For most, college graduation is the culmination of formal education. For a select few, the final toss of the mortarboard and tassel can signal the beginning of life's greatest educational adventures.
Kelsea Ballantyne and Zach Bloomfield, Wood River High School sweethearts, alumni and soon-to-be graduates of Chapman University in Southern California, are part of the latter.
The Fulbright Award is one of the more prestigious accolades a student can receive and Ballantyne and Bloomfield are the first undergraduates from Chapman to hold the honor. The Fulbright is the largest U.S. international exchange program offering opportunities for students, scholars, and professionals to undertake international graduate study, advanced research, and teaching. The State Department sponsors the award.
Ballantyne, who is also the current Associated Student President of her university, is headed to Calcutta, India, on a 10-month language and immersion program. She plans to study Bengali, an Indic language spoken in East India and Bangladesh, and to research globalization and its effects on women in the private sphere.
This is not Ballantyne's first trip to India. She ventured there in 2004, one day after an earthquake triggered the tsunami that killed over 200,000 people from Indonesia to East Africa.
Ballantyne's flight had several layovers and at each one, "I picked up a newspaper and the death toll kept rising." She was not allowed to venture near the shoreline where the heart of the devastation lies due to the risk of water-borne disease. Instead she worked inland preparing packages of basic necessities and medicine.
Along with tsunami relief work, Ballantyne worked with women in Calcutta's infamous red light district. Through those experiences, "I was really touched by the culture...my heart is into serving and learning from the Indian people."
Ballantyne has worked with women in the States as well, participating in a 48-hours of training seminar to become a sexual assault victim advocate at Anaheim Memorial Hospital. She currently serves at least two weekends a month as a first responder at the hospital if a rape occurs in Orange County.
Even though Ballantyne knows a good deal about Indian culture at this point, "I am trying to go in as open-minded as possible with no preconceived notions."
As for Bloomfield, he is headed to Tunisia in North Africa.
"I will be examining the process of economic development in Tunisia as development there has been relatively successful when compared to other North African economies," Bloomfield said via e-mail.
Last summer, Bloomfield traveled to Tunisia as part of an Elementary Arabic program paid for by the State Department. This summer, he will attend the follow-up intermediate program in Morocco.
"While in Tunisia, I discovered that some of my notions, particularly prejudice against Americans, were totally confounded," Bloomfield said. "Though many Tunisians that I met did not support President Bush, they admired the United States."
For the long-term, Bloomfield would like to see the economic development of Tunisia and the subsequent business opportunities for American companies, as a means to bridge social, cultural and religious gaps between the two worlds.
Wood River High School alumni Kelsea Ballantyne and Zach Bloomfield stand out in the crowds of Southern California. Both have been awarded Fulbright Awards and following graduation will be headed to India and Tunisia, respectively.
