Two members of the Class of 2015 awarded Fulbright grants

Leland Sidle '15, left, and Rick Hogoboom '15 have been awarded U.S. Fulbright Student Program grants to teach abroad.
Leland Sidle '15, left, and Rick Hogoboom '15 have been awarded U.S. Fulbright Student Program grants to teach abroad.

Two members of Connecticut College’s Class of 2015 have been selected to receive U.S. Fulbright Student Program grants to teach abroad.

Rick Hogoboom '15 has been awarded a Fulbright Fellowship English Teaching Assistantship to Taiwan and Leland Sidle '15 has been awarded Fulbright Fellowship English Teaching Assistantship to Russia.

Fulbright fellows receive round-trip travel to their host countries, a living stipend and medical insurance. Connecticut College has had 31 Fulbright winners in the last six years, and is consistently recognized as a top producer of Fulbright recipients.

Hogoboom, who majored in international relations and minored East Asian studies at Connecticut College, will teach in Kinmen (also known as Quemoy), an island off the coast of Xiamen, China. He says he is looking forward to practicing his Chinese language skills and continuing to study U.S./ Chinese relations, and he credits Government and International Relations Professor John Qunjian Tian with encouraging him to apply for the Fulbright fellowship.

"Professor Tian always advocates for an on-site approach to learning, so he made me realize that if I want to study China-U.S. relationships and how Taiwan factors in, I'd better go to Taiwan," Hogoboom says.

At the College, Hogoboom was a scholar in the Toor Cummings Center for International Studies and the Liberal Arts (CISLA). He also served as co-chair of the East Asian Studies Student Advisory Board and as the student manager of the College's radio station, WCNI. An avid guitar player, he hopes to establish some extracurricular activities related to music for his students in Taiwan.

Sidle, who majored in Slavic studies and international relations and was also a CISLA scholar, will be teaching conversational English at a university in Novosibirsk, a large city in Siberia. He also plans to create a pen-pals program between Russian and American university students and compile a slang dictionary.

Sidle has been studying Russian language and culture since middle school, and he is looking forward to spending the year further honing his Russian language skills. He says the College has prepared him for the Fulbright experience by providing him with "a deep understanding of Russian culture and history," and he credits professors Andrea Lanoux, Tony Lin and Eileen Kane specifically with helping him through the application process.  

Following his Fulbright year, Sidle hopes to work for a year or two before pursuing a graduate degree in international relations. 



May 26, 2015