Lawrence University Senior Awarded Fulbright Fellowship in Germany
APPLETON, WIS. -- The answer to the age-old question, "what are you doing after graduation?," recently became considerably more interesting for Annie Krieg.
A senior at Lawrence University and a 1997 graduate of Marshfield High School, Krieg has been awarded a Fulbright Fellowship by the J. William Fulbright Foreign Scholarship Board for the 2001-2002 academic year.
In September, Krieg will leave for Germany to spend the next 10 months as an English instructor working with students in grades 5-13 in the north-central state of Saxony-Anhalt. The Fulbright award provides Krieg with round-trip transportation to Germany, health insurance and a $700 monthly stipend.
She was one of approximately 875 college seniors nationally who were awarded a Fulbright Fellowship for teaching and research positions in more than 100 countries.
Krieg first got hooked on German as a 12-year-old when she attended the Concordia Language Villages, a summer language immersion camp in Bemidji, Minn.
"I remember my camp counselors talking about the Fulbright program in Germany at that time," said Krieg, the daughter of George and Debbie Krieg, Marshfield. "How ironic that now, 10 years later, here I am going on that program."
The fellowship should provide a sense of deja vu for Krieg, who lived in Germany from September 1999 to June 2000, attending Humboldt University in Berlin. While she was there, she complemented her studies by teaching English once a week to a group of German nurses through a private language institute.
When the school year ended, Krieg opted to extend her visit for an extra month, moving to Burg, a small city 60 miles south of Berlin, where she worked with a youth club on "cultural education issues." She participated in activities ranging from discussions of racism to explaining the nuances of American baseball.
"Having already been to Germany once, I'm looking forward to going back and jumping right in without worrying about the whole acclimation process this time," said Krieg, who will graduate from Lawrence in June with a bachelor of arts degree in German and art history.
During her stay in Germany a year ago, Krieg managed to visit some areas of the war-torn Balkans. When her Fulbright Fellowship is completed next summer, she's planning on investigating some volunteer opportunities in Croatia and Bosnia.
"I would love to return to that part of the world and do some humanitarian work if I could," said Krieg.
Between her Lawrence graduation and her departure for Germany, Krieg plans to bide her time revisiting her "German roots." She'll spend this summer back at the same German "Waldsee village" in Bemidji she attended, this time as a counselor, not a camper, talking up the Fulbright program to her charges just as someone did to her a decade earlier.
"Those summer camps really instilled a love of language in me and German has since become such a big part of my life," said Krieg. "The Fulbright award is just wonderful icing on the cake."
The Fulbright Program was created by Congress in 1946 to foster mutual understanding among nations through educational and cultural exchanges. Senator J. William Fulbright, who sponsored the legislation, saw it as a step toward building an alternative to armed conflict.
Since its founding, the Fulbright Program has become the U.S. government's premier scholarship program, enabling American students, artists and other professionals to benefit from unique resources in every corner of the world and gain international competence.