UMF grads to serve as Fulbright Ambassadors to Mongolia and Thailand

FARMINGTON — The University of Maine at Farmington announces that two Maine UMF grads, one from the upcoming class of 2017 and one from the class of 2016, have been awarded Fulbright Fellowships by the Fulbright U.S. Student Program.

The competitive national program, sponsored by the U.S. State Department to promote good will internationally, has selected Sarah Gould ’17 of Sanford and Lauren Crosby ’16 of Georgetown as Fulbright Ambassadors for 2017-2018. In the past three years, six outstanding UMF students and graduates have been named Fulbright Ambassadors.

Both students will have a training period later this spring, after which it is anticipated that Gould will travel to Mongolia and Crosby to Thailand to teach English.

An Honors student majoring in global studies, Gould has a life-long passion for learning about other cultures, their customs, traditions and languages. She comes from a long UMF tradition. “My whole family has gone to UMF and loved it. I knew I would too,” she said.

She has taken advantage of many UMF opportunities to learn while traveling and has participated in travel courses to Germany, Austria and Peru. Her junior year was spent in France in UMF’s exchange program at the Universite du Maine Le Mans where she studied the French language and culture and taught English.

Gould has had a long-time interest in Mongolia and wants to explore issues related to the migration of nomadic peoples and their adaptation to settled life when they move into cities. Ultimately she is interested in advocating for refugee rights and working with an organization that assists refugee resettlement.

While at UMF, she served as the co-president of UMF’s Amnesty International Club, was a member of the French Club and presented her capstone project at the Northeast Regional Honors Council Conference in Pittsburgh, Penn.

Crosby majored in secondary education and also has an enthusiasm for travel and learning beyond the campus. She participated twice in the National Student Exchange program, including a semester at the University of Memphis and again at the University of New Mexico’s flagship research institution in Albuquerque.

She completed her student teaching in South Korea in fall 2016, and went on to teach middle school in English in a Yupi’k Eskimo village on Alaska’s Bering Sea. She is looking forward to the knowledge she will gain with her Fulbright experience as it helps, she says, to build a “beautiful cultural bridge between America and Thailand.”

An accomplished musician, Crosby put herself through college by writing songs and playing venues all around Maine and beyond. A lobsterman’s daughter, much of her music is inspired by the way she grew up on the Maine coast. She released her first full-length album in 2014 under Rising River Records and funded her first live album last April.

At UMF she was involved with the rugby team and was active with the Sustainable Campus Coalition.

A faculty committee, under Fulbright adviser Anne Marie Wolf, associate professor of history, was involved with the Fulbright candidates, commenting on student statement drafts, conducting on-campus interviews and providing observations for applications.

Recipients are selected by the Fulbright Program based on their academic and professional record, language preparation, feasibility of their project or course of study and personal qualifications. The Fulbright Program awards roughly 1,900 U.S. student awards annually, nationwide.