One of the first things Emilio Valadez ’18 of San Antonio noticed about hip hop dancers in Tokyo, particularly breakdancers, is that they’re really good.

“I saw such great mastery of it during my time there,” said Valadez, himself a hip hop dancer. “I saw people that had equivalent skill levels doing this in the streets and at clubs. I was so blown away by the degree of skill and homing in on the technical aspects of this very technical, acrobatic dance form.”

Funded through a Phillips Student Fellowship, which supports experiences in a country or culture different from one’s own, Valadez spent nine weeks in Tokyo researching the art, sport, and culture of Japanese hip hop dance. He spoke about his experiences in Pettengill Hall on Dec. 4 as part of a series of student presentations ahead of a Feb. 1 deadline for several summer opportunities.

Emilio Valadez ’18 talks about his summer Phillips Fellowship in Tokyo, where he talked to breakers and lockers and poppers, learned new moves, and explored the culture and tensions of hip hop dance in Japan. (Phyllis Graber Jensen/�ֲ���ý College)

Valadez paced the front of the room as he talked about the dancers and crews he encountered in Tokyo. Pensive, he chose his words carefully and often corrected or qualified what he said. He wanted his audience to know that although his research was anthropological, he was a philosophy major, and while he had some insights into Japanese hip hop dance, he didn’t want to make any “huge claims.”

“The evidence that I got was from hanging out, talking with, and observing hip hop dancers in Japan,” he said.

Valadez, who speaks Japanese, figured out through social media where dancers in Tokyo congregated. He approached them and asked them to teach him a new move. They made him do the move over and over until he got it right. They introduced him to their friends and told him where to find more dancers.

“I met people who took this style of dance as, ‘This is my life, this is who I am, this is important to my identity.'”

Some of the dancers practiced in bars, many of which catered to a particular style, like popping, locking, breaking, or voguing; others danced in parks or on a city street, using the windows of a financial building as mirrors. In a lot of circles, mastery was a priority. So was keeping up appearances — Valadez wore a red-white-and-blue tracksuit and a baseball cap during his �ֲ���ý presentation, to show that in Tokyo, you need to look the part.

“I met people who took this style of dance as, ‘This is my life, this is who I am, this is important to my identity,’” he said. “The immediate equivalent I can imagine is people pursuing this dance in New York, a really highly competitive scene. People are really focused on skill.”

Valadez also spent a lot of time with the Nova Grande crew, dancers who he said practiced in Tokyo’s Yoyogi Park, or on the street, or in their own bar. Instead of practicing and perfecting any one style, they told him they saw dancing as a form of storytelling.

Emilio Valadez ’18 photographs the Nova Grande crew in Tokyo. (Courtesy of Emilio Valadez)

“They use dance to bring themselves into this interesting and imaginative space,” Valadez said. For example, “‘I want to go to the desert. How do I dance in the desert?’ And then you imagine the desert, as one of them put it. It was such a cool approach to dance.”

Hip hop dance, which is rooted in black and Latino cultures in the United States, came to Japan in the 1980s. B-boys in their 30s and 40s told Valadez that people started imitating American dancers they saw on TV, and American dancers came to Japan and imparted their craft.

Yet some of the meaning and history of hip hop was lost in translation. Valadez said many of the practitioners and fans he talked to didn’t understand the lyrics of English-language songs.

“There was a kind of disconnect that has led some to say, ‘All we were taught was the dance and the art and the sport of hip hop dance, but we were never taught the meaning and culture of hip hop,’” Valadez said. “‘We only got the aesthetics, but not quite the meaning.’ That was the narrative as I was told and as I understood it.”

While technically superb, some of the dancers that Valadez met in Japan say that the meaning and history of hip hop has been lost in translation. (Phyllis Graber Jensen/�ֲ���ý College)

The dancers Valadez met understood their work in different ways. Some thought of themselves as perfecting an American creation, “taking things from one to 10,” he said. Others considered themselves completely original.

Regardless of what exactly they were doing, they were doing it well — Valadez said part of what drew him to Japan was the precise and systematic way some dancers explained their moves in YouTube videos.

“Hip hop’s just one thing, Katsu. It’s you.”

One of the best dancers was , who started dancing as a teenager in order to look cool. He became famous and traveled, and as he learned more about hip hop, he began to feel disconnected from the genre’s origins in New York.

“He found himself in this interesting identity quandary that I think fans of hip hop dance can find themselves in, especially on the international scene — ‘What am I to this?’” Valadez said.

Katsu told Valadez that he eventually went to a mentor, who simply said, “Hip hop’s just one thing, Katsu. It’s you.”

Katsu came out of this identity crisis with an acute awareness of hip hop’s American context, but also “a universal hip hop egalitarianism, this universal view of how hip hop can save the world,” Valadez said.

Some dancers that Valadez met thought of themselves as perfecting an American creation. Others considered themselves completely original. (Phyllis Graber Jensen/�ֲ���ý College)

Valadez’s audience seemed to share some of Katsu’s awareness of the history of hip hop. They asked him about class and gender issues in Japanese hip hop, as well as Japanese society’s reaction to dancers in public.

While he described what he saw in Tokyo, Valadez stopped short of generalizing. Katsu’s understanding of hip hop was certainly not representative, he said. Some people told him they became dancers to impress people, others because it was a fun sport. Others told him, “I do this because I believe in the cause,” or, “I find this as a way to liberate myself from the almost oppressive nature of society.

“There’s this sundry of views all thrown into my noggin,” Valadez said. “I came to really appreciate the complexities of thought within the Japanese hip hop dance scene.”

