Honors College a guiding force in record year for Fulbright students

Janel Shoun-Smith | 615.966.7078  |  01/23/2020

The Honors College is heading into its 30th anniversary this fall having already celebrated one of its greatest achievements in 2019. Five Lipscomb alumni, two of which are recent Honors College graduates, received 2019 Fulbright Fellowship offers to teach and conduct research in South Korea, Colombia and Uruguay.

Sponsored by the U.S. Department of State, the Fulbright Program places U.S. scholars, students and professionals in schools or universities overseas to improve foreign students’ English language skills and knowledge of the U.S.

Thanks, in part, to promotional, mentoring and academic efforts by the Honors College, Lipscomb has significantly increased the number of students and alumni receiving Fulbrights in the past decade. Out of 12 Fulbright fellowships offered over the past 13 years, nine of those recipients have been Honors College students.

Paul Prill, who has served as the director of the Honors College for 20 years, also serves as the Fulbright adviser on campus and hosts workshops each year to make students aware of national competitive scholarships, including the Fulbright Program.

“Preparing students for competitive programs like the Fulbright Scholars Program is a collaborative effort with the academic programs, study abroad, mission programs and other opportunities students have at Lipscomb,” Prill said.

“The Honors College, in many cases brings people to Lipscomb and pushes them to expand their understanding of what they should be doing at the university. Then the departments provide the research opportunities, mentoring and instruction, and writing letters of recommendation,” he said.

The honors curriculum provides students with the opportunity to enhance their academics through in-depth critical thinking projects and research studies; expand their perspective through intentional service and community engagement; and take part in summer internship and development opportunities, all considered valuable preparatory experiences by the Fulbright program.

The Honors College most recent Fulbright recipients – Anissa Plattner (’16) and Lauren Borders (’18) – all took advantage of Lipscomb’s academic honors courses, student research opportunities, study abroad options and service-learning to enhance their global perspectives and professional development.

“For Lipscomb, the presence of so many Fulbright awards over the past decade enhances our academic reputation and better enables us to recruit exceptional students,” said Prill.

Lauren Borders (’18)
To be placed in Uruguay in March 2020
Communication graduate from Duluth, Georgia

Borders was selected for the research track of the Fulbright program. She will be researching political broadcast journalism as an affiliate of the University of Montevideo. 

“I had always known that I wanted to live in another country at some point, and the Fulbright gives you an opportunity to do that while acting as a representative of your country doing meaningful work on a project entirely designed by you,” said Borders, who now works as the digital and communications coordinator at Calvert Street Group in Nashville. “I could research something that was truly important to me while fulfilling my lifelong goal of being a resident abroad.”

During her college career, Borders studied abroad in Santiago, Chile, and chose to take an independent study class during that time to research and produce a report on journalism during the Chilean dictatorship. She was tapped to present her report at the annual Lipscomb Student Scholars Symposium. 

Her Fulbright research will be similar to that previous study, she said, “but on a much larger scale. I’ll have the opportunity to do work that I can take with me outside of my educational experience and integrate it into the rest of my career.”

Anissa Plattner (’16)
Received a fellowship for Colombia
Education graduate from Nashville

Plattner, a Nashville native who lives in Los Angeles working as the English Language development coordinator for Alliance Environmental Science High School, was selected for a teaching assistant placement.

“I’m excited about the Fulbright scholarship because I’m interested in best practices in teaching English as a second language,” said Plattner. “Currently, I teach high school ESL, and I think the experience of teaching ESL at a university level will allow me to hone those skills and develop new ones.” 

Plattner credits Prill and Megan Parker Peters, associate professor in the College of Education, who were part of several independent study projects, with being particularly influential while a student at Lipscomb.