Samantha Asker of West Bridgewater receives the Saint Michael's College Brian Lacey International Fellowship

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Samatha Asker of West Bridgewater receives Saint Michael's prestigious international social justice fellowship.

COLCHESTER, VT (11/17/2011)(readMedia)-- Saint Michael's College student Samantha Asker has been awarded the Brian Lacey International Fellowship in Social Justice Award to support her study abroad semester in India, Senegal and Argentina. Ms. Asker will participate during the winter/spring semester in a program titled, Cities in the 21st Century: People, Planning, and Politics, organized through SIT Study Abroad program.

The daughter of Jonathan and Pippa Asker of West Bridgewater, Samantha Asker is an anthropology/sociology and English literature double major at Saint Michael's College, a U.S. News top 100 national liberal arts college located in the Burlington area of Vermont. The Lacey fellowship provides Ms. Asker with a $2,500 award to support her study of global issues that affect women's health in Delhi, India; Dakar, Senegal, and Buenos Aires, Argentina.

Ms. Asker, who graduated from West Bridgewater Middle-Senior High School, will participate in a five-week home-stay with a family in each of the cities she is visiting. She plans to do research on the intersection of poverty and gender roles in each of the communities she visits during the semester abroad.

"Through a study of political, social, environmental, cultural and economic factors, students on this program witness firsthand instances of inequality...and study the factors that allow it to flourish..." Ms. Asker said. She expects this experience to bolster her future career plans to work in a non-governmental organization emphasizing women's health.

According to their website, the Cities in the 21st Century program "examines the intentional and natural forces that guide the development of the world's cities. It combines an innovative urban studies academic curriculum with fieldwork involving public agencies, planners, elected officials, NGOs, and grassroots groups in important world cities where exciting changes are taking place"

Brian Lacey, a 1972 graduate of Saint Michael's College, is president of Lacey Entertainment of New York, and founder of Kilkea Foundation, a non-profit that encourages excellence in the humanities through a scholarship program.

Learn What Matters at Saint Michael's College, The Edmundite Catholic liberal arts college, www.smcvt.edu . Saint Michael's provides education with a social conscience, producing graduates with the intellectual tools to lead successful, purposeful lives that will contribute to peace and justice in our world. Founded in 1904 by the Society of St. Edmund and headed by President John J. Neuhauser, Saint Michael's College is located three miles from Burlington, Vermont, one of America's top college towns. Identified by the Princeton Review as one of the nations Best 376 Colleges, and included in the 2012 Fiske Guide to Colleges, Saint Michael's has 1,900 undergraduate students and 500 graduate students. Saint Michael's students and professors have received Rhodes, Woodrow Wilson, Pickering, Guggenheim, Fulbright, and other grants. The college is one of the nation's top-100, Best Liberal Arts Colleges as listed in the 2012 U.S. News & World Report rankings.

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