Two Luther College alumnae selected for 2012-13 Fulbright Awards

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DECORAH, IA (07/09/2012)(readMedia)-- Luther College alumnae Rachel Barclay and Bianca Lutchen have each been awarded a Fulbright U.S. Student Program scholarship to Germany for the 2012-13 academic year.

Barclay, a 2011 Luther graduate from Sparta, Wis., is the daughter of Kenneth and Tamara Barclay of Sparta. She is currently serving an internship with the Provenance Research Initiative at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C.

Barclay is a history major at Luther with minors in German and museum studies. She was awarded a Fulbright research grant to support her graduate study project in art history.

She will study and conduct research with scholars at the Central Institute for Art History in Munich who are leading German efforts to establish provenance (ownership history) of art objects that changed ownership under suspicious circumstances or were subject to unlawful appropriation under National Socialism between 1933-45.

Lutchen, a 2012 graduate of Luther from Northfield, Minn., is the daughter of Robert Lutchen and Kay Thurmes of Northfield. She is a political science and German double major with a minor in sociology.

As an exchange student with the Congress-Bundestag Youth Exchanges she mentored kindergarten and elementary German students. At Luther she has served as a German language tutor for American students.

Lutchen has been awarded a Fulbright teaching assistantship in Germany, which will also support her research interests in exploring the ramifications for national identity that resulted from the reunification of the former East and West Germany. Her teaching experience will be at the Rudolf-Koch-Schule in Offenbach, Germany.

The Fulbright U.S. Student Program scholarships were recently announced by the United States Department of State and the J. William Fulbright Foreign Scholarship Board. Barclay and Lutchen are among the 1,700 U.S. citizens who will travel abroad for the 2012-2013 academic year through the Fulbright U.S. Student Program.

Recipients of Fulbright grants are selected on the basis of academic or professional achievement, as well as demonstrated leadership potential in their fields. The program operates in more than 155 countries worldwide.

The Fulbright U.S. Student Program is administered by the Institute of International Education. For more than 60 years, the Fulbright program has promoted mutual understanding and respect between the people of the United States and the people of other countries.

The primary source of funding for the Fulbright Program is an annual appropriation made by the U.S. Congress to the U.S. Department of State, Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs. Participating governments and host institutions, corporations and foundations in foreign countries and in the United States also provide direct and indirect support.

Since its establishment in 1946 under legislation introduced by the late U.S. Senator J. William Fulbright of Arkansas, the Fulbright Program has given approximately 300,000 students, scholars, teachers, artists and scientists the opportunity to study, teach and conduct research, exchange ideas and contribute to finding solutions to shared international concerns.

Fulbright alumni have achieved distinction in government, science, the arts, business, philanthropy, education and athletics. Forty Fulbright alumni from 11 countries have been awarded the Nobel Prize, and 75 alumni have received Pulitzer Prizes.

For further information about the Fulbright Program or the U.S. Department of State's Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs, visit website http://fulbright.state.gov or contact James A. Lawrence, Office of Academic Exchange Programs, telephone (202) 632-3241 or e-mail fulbright@state.gov.