By: Sally Ann Flecker

She had been nominated for one of the country’s most prestigious scholarships, the Fulbright. But she had no real idea of the status. Every now and then, she’d receive an update in the mail to let her know she’d passed one round or another. Still, she felt like once she had submitted her application packet, her future was left to the winds.

When the call finally came, it wasn’t quite what she had expected. Because of security concerns, Fulbright had closed the Indonesia program, where she had applied to spend a year studying what she calls “disaster” rhetoric in the wake of the 2004 killer tsunami. But the caller—Jonathon Akeley, head of Asian affairs at the Institute of International Education—said the committee really liked her English teaching assistantship application. Would she consider a program being set up in Hong Kong? She could teach a class in American media at the University of Hong Kong and also work with public radio there. Take a few minutes to think it over, he said, and call back.

She said she would, then hung up the phone.

By the time Carnegie Mellon humanities and social sciences graduate student Sarah Rubin called home to discuss it with her parents, she was squealing with delight. Why not? More Fulbright alumni have won Nobel prizes, 36, than those of any other academic program. The diverse alumni group includes Ruth Simmons, president of Brown University; Joseph Heller, acclaimed novelist; and Richard Debs, founding member of Morgan Stanley International. The program, which is primarily funded by the U.S. Department of State, looks for students with leadership potential to study, conduct research, or teach overseas. And the grants enable the recipients to observe the politics, economics, educational systems, and cultures of other countries.

It’s not the kind of offer that people typically turn down. And Rubin, after talking it over with her parents, didn’t. In fact, her parents were relieved. They were concerned about her safety in Indonesia. Rubin could empathize. “I have a tendency to go off to sort of volatile places in the world,” she says. “Never on purpose. In retrospect, I look back, and I went to places where there’s recently been a war or disaster. The reason you go there is because you see people in trouble and you want to help, not realizing that the context around there is not going to be completely rosy.” The revised destination of Hong Kong harbored no such worries. “It’s safe, very safe,” assures Rubin.

So it was official. She would be a Fulbright scholar. She quickly made a contact at Radio Television Hong Kong, the territory’s public broadcasting organization, and began thinking about what to include in her class on American media. For sure, her interest in public radio—especially the role it plays in the formation of democracy—will be represented. “Whatever my love is doesn’t necessarily need to be somebody else’s passion,” she says, “but I think it gives me the energy and puts a brilliant light around whatever the subject is, and students can access it in whatever way excites them. The greatest thing as a teacher is to be able to connect to a student in that way.”

Rubin leads a banner year in terms of elite scholarships for Carnegie Mellon University students—all four of the undergraduate nominees for the 2007 Barry M. Goldwater scholarships were selected (see News Flash). The Goldwater scholarships recognize exceptional students who wish to pursue careers in mathematics, science, or engineering.

As for Rubin, it’s easy for her to trace the path that led her to a Master of Arts degree in rhetoric and, ultimately, the Fulbright. It began when she was a University of Michigan sophomore on a monthlong study-abroad trip in Israel to learn about that country’s history and politics. She had traveled before, but only as a tourist. In Israel, she started her sojourn by spending a week on a kibbutz, an Israeli collective community. She stayed with an older couple, working on the farm with them, cooking, washing dishes. “It cut down on the romance of it and allowed me to see day-to-day life in a kibbutz, which is a really beautiful living structure,” she says.

Before she rejoined the group she was traveling with, she invited her hosts to visit her in the United States. But she didn’t think they would want to spend their time at her family’s home in Michigan. Maybe they would want to go to California because of Hollywood and the ocean. Or visit New York City because of Broadway and the skyscrapers. Or maybe they would want to see the Rockies.

Their choice startled her. These are all good suggestions, they told her. But we go to visit people, not places. Geography doesn’t really matter to us, or the attractions.

“That kind of hit me hard,” Rubin says. “It was a profound statement. I was 18 or 19, and I had never really considered that or been asked to think about traveling in that way. So that sort of set the spin on my trip to Israel as one of inquiry. It opened up a curiosity about the people. I wanted to see how they lived, especially against the backdrop of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.”

(Continued …)

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