Homewood resident selected for Fulbright U.S. Student Award

Anna Lee Nabors, a Rhodes College senior from Homewood, has been selected to receive a Fulbright U.S. Student Program grant for the 2019-2020 academic year. An international studies and French major, she will serve as a Fulbright English teaching assistant in Senegal.

The Fulbright Program is the flagship international educational exchange program sponsored by the U.S. government. The Fulbright U.S. Student Program provides grants for English teaching assistantships, as well as for individually designed study/research projects. Recipients are chosen for their academic merit and intellectual potential.

“During my junior year, I studied abroad in Dakar, the capital of Senegal, and loved the country and experience so much that I knew I wanted to have more time there,” Nabors said.

“I am excited to engage with more contemporary arts and political movements during my year as an English teaching assistant. Senegal has an incredibly robust civil society that I hope to be able to learn from, as I see myself working in nonprofits or nongovernmental organizations in the future.”

Nabors spent summer 2017 working in Brussels, Belgium, as an intern for the German Marshall Fund of the United States, as part of Rhodes’ Mertie W. Buckman International Internship Program. She researched transatlantic issues related to energy security and helped plan events. In summer 2018, she served as a research intern for The Carter Center’s Peace Programs, focused on initiatives in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Her work included translating French texts and tracking political activity.

Locally, Nabors has served as an English teacher for adults with the Refugee Empowerment Program for three years. She is president of the Rhodes chapter of the Sigma Iota Rho international studies honor society and a member of the Pi Delta Phi National French Honor Society and Mortar Board Honor Society for college seniors.

In the next few years, Nabors plans to attend graduate school to study development practice. “I’m really interested in how both business and government can impact human rights and environmental issues, so I want to continue to expand my understanding of development.”

Submitted by Rhodes College