. At Elizabethtown, Ward took part in Mock Trial and Pre-Law Club.

Past awards include Points of Distinction at Elizabethtown College, a Benjamin A. Gilman Scholarship, the James A. Finnegan Foundation Fellowship, a Leader on the Horizon Award, a Dorothy Forney Scholarship, a Presidential Scholarship and the Rotary Club of Coatesville Scholarship.

Ward noted that she always wears a bracelet she bought in The Gambia because it reminds her of her Gambian family-her sisters and mothers-who epitomize strength in the face of tough social adversity and who challenged the gender norms of their culture. Their values, among others, motivated her to pursue a joint master's and law degree to study international law, with an intended focus on gender relations and human/political rights. The Fulbright grant will provide her with the ideal background necessary to achieve those goals.

Ward's best friend, Jillian Casey of Mountain Top, Pa., also was notified of a Fulbright scholarship and will be traveling to the United Kingdom.