Power Lunch for the Scott Kloeck-Jenson Fellows

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE DATE: September 28, 2005 CONTACT: Ronnie Hess, Director of Communications, UW–Madison Division of International Studies, (608) 262-5590, rlhess@wisc.edu Madison, WI — It was a power lunch September 19 when seven Scott Kloeck-Jenson fellows and their advisors got together to talk about research. The fellowships are awarded to outstanding UW–Madison graduate students whose work is expected to foster international understanding and serve social justice concerns around the globe. At the get-together, the fellows were eager to talk about their travels to far-off countries and how the fellowship was helping them in their research. “It really opened a lot of possibilities,” said Chaitanya Lakkimsetti, a graduate student in sociology who spent several weeks this summer in India researching feminist groups. Lakkimsetti said she was able to think more deeply about methodological questions during her time in India. “It was extremely important to my work and future thinking,” said Susan Rottmann, a graduate student in anthropology who did archival research in Istanbul on Turkish immigration in Europe. Rottmann also conducted interviews with various people while she was in Turkey. She said what she learned could not have been gleaned from books alone. “I came back with a clear sense of the contours of my project,” said Shazia Iftkhar, a graduate student in Journalism and Mass Communication who is studying themes of democracy, integration and citizenship in contemporary France. The fellowships are named in memory of Scott Kloeck-Jenson. Kloeck-Jenson came to UW–Madison after receiving his B.A. from St. Olaf College and spending two years with the Peace Corps in Lesotho. With a Global Studies MacArthur fellowship, he conducted doctoral research in Mozambique, and was appointed director of the UW–Madison’s Land Tenure Center project there. He and his wife, along with their two children, were killed in a car accident in South Africa in 1999. The fellows represent a broad range of interests and disciplinary approaches, including theater, anthropology, communication, sociology, area studies, political science, and law. The students, who come from different countries and backgrounds, are doing research in Uganda, Turkey, Indonesia, France, India, Benin, Angola, Russia, and Argentina. Other research projects include study of contemporary Islamic movements in Indonesia, globalization and its effect on the livelihoods of agricultural workers in Benin, and the work of a theater troupe in reducing HIV/AIDS in Uganda. Other 2005 fellows are: Dixie Beadle (Theater and Drama), Jim Hoesterey (Anthropology), Eunsook Jung (Political Science), Amy Quark (Sociology), César Rodríguez-Garavito (Sociology), Heather Sonntag (Languages and Cultures of Asia) and Jen Ziemke (Political Science). Fifty scholars have been awarded Scott Kloeck-Jenson fellowships since the program was begun in 2000, according to Michael Curtin, a professor of Communication Arts who is the director of Global Studies, the International Institute program which administers the fellowships. Curtin said Global Studies had been successful in its initial effort to secure funding for the fellowships. “We think that [funding] will grow in the future,” Curtin said. “This is a lead example of what we should do,” said Gilles Bousquet, dean of International Studies at UW–Madison. Bousquet praised the fellowship program, its ability to fund graduate study internationally, and the excellence of the students’ work. Proceeds from the sale of a book edited by UW–Madison faculty members Ksenija Bilbija (Spanish and Portuguese), Jo Ellen Fair (Journalism and Mass Communication), and Leigh Payne (Political Science), The Art of Truth-Telling about Authoritarian Rule, will go toward the fellowship. Fair and Payne are fellowship advisors. In addition, several faculty and staff have made gifts in response to a challenge grant from David Trubek, Law School emeritus professor and former dean of International Studies.