Six recent University of Georgia graduates were named Fulbright recipients for the 2007-2008 academic year, including Alejandro Crawford of Fayetteville who was awarded a Fulbright student scholarship for study abroad opportunities.

The Fulbright Program, sponsored by the U.S. Department of State, is the largest international exchange program offered in America. The scholarship, which covers travel costs and living expenses, has sent approximately 279,500 people to study, research or teach overseas. An outstanding academic or professional record and demonstrated leadership potential are among the selection criteria.

“This is a terrific travel-study scholarship,” said Steve Elliott-Gower, UGA’s Fulbright Program advisor, “and it serves as vital a purpose as ever in promoting international understanding. We need even more UGA students to take advantage of this opportunity.”

On the European front, Crawford, who received his bachelor’s degree in English last December, is currently living and working as a writer in Portugal. His Fulbright project involves writing a poem in three parts based on the three issues of Orpheu, a 1915 Portuguese literary magazine, which advocated the Modernism movement in arts and literature. Crawford participated in the Honors Program’s Interdisciplinary Field Program, studying anthropology, ecology and geology in the western U.S. the summer before his freshman year and spent a year in England through the UGA@Oxford study abroad program during his sophomore year.

“When I got the envelope in the mail about Fulbright, I was nervous,” said Crawford, who hopes to have a manuscript of his Fulbright project ready for publication by the end of next year. “Then when I opened the envelope, I sprinted down the street to tell my friends the great news.”

For more information about Fulbright international opportunities available to U.S. students, see http://us.fulbrightonline.org/home.html. For more information on UGA’s Honors Program, see http://www.uga.edu/honors.

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