IE&O Headlines

Tina Dicks, incoming student to the School of International Studies (SIS), has been awarded the first ever Wes & Lou Watkins Matthew 25:40 Scholarship. Tina, whose focus area in SIS will be Human Development, Society & Education and who will also be a Peace Corps Master’s International student, will travel to Sierra Leone this summer to develop 4-H- and FFA-type programs for the country’s large youth population (over 50%). Congressman and Regent Watkins have endowed four Matthew 25:40 Scholarships to incentivize students to travel abroad taking projects to developing countries. Congressman Watkins presented the check for the endowed scholarships to OSU President Burns Hargis at the 10^th Anniversary Celebration of SIS in April. Tina’s project is especially dear to Congressman Watkins because of his heavy involvement in FFA as a youth. In fact, he credits FFA with being the vehicle that opened his eyes to a world that eventually led to him becoming a US Representative from Oklahoma. Tina is the daughter of SIS Faculty Member, Dr. Mike Dicks, in the College of Agricultural Sciences and Natural Resources.

On April 9^th, dignitaries from around the world were welcomed to the Wes Watkins Center to honor the School of International Studies for its first decade of service to OSU and its students. This year also marked the 17^th installment of the Wes Watkins Distinguished Lectureship, where H.E. Dr. Adnan Badran, former Prime Minister of Jordan and OSU alumnus, was the featured speaker. In addition to the Lectureship, SIS celebrated its 10^th Anniversary with a morning reception for Japanese Consul General at Houston, the Honorable Tsutomu Osawa, and afternoon panels that covered Foreign Policy, the Economy and African issues. The morning reception welcomed members of Stillwater’s Sister Cities Council and Oklahoma’s Secretary of State, the Honorable M. Susan Savage. The afternoon panels were chaired by Dr. James Scott, head of OSU’s Political Science Department (Foreign Policy); Dr. Stephen Miller, director of SIS’s Graduate Program (the Economy); and, Dr. Stephan Wilson, dean of OSU’s College of Human Environmental Sciences (African issues). For the list of the panels’ distinguished participants, click here. The day ended for the public with the dedication of the Wes Watkins Center Global Plaza where OSU Regent Andrew Lester, National Sister Cities Chairman Michael Hyatt, OSU Regent Lou Watkins and the Honorable Wes Watkins spoke. That evening, a special reception and dinner were held for the speakers during the day’s events.

The Fulbright Resource Center within the School of International Studies has helped two more students attain a prestigious Fulbright grant. Fulbright Teaching Assistantships were announced April 28th for Andrew Moore and Emily Lehenbauer. Wanting to increase its efforts to help students through the extensive application process for Fulbright grants, OSU created the Fulbright Resource Center and made it a unit of SIS. Last year, OSU put forth six applications, and this year, it doubled that number to twelve. For more information about OSU’s Fulbright efforts and application process, visit http://fulbright.okstate.edu. To read about this year’s awardees and the projects for which they were awarded their Fulbright grants, click here…