Fulbright program leads Nicole Marton back 'home'

Kim Chaudoin | 615.966.6494 | 05/24/2016

Sometimes the unexpected journey turns out to be the very best one.

Nicole Marton would wholeheartedly agree.

In April, Marton was named Lipscomb's most recent Fulbright Scholar. This fall, she will travel more than 5,400 miles from Nashville, Marton’s home for the past four years, to Moldova to teach English courses to college students as well as develop other English teaching and cultural awareness opportunities.

A law, justice and society and German double major who graduated in May, Marton said she is very excited about this honor. And her professors say the honor is well deserved.

“Nicole is an exceptional student, a relentless learner and a deeply compassionate person,” said Randy Spivey, academic director for the Institute of Law, Justice & Society housed in the College of Leadership & Public Service. 

“She’s been a leader in LJS academically and by putting her studies to work in her activism. I've watched her lobby legislators for an end to the death penalty, demonstrate to bring awareness to issues of mass incarceration and organize students to the care of oppressed populations,” he continued. “My joy in having her as a student is matched only by my excitement to see what she does next.”

Marton is the second Fulbright Scholar from the law, justice and society program, which was founded in 2007. She is the fifth Lipscomb student in the last decade to be named a Fulbright Scholar. The most recent Lipscomb Fulbright Scholar was Jared Brett (M.Ed. ’12) who received a fellowship to teach in Indonesia in 2013. Others from Lipscomb include Emily Royce (2006), Katie Jacoby (2009) and Bethany Eldridge (2012).

The Fulbright Program, sponsored by the U.S. Department of State, was established in 1946 and is designed to “increase mutual understanding between the people of the United States and the people of other countries.”

The Fulbright Program places U.S. scholars in schools or universities overseas, improving foreign students’ English language abilities and knowledge of the United States while enhancing their own language skills and knowledge of the host country. When Marton applied for the Fulbright Scholar Program, she selected a teaching assignment in Moldova over a number of other options.

To understand why Moldova was the place Marton wants to spend the next year teaching and serving others, one has to know, in the inimitable words of broadcaster Paul Harvey, the rest of the story.

The work she will do as part of her grant is bringing her full circle back to her roots … roots that she didn’t necessarily experience first-hand, but that definitely shaped the course of her life.

Romanian roots

Marton, who was born in Minnesota on January 11, 1994, is the daughter of Romanian immigrants, Florin and Amelita Marton. Her mother grew up in the small mining town Lupeni, Romania, and her father was raised in Timisoara, one of the largest cities in the country. Florin was an engineer and professional soccer player and Amelita was a computer programmer.

Florin and Amelita grew up during the reign of Nicolae Ceauescu, general secretary of the Romanian Communist Party from 1965 to 1989 and Romania’s head of state from 1967 to 1989. Ceau?escu's regime became increasingly brutal and repressive and was marked with extreme shortages of food, fuel, medicine, energy and other basic necessities, leading to poor living conditions and unrest among the citizens of Romania.

In December of 1989 a period of violent unrest erupted — known as the Romanian Revolution.

“There was a revolution that emerged to overthrew Ceau?escu with the intention of building a more democratic society,” said Marton. “At the time my parents were living in Timisoara, the origin city of the Romanian revolution. My dad was very politically connected and played professional soccer. So, he knew many people in the town.”

When the revolution broke out, Marton said her dad got involved with Rebel factions who were trying to spread the word of the revolution.

“My dad was a locomotive engineer, which is what the men in my dad’s family had done for generations,” Marton recalled. “So he and some others painted messages on train cars that were travelling from west to east Romania, spreading the word that there was a revolution going on and encouraging people to stand up for their freedom and fight for democracy.”

The revolution resulted in the ouster of Ceau?escu, and ultimately to his death on Dec. 25, 1989. Marton explained that in the days that followed, competing political factions struggled for control.

“After the revolution, the borders were opened,” said Marton. “They had been closed for a while. For a time people could travel freely, which they hadn’t been able to do. My dad decided that he wanted to move himself and my mom to the United States and to a land of freedom and opportunity.”

Florin and Amelita, who was pregnant with Nicole’s older brother at the time, came to the U.S. and eventually gained permanent residency. They found their way to Minnesota because of a connection Florin had made in Romania years before.

“A few years before the revolution there was a couple from Minnesota who wanted to adopt a baby from Romania,” recalled Marton. “They contacted my father, who at the time was a high-ranking official with the County of Timis and also fluent in English. He helped facilitate the adoption process for them. When he decided to move to the United States, he contacted this family and moved to where they were located in Minnesota.”

Marton said that when her parents moved to the United States, they weren’t able to use their college degrees and professional experience to find jobs like they had in Romania.

