BELOIT SENIOR WINS PRESTIGOUS FULBRIGHT SCHOLARSHIP
Laura Grube (Fox Point, Wis.) remembers being interested in South Africa since the ninth grade, when she read Alan Paton’s Cry, the Beloved Country. That interest was nurtured at Beloit College, where the senior economics/management major and African studies minor developed a keen understanding of the country’s economic and development progress after apartheid. Now, on the eve of her graduation from Beloit, Grube has been awarded a 2008 Fulbright scholarship to study land reform and political transition in South Africa. “I am very excited to have the opportunity to do research in South Africa after graduation,” she says. “I can’t imagine anything that I’d rather do.”
An outstanding student, Grube has achieved an impressive list of accomplishments while enrolled at Beloit. She served as an intern in the office of Wisconsin Senator Herb Kohl and also as a Charles G. Koch Summer Fellow for the Institute of Humane Studies at George Mason University. Grube’s mentor, Professor of Economics and Management Emily Chamlee-Wright, introduced her to the Mercatus Center at George Mason University, where Grube later served as a research assistant for its Global Prosperity Initiative and an ethnographic researcher for its Crisis and Response in the Wake of Hurricane Katrina project.
While studying in South Africa on a program co-sponsored by the School for International Training, she completed a month-long research project on land reform. That experience, coupled with a growing awareness of the diverse cultural demographics in South Africa, piqued her curiosity about how individual communities reconcile traditional leadership structures with new democratic land administrative structures. “The question is challenging because it is such a sensitive issue, yet it brings to light the community dynamics and how things are changing for younger generations,” Grube explains. She will spend a year in South Africa conducting research on the subject, after which she plans to take a position with the consulting group Deloitte. “I want to accumulate as much experience as possible before I commit to graduate school,” she says. Grube hopes to eventually teach at the university level.
The Fulbright Scholar Program is the United States government’s primary vehicle for promoting international educational exchanges. Founded in 1945, the program awards grants to select U.S. citizens and nationals of other countries to support educational activities in the United States and abroad. Recipients are vetted through an intensive and highly competitive application and interview process. Ten Beloit College graduates have been awarded Fulbright scholarships in the last decade.
For more information, contact the Beloit College Office of Public Affairs at 608-363-2625.
