by Emily Snell | May 2, 2012 | News Slider
Lipscomb senior Bethany Eldridge was announced last week as a Fulbright U.S. Student grant recipient, allowing her to study global development in The Netherlands. The grant will send Eldridge, a soon-to-be graduate in law, justice and society, to the University of Maastricht in The Netherlands to obtain her master’s degree in European Studies on Society, Science and Technology. Eldridge said the first half of the one-year program is focused on background, study skills and techniques on how education and technology are used in global development, and the second half allows participants to do their own research. “It kind of means to me that all of my dreams and goals are happening, and there was a reason I’ve had this desire to do something larger than myself,” Eldridge said of what the award means to her. “Now I have the platform to do it. It kind of makes my life make sense now that things match up.” Eldridge said she hopes to use her Netherlands experience to learn how to better educate girls in developing nations. “I want to learn the practical steps in how you help the underserved girls in the world with education,” Eldridge said, “and how people have overcome [barriers] and what needs to be done still.” Paul Prill, director of the Honors College, serves as the faculty adviser for students interested in applying for the Fulbright program. He said the U.S. only awards 800 grants for undergraduate students, and he estimates that more than 15 thousand students apply each year. “She’s in the top one tenth of one percent of students in the country in terms of her intellectual ability...