“My mom had been a computer programmer in Romania, which was a very prestigious job there,” she said. “But in the US the technology was much more advanced than it was in Romania, so she was not able to find a similar job here. And my dad had a master’s degree in engineering, but that was not his passion.”

Amelita, who didn’t speak any English when the couple moved from Romania, worked several jobs to help support the family, including one at a nursing home. She had planned on returning to school for additional education in computer programming, but fell in love with nursing and decided to go to nursing school instead. Amelita first earned the LPN designation and soon after became a registered nurse. Today, she holds a master’s degree in nursing and works as a nurse practitioner at West Virginia University Hospital in Morgantown, West Virginia.

“She is truly my ultimate role model and has sacrificed a tremendous amount and come so incredibly far to  provide a good life for me and my brother,” said Marton.

Florin spent 14 years playing professional soccer and was also on the Romanian National Team as a goalkeeper. During the final years of his playing career in Romania, he earned his National Coaching License and began his coaching career at the youth level before spending time as a player/coach with CFR-Victoria Caransebes of the Romanian National League.

So in the United States, Florin followed his heart and pursued a career as a soccer coach. He first coached for a few couple of universities in Minnesota, Iowa and West Virginia. Today, he is in his 14^th season as head coach of the Salem International University in Salem, West Virginia, and is the winningest coach in school history. The Martons live in the nearby town of Bridgeport.

The road to Lipscomb

When Marton, who played soccer in high school and was a National Merit Finalist, began to set her sights on college, she said she visited nearly 30 schools. Her dream was to attend New York University.

“I was almost ready to go (to NYU) and then a letter from Lipscomb appeared in my mail box,” Marton recalled. “I had never heard of Lipscomb before, and I had never been to Nashville before. At that point I had already applied to about 10 colleges and universities. My dad picked up the letter out of the mailbox. It was a scholarship offer based on my National Merit finalist standing. He read the letter and was really impressed with the scholarship offer. Lipscomb’s scholarship offer was better than most of the others I had been offered, and that really stood out to my parents.”

Although the Lipscomb offer was impressive, Marton said at that point she had already filled out about 10 college applications, and she wasn’t enthusiastic about filling out another one.

Then one weekend in March of her senior year in high school, Marton was playing on a travel soccer team coached by her father. The team had a tournament in the Nashville area.

“One afternoon after we had finished a game, my dad told me that we were coming to Lipscomb for a tour,” she said. “I thought, ‘okay, whatever. I’m not going to like it. But I’ll tour it.’ So, we came to campus. I met with an admissions counselor. I had a tour and I fell in love with the campus. I drove around Nashville with my dad and fell in love with the city.

“I’m from a small town in West Virginia, so as exciting as New York City seemed, I wasn’t fully convinced it was the best option for me – a small town girl coming right out of high school. I loved that Lipscomb had a campus in the city. I loved the people at Lipscomb. I loved that it was warm. And the city was gorgeous.”

While on campus, Marton met with the women’s soccer coach who wanted her to be part of the team.

“So, I was getting to play NCAA-DI soccer and going to get an education in a gorgeous city at a gorgeous university. It kind of just worked out in a really random way at a really late-in-the-game time. It just kind of fell in my lap, and it felt like it was meant to be,” said Marton. “So I changed my mind about going to NYU.”

Marton, who said she did not grow up with a faith background, developed close relationships with several faculty members and students throughout her time at Lipscomb through self-introspection and evaluation of her intellectual journey at the institution. She credits Rick Holaway, vice president for enrollment management; Provost W. Craig Bledsoe; Spivey; Paul Prill, professor of communication and director of the Honors College; and Christin Shatzer, director of the SALT Program, with fostering a strong intellectual environment and encouraging her along the way.

“People have come into my life here at Lipscomb who have made this experience incredible. I can’t imagine having gone to school anywhere else and getting the opportunities, the personalized attention and forming these kinds of relationships not only with my fellow classmates but with my superiors who have become my mentors who I know that I can turn to and will be there for the rest of my life if I need them to be there,” said Marton. “They are always going to want to support me. And I don’t know that I could have gotten that anywhere else. I’m very thankful that this is the choice that I made even though at times I had doubts about my journey.”

Marton took an introduction to society and the law class offered by the Institute for Law, Justice & Society her freshman year at Lipscomb and decided that was the major, in addition to a German major, that would feed her passion for international issues and prepare her for a career. On an LJS travel study course, Marton said she had the opportunity to visit the United Nations, to meet representatives of the European Union and State Department officials.

“I think that was the first time in my life that I realized, wow, these are real people doing real work that is making positive change and these are things I can see myself doing,” she said. “Up to that point I had no idea what an international, socially-geared career would look like. I’m so thankful for that trip.”

