College of LAS alumni awarded Fulbright grants

Three College of LAS alumni have been offered highly prestigious Fulbright grants this year, awarding them the opportunity to pursue international research, educational, and teaching experiences.

Victoria Prince (BA, ’17, global studies), Brian Robinson (BA, ’17, psychology and creative writing), and Jessica Romero (BA, ’18, Spanish and Portuguese) are among 11 of the Illinois students and young alumni awarded the grant this year.

The Fulbright U.S. Student Program, provided by the U.S. government, builds international relationships to solve global challenges. Based on their academic and professional achievement as well as their demonstrated leadership potential, approximately 2,100 U.S. citizens will travel abroad for the 2018-19 academic year through the Fulbright program.

Victoria Prince, of Chicago, and a graduate of Walter Payton College Prep in Chicago, has been awarded a Fulbright grant to teach English in Poland. Prince will assist in teaching various academic courses in English at a university. A master’s student in European Union studies, Prince also earned a bachelor's degree in global studies from Illinois in May 2017.

On campus, she was active as a member of the Polish Culture Club. Prince gained teaching experience as a James Scholar Honors Program peer-to-peer mentor, president of the Global Studies Leaders and president of the campus tutoring organization Vis-a-Vis, where she trained peers to serve as tutors in local elementary and secondary schools. She also worked as an English tutor while studying abroad in China for a semester. Prince has advanced knowledge of Polish, Chinese, and Spanish, and hopes to use her linguistic and intercultural skills to serve the U.S. government in an ambassadorial role.

Brian Robinson, a May 2017 Illinois graduate in psychology and creative writing, has been offered a Fulbright English teaching assistantship to teach elementary and middle school students in Taiwan. Robinson, of La Grange, Illinois, began his studies of Mandarin Chinese at Lyons Township High School and continued for a year in college.

At Illinois, Robinson served as a Counseling Center paraprofessional, where he led workshops on topics such as self-care, campus drinking culture, and mental health. He also was active as an arts journal editor, a member of an improv team and a participant in a creative writing club. Robinson works as a behavioral health associate at Linden Oaks Hospital in Naperville, Illinois. After the Fulbright, Robinson plans to pursue further study in psychology and utilize his experience to better understand psychology’s cultural dimensions.

Jessica Romero, of Cicero, Illinois, and a graduate of J. Sterling Morton East High School, has been selected to represent the U.S. as a Fulbright English teaching assistant in Brazil. She will spend nine months at a university instructing future English as a foreign language teachers. A May 2018 bachelor's degree recipient with majors in Spanish and Portuguese, Romero gained instructional experience as an intern with the Intensive English Institute on campus and as a program assistant with Illinois Abroad and Global Exchange.

Her Fulbright in Brazil will be her third trip to Latin America after having studied abroad in Costa Rica for a semester during her sophomore year and in Rio de Janeiro in fall 2017. In Costa Rica, Romero provided weekly English lessons at a local library and an elementary school. In Champaign-Urbana, she tutored children through the organizations Student Opportunities for After-School Resources and Vis-a-Vis. After the Fulbright, Romero seeks to continue her career as an educator teaching Latin American history.