Caditz Awarded Fulbright to Teach English Abroad

Mercer Island High School '07 graduate Alison Caditz has been awarded a Fulbright scholarship to teach English in Argentina. Studying a Spanish and English and comparative literary studies double major at Occidental College in Los Angeles, Calif., she is one of nine students and alumni this year at the school to receive prestigious Fulbright scholarships to work and study abroad.

The Fulbright program is the U.S.’s flagship international educational exchange program. It awards about 8,000 grants annually and operates in more than 155 countries worldwide. The program was established in 1946 under legislation introduced by Sen. J. William Fulbright of Arkansas. 

This won’t be Caditz’s first time in Argentina; she spent a semester abroad in the South American country in 2010. Her other collegiate experiences include a criminal law internship at the King County Prosecuting Attorney’s Office and an education law/juvenile justice internship at the Public Counsel Law Center’s Children’s Rights Project in Los Angeles. 

Caditz and the College’s other Fulbright winners will join more than 1,500 U.S. citizens who will travel abroad for the 2011-2012 academic year through the Fulbright U.S. Student Program. The nine Fulbright recipients are among 43 Occidental students and alumni who have won Fulbrights since 2003, a record that makes Occidental College, a liberal arts college in Los Angeles, one of the country's top producers of Fulbright Scholars. It is one of the College’s largest groups of Fulbright winners ever, second only to the 10 selected in 2008. 

Occidental College’s other Fulbright recipients are: 

• Trevor Fay '09, American studies major from Pasadena, CA

• Vasti Mejia '11, politics major from Riverside, CA

• Chandrika Francis ’10, urban and environmental policy major from Oakland, CA

• Ana Chamberlain ’10, diplomacy and world affairs major from Santa Fe, N.M.

• Julia Bleckner '10, diplomacy and world affairs major from Oakland, CA

• Katherine Allen '10, critical theory and social justice major from Exeter, Pa.

• Michele Kanemori '11, biochemistry major from Wahiawa, Hawaii

• Marzieh Goudarzi '11, diplomacy and world affairs major from Los Angeles

Founded in 1887, Occidental is one of the oldest liberal arts colleges on the West Coast. Since winning its first Rhodes Scholarship in 1907, the College has consistently won national and international recognition for academic achievement and its global orientation. Scores of Occidental alumni are currently serving in the Foreign Service, with international non-governmental organizations, and as international entrepreneurs.