{"id":39608,"date":"2025-10-06T15:34:15","date_gmt":"2025-10-06T19:34:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/?p=39608"},"modified":"2025-10-06T19:47:31","modified_gmt":"2025-10-06T23:47:31","slug":"recent-furman-alumni-receive-fulbright-awards","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/recent-furman-alumni-receive-fulbright-awards\/","title":{"rendered":"Two 2025 Furman grads receive Fulbright awards"},"content":{"rendered":"

Two Furman University alumni received Fulbright awards to teach English in Austria<\/a> this academic year.<\/p>\n

Philosophy and German studies major Catherine Sikes \u201925 and politics and international affairs and German studies major Li Ward \u201925 are Furman\u2019s most recent student Fulbright winners.<\/p>\n

Furman has eight Fulbright applicants who are not German-studies<\/a> majors waiting for news of their award status sometime in late Spring, said Scott Henderson, the William R. Kenan Jr. Professor of Education and director of National and International Scholarships. Sikes and Ward mark 55 Furman students who have received a Fulbright grant.<\/p>\n

\"A

Politics and international affairs and German studies major Li Ward ’25, a new Fulbright grantee, holds an American flag at a flag planting event on Milford Mall in 2023.<\/p><\/div>\n

\u201cMy focus while teaching will be exploring different cultural perspectives of health and its impact on things like recreational drug use, alcoholism and other substance use disorders,\u201d said Sikes.<\/p>\n

Sikes, from Saint Cloud, Minnesota, said her journey to this award was guided by the insights of the German Studies and Philosophy departments. After studying German since middle school, it was Furman\u2019s German professors who \u201cbrought new and exciting lessons\u201d that developed Sikes\u2019 language skills, she said. She was also grateful for the encouragement she received from Carmela Epright, professor of philosophy, and associate professor of philosophy David Gandolfo.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt feels surreal. I had the opportunity to live in northern Austria for a year in high school, so it\u2019s been a bit nostalgic ,\u201d Sikes said.<\/p>\n

Ward, from Beaufort, South Carolina, will work as a teaching assistant in the town of Baden bei Wien in Austria. Ward couldn\u2019t be reached for comment before publication.<\/p>\n

Furman was recently recognized as a \u201cFulbright Top Producing<\/a> Institution\u201d by the U.S. Department of State\u2019s Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs. Prior to Sikes and Ward, Furman\u2019s last Fulbright student was Alex Threlkeld \u201924<\/a>. Two Furman faculty members recently returned from time abroad as Fulbright scholars: Lori Alvin<\/a>, the Henry Keith and Ellen Hard Townes Associate Professor of Mathematics and Roger Sneed<\/a>, professor of religion.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Catherine Sikes \u201925 and Li Ward \u201925 received English Teaching Assistant awards from Fulbright Austria.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":401,"featured_media":39543,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3269,16],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-39608","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-honors-and-awards","category-modern-languages-and-literature"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39608","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/401"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=39608"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39608\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":39618,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39608\/revisions\/39618"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/39543"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=39608"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=39608"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=39608"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}