“Since then I’ve tried to follow this path of thinking about where I want to end up. I would love to end up working for an international nonprofit or NGO. The UN is a dream for me. That’s a really high aspiration and loft career goal for me. That would be the ultimate dream come true for me.”

While at Lipscomb, Marton stayed busy outside of the classroom as well. An Honors College Fellow, she was a member of the women’s soccer team for two years, was the president of Phi Alpha Delta pre-law fraternity, was inducted into Alpha Chi Honor Society and was part of Pi Kappa Sigma women’s service club.

Marton also studied abroad through Lipscomb’s program in Vienna and through the Council of Christian Colleges and University’s summer program at Oxford. She also was an intern at the Tennessee Justice Center in Nashville, where she researched barriers to healthcare access and prenatal care access for pregnant undocumented immigrant women in Tennessee, assisted in the organization and execution of community outreach and education efforts about TennCare and supporting lobbying efforts for Insure Tennessee, a legislative bill to expand TennCare coverage to more than 280,000 Tennesseans in the healthcare gap. She also held an internship with U.S. Congressman David McKinley (R-WV) as well as worked with Freedom’s Promise and English tutoring through the Nashville International Center for Empowerment. She also worked with the Romanian Partidul Democrat Liberal in an election for the EU Parliament.

“Nicole impressed me in the fall of her freshman year when she left school for two weeks to go play with the under-19 women's national soccer team in Romania in an international tournament,” said Prill. “She didn't miss a beat in her coursework.  I knew then she was going to be a top student.”

A Fulbright Scholar

Prill was instrumental in encouraging Marton to follow her passion to make a difference internationally by applying for a Fulbright Scholarship this past fall. At the time, Marton said she had her mind firmly set on going to law school. With all that Marton had going on through her community service and academic endeavors, she began to feel burned out. With the encouragement of Prill and Spivey, Marton said she applied for the scholarship program and to the Peace Corp.

“I wanted to do something that involved international travel and work that would make an impact on others,” said Marton. “The Fulbright opportunity offered that.”

Through the application process, Marton had to apply for a specific Fulbright Scholars program. She decided to apply for a teaching assistantship and noticed that Romania and its neighbor to the northeast— Moldova—were options.

Marton’s Romanian heritage tugged at her as she pondered where to apply.

“I saw the English teaching assistantships as an option on the Fulbright application. It is very different from any other experience I had ever had. So that appealed to me,” said Marton, who is a native English speaker, is fluent in Romanian and is conversational in French and German. “Graduate students were preferred for the Romanian program, but not for Moldova.”

“I thought about Moldova. It was originally part of Romania, which is my heritage. They speak the same language as I do. I grew up speaking Romanian. I am fascinated by Eastern European culture and its people. It was a part of my life growing up and it was a place I felt connected to. And if I was going to be teaching students, that would be a chance to interact culturally, to learn from them and their experiences and for them to learn from me, someone who is connected by blood culturally but maybe not necessarily familiar with the way that they’ve been brought up,” she said.

Moldova also appealed to Marton because she has never travelled there before. Also, she said it is “one of the poorest countries in Eastern Europe and is still politically corrupt.”

“So there’s a lot of room for growth,” she said. “That growth will happen with the younger generation and my generation. If I have a skill-set that’s useful, and I can inspire a student or be inspired by someone in addition to fostering a cultural exchange in order to help build leaders who are going to be responsible for positive, more progressive changes in their society, then that’s something that excites me and that I want to be a part of.”

On April 11, her mother’s birthday, while attending an international career panel hosted by Lipscomb’s Department of History, Politics and Philosophy, Marton received an email informing her that she was one of two individuals selected as Fulbright Scholars in the program in Moldova.

“I had waited and waited to find out if I made it,” she said. “When the email popped up I didn’t know if I should open it then or wait until the program was over. I opened it, saw that I was selected and I burst into tears. “I was sitting close to the door and made a quick exit. I called my parents. It was a great moment. So much relief.”

Marton said her academic journey at Lipscomb prepared her well for this new opportunity.

“One of the goals of the Fulbright program is to foster mutual understanding. My background with LJS has prepared me well for this journey,” said Marton. “My heritage has prepared me. There are many ethnic groups represented in Moldova. How do we construct a collaborative identity as Moldovan people? It takes people who are willing to be leaders and stand up for one another and to fight for peace and reconciliation when cultural tension exists. It is meant to be.”

Marton will head to Washington, D.C., July 18-22 for training. She will report for training Aug. 29 to Chisinau, the capital of Moldova. Just this week, Marton learned that her Fulbright assignment. Is in the city of Cabul, located in the province of Cahul which borders Romania. Beginning in early September she will begin work as an English teaching assistant in the Department of Modern Languages at Cahul State University.

For more information about Lipscomb’s academic programs, visit academics.lipscomb.edu.