Bard Alumna Catherine Belin ’04 Wins 2015 Fulbright Distinguished Award in Teaching

ANNANDALE-ON-HUDSON, N.Y.—Bard Master of Arts in Teaching (MAT) alum Catherine Belin ’04, who teaches at Fannie Lou Hamer Freedom High School in Bronx, New York, has been awarded a Fulbright Distinguished Awards in Teaching grant to Botswana by the U. S. Department of State and the J. William Fulbright Foreign Scholarship Board. Belin is one of 48 United States citizens who will travel abroad through the Fulbright Distinguished Awards in Teaching Program in 2015–16. Recipients of Fulbright grants are selected on the basis of academic and professional achievement, as well as demonstrated leadership potential.

“Bard helped me understand that in order to teach mathematics well, I also needed to be a scholar of the discipline. During these past 10 years teaching high school in the south Bronx, I’ve realized how true this is—that the more I continue to deepen my own mathematical understanding, the more I can get inside students’ thinking, their questions, and their confusions. Through Bard, I found Fannie Lou Hamer Freedom High School and the Algebra Project, organizations that work to ensure quality public education and access to full citizenship for all students,” said Belin.

About the Bard Master of Arts in Teaching Program
The Master of Arts in Teaching (MAT) Program at Bard College was founded in 2003. Its core is an integrated curriculum leading to a master of arts in teaching degree and a teaching certificate for grades 7–12 in one of four areas: English/literature, mathematics, biology, or history. The MAT Program is based on three campuses, in Annandale, New York City’s BHSEC II, and California. For more information about MAT, visit bard.edu/mat/.

About Bard College
Founded in 1860, Bard College in Annandale-on-Hudson, New York, is an independent, nonsectarian, residential, coeducational college offering a four-year B.A. program in the liberal arts and sciences and a five-year B.A./B.S. degree in economics and finance. The Bard College Conservatory of Music offers a five-year program in which students pursue a dual degree—a B.Music and a B.A. in a field other than music—and offers an M.Music in vocal arts and in conducting. Bard also bestows an M.Music degree at Longy School of Music of Bard College in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Bard and its affiliated institutions also grant the following degrees: A.A. at Bard High School Early College, a public school with campuses in New York City, Cleveland, and Newark, New Jersey; A.A. and B.A. at Bard College at Simon’s Rock: The Early College, in Great Barrington, Massachusetts, and through the Bard Prison Initiative at six correctional institutions in New York State; M.A. in curatorial studies, M.S. in economic theory and policy, and M.S. in environmental policy and in climate science and policy at the Annandale campus; M.F.A. and M.A.T. at multiple campuses; M.B.A. in sustainability in New York City; and M.A., M.Phil., and Ph.D. in the decorative arts, design history, and material culture at the Bard Graduate Center in Manhattan. Internationally, Bard confers dual B.A. degrees at the Faculty of Liberal Arts and Sciences, St. Petersburg State University, Russia (Smolny College); American University of Central Asia in Kyrgyzstan; and Bard College Berlin: A Liberal Arts University; as well as dual B.A. and M.A.T. degrees at Al-Quds University in the West Bank.

Bard offers nearly 50 academic programs in four divisions. Total enrollment for Bard College and its affiliates is approximately 5,000 students. The undergraduate College has an enrollment of more than 1,900 and a student-to-faculty ratio of 10:1. For more information about Bard College, visit bard.edu.

About the Fulbright Program
The Fulbright Program is the flagship international educational exchange program sponsored by the U.S. government and is designed to increase mutual understanding between the people of the United States and the people of other countries. The primary source of funding for the Fulbright Program is an annual appropriation made by the U.S. Congress to the U.S. Department of State’s Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs. Participating governments and host institutions, corporations and foundations in foreign countries and in the United States also provide direct and indirect support. Recipients of Fulbright grants are selected on the basis of academic or professional achievement, as well as demonstrated leadership potential in their fields. The Program operates in over 160 countries worldwide.

Since its establishment in 1946 under legislation introduced by former U.S. Senator J. William Fulbright of Arkansas, the Fulbright Program has given approximately 360,000 students, scholars, teachers, artists, and scientists the opportunity to study, teach and conduct research, exchange ideas and contribute to finding solutions to shared international concerns.

Fulbright alumni have achieved distinction in government, science, the arts, business, philanthropy, education, and many other fields. Fifty-three Fulbright alumni from 14 countries have been awarded the Nobel Prize, and 82 alumni have received Pulitzer Prizes. Prominent Fulbright alumni include: Muhammad Yunus, founder, Grameen Bank, and 2006 Nobel Peace Prize recipient; Juan Manuel Santos, President of Colombia; John Hope Franklin, noted American historian and Presidential Medal of Freedom recipient; Riccardo Giacconi, physicist and 2002 Nobel Laureate; Amar Gopal Bose, founder, Bose Corporation; Renée Fleming, soprano; Jonathan Franzen, writer; and Daniel Libeskind, architect.

Fulbright recipients are among over 50,000 individuals participating in U.S. Department of State exchange programs each year. The Fulbright Distinguished Awards in Teaching Program is administered by the Institute of International Education.

For further information about the Fulbright Program or the U.S. Department of State’s Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs, visit eca.state.gov/Fulbright, call 202-632- 6452, or e-mail [email protected].

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CAPTION INFO: Bard Master of Arts in Teaching (MAT) alum Catherine Belin ’04, who teaches at Fannie Lou Hamer Freedom High School in Bronx, New York, has been awarded a Fulbright Distinguished Awards in Teaching grant to Botswana.

This event was last updated on 06-18-2015

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