The 2013 Phillips Fellows, Asha Mohamud ’15 and Rachel Baumann ’14. (Phyllis Graber Jensen/�ֲ���ý College)

“The next world is already on its way. College education in the U.S. faces the urgent task of getting ready for it,” �ֲ���ý President Charles F. Phillips told the incoming class during Convocation 1959.

Intersections between culture and medicine drew Asha Mohamud to Tanzania.

Phillips was referring specifically to Asia, which was just beginning its ascent to today’s global influence. But �ֲ���ý’ fourth president was getting at a broader notion as well: the educational importance of understanding cultures different from one’s own.

Since 1999, Phillips Student Fellowships have put that concept into action. Phillips Fellows create outstanding international or cross-cultural projects involving research, community-engaged learning or career exploration.

The program supports immersion in another culture, opportunities for intense meaningful work and unique prospects for intellectual and personal growth.

Meet Phillips Fellows Rachel Baumann ’14 and Asha Mohamud ’15.

The story of her grandparents’ escape from the Holocaust drew Rachel Baumann to Europe.

The student fellowships, along with faculty fellowships and professorships, are supported by the Phillips Endowment Program, a suite of awards, honors and opportunities funded by a $9 million bequest to �ֲ���ý by Phillips and his wife, Evelyn Minard Phillips.

“The fellowships take students out of their comfort zone in ways that are personally transformative, and prepare them to be citizens of the world,” says Kerry O’Brien, assistant dean of the faculty. “They really embody the mission of the college on several levels: educating the whole person, honoring diversity, cultivating intellectual discovery and civic action, and preparing future leaders.”

In 2013, seeking to understand experiences outside the U.S. that had changed the lives of people close to them, two �ֲ���ý students sought and were awarded Phillips Fellowships.

Frieda Esther Lopatka, grandmother of Rachel Baumann.

�ֲ���ý senior Rachel Baumann discusses her grandparents’ travails during the Holocaust, and offers insights into both wartime history and the importance of humanity and faith, in a talk at 4:15 p.m. Friday, Nov. 15, Room G65, Pettengill Hall, 4 Andrews Road.

Titled Why My Grandmother Converted to Judaism in Nazi Germany During 1936, the talk is sponsored by the Multifaith Chaplaincy. Admission is free and open to the public. For more information, please email hbalcomb@bates.edu.

Baumann, of Fairfield, Conn., traveled to Europe last summer on the strength of a Phillips Fellowship from �ֲ���ý to retrace her Jewish grandparents’ steps through Berlin, Warsaw and the surrounding suburbs where they sought refuge as Jews during Nazi rule.

Her grandmother had converted to Judaism — perhaps for the sake of being in love, perhaps because she was simply moved by the faith — at the same time that Nazis began their persecution of the Jews.

Baumann also studied today’s Jewish community in Berlin and spent time at the Jewish Museum Berlin to get an understanding of the contemporary identity and climate for Jews in Germany.

Through studying how Berlin actively remembers the atrocities of World War Two, from large memorials to individual stones in the street, Baumann was able to piece together both her family’s missing narrative and a greater story of how a country broken by war and hatred can self-consciously rebuild a narrative of peace and remembrance.

Baumann is the same age that her grandparents were when the Nazis rose to power in Germany. Though they were able to survive their trials in Europe and emigrate to America, until this summer their young adulthood was a mystery to Baumann and her family.

�ֲ���ý College’s other 2013 Phillips Fellow, Asha Mohamud ’15 of Lewiston, spent her summer in Tanzania working for an HIV/AIDS clinic and learning about community-driven public health initiatives.

The Phillips Student Fellowship is a summer research grant given to two �ֲ���ý students every year, allowing them to explore another culture, conduct immersive research, and grow personally and intellectually through their unique experiences.

The fate of the orangutan and its rainforest home, the provision of eye care to underserved African communities and the aftermath of Liberia’s brutal civil wars are topics that �ֲ���ý College students will discuss in public presentations during October.

The three students are recipients of Phillips Student Fellowships, �ֲ���ý grants that supported their research abroad.

Robert Little, a junior from Auburn, offers the presentation Helping People and Orangutans Through Video at 4:30 p.m. Monday, Oct. 11. Two more presentations take place at 4:30 p.m. Wednesday, Oct. 13: Emily Howe, a senior from Carlisle, Mass., delivers Unite for Sight and Theodore Sutherland, a senior from Accra, Ghana, offers Beyond the Culture of War. Both events take place in Chase Hall Lounge, 56 Campus Ave.

Phillips Student Fellowships provide cross-cultural experiences focused on research, service or the arts. The fellowships are much sought after at �ֲ���ý and are awarded through a competitive process.

Little did his research in Borneo, Indonesia, where he investigated the status of orangutans and the destruction of the rainforest. He did video interviews with residents on both sides of the rainforest issue, both those involved in clearing the forests and those working to protect them.

See Robert Little’s video. Text continues below.

http://vimeo.com/15099996

As Little explains, his research project “involved searching through the forest, living as a local, interviewing slash-and-burn farmers and illegal loggers, filming oil palm plantations and profiling a local NGO working to stop the destruction.” Little created a conservation documentary from the footage he captured in Borneo.

Howe will detail her volunteer service in Ghana with the organization Unite for Sight, which brings ophthalmological care to communities with the goal of eliminating preventable blindness. A pre-med student, Howe helped provide free eye screenings and observed surgeries.

Because of her interest in public health, Howe says she found it especially interesting to “learn about different barriers to health — especially cultural barriers,” and observe Unite for Sight’s strategies for overcoming these barriers.

Sutherland worked in Monrovia, the capