SSU student from Wooster receives Saudi Arabia Winter Fellowship

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Mandie Maxwell, international relations major and marketing minor, from Shawnee State University, received the Saudi Arabia Winter fellowship that includes an expense-paid study visit to Saudi Arabia

PORTSMOUTH, OH (12/10/2012)(readMedia)-- Ten American students from across the nation will be visiting Saudi Arabia from Thursday, Dec. 27 to Monday, Jan. 7, 2013, for a cultural emersion fellowship. Among those students is Mandie Maxwell, international relations major and marketing minor, from Shawnee State University.

Maxwell, daughter of Bob and Lynne Maxwell, of Wooster, Ohio, received the Saudi Arabia Winter fellowship that includes an expense-paid study visit to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. It will continue for one year when she will provide outreach to share her experience in the Saudi culture.

"I was shocked to get the fellowship," Maxwell said. "I really didn't think I had a chance. It is a very competitive fellowship."

During her time in the country, she will have unprecedented access to modern Saudi Arabian culture, society, economy and government. The student delegation (Model Arab League alumni) will travel between the capital Riyadh, the oil-rich Eastern Province, and Jeddah on the Red Sea.

This is the first time Maxwell has been in Saudi Arabia but not her first time out of the country. Last spring semester, she attended Al Akhawayn University in Morocco as an exchange student.

In 2011, Maxwell attended a Model Arab League at Miami University in Oxford, Ohio. The League is similar to the Model UN, and students represented one of the Arab League's 22-member states. She represented Qatar.

Maxwell's in-country expenses in Saudi are covered by the National Council, the Saudi Arabian Cultural Mission (SACM) to the United States and the Saudi Arabian Ministry of Higher Education (MOHE).