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10 California State University, FRESNO
Fox Wins
ICELAND
FULBRIGHT
BY DOUGLAS HOAGLAND
Sydney Fox – sweaty and tired – walked to her car from an early-morn- ing weight workout for Fresno State student-athletes. She popped the trunk on her white Acura, got her phone and started to scroll through emails. One message immediately caught her eye.
“CONGRATULATIONS,” IT
BEGAN. FOX HAD WON A FULBRIGHT FELLOWSHIP FOR THE 2022-23 ACADEMIC YEAR.
She started to shake and cry with joy: the prestigious Fulbright pro- gram was going to pay her expenses while she conducts important research on the world’s climate crisis. What’s more, she’d get to do it in a nation – Iceland – that’s on the forefront of environmental technology.
“I’m going to get to see the world while doing hands-on work,” Fox would say later, adding: “Fresno State gave me opportunities that devel- oped me into a person who could compete for the Fulbright fellowship.”
Fox’s journey to winning the fellowship went through Fresno State’s Study Abroad Office, part of the Division of Continuing and Global Education. Rishad Gandhi, Study Abroad Coordinator, served as Fox’s Fulbright adviser, and the office helped give her a first taste of foreign travel. Fox had never been away from Fresno for more than a week before joining other Fresno State students in 2019 on a three-week trip to Costa Rica. Experiencing another culture exhilarated her, and she returned to Fresno with an enlarged sense of the world.
“Students like Sydney get a taste of what it’s like to go abroad, and then come back to Fresno State looking for other opportunities,” Gandhi says. The Fulbright U.S. Student Program is one of those “other oppor- tunities.” The program enables graduating college seniors, graduate students, young professionals and artists to study, teach or conduct research abroad. The application process is highly competitive, and former winners include Nobel laureate Linus Pauling, poet Sylvia Plath, and playwright Edward Albee. “The most beneficial thing about being a Fulbright student is the strong field of alumni you’re associated with,” Gandhi says. “It’s just an incredible feather in your cap that you don’t often see, especially in the Central Valley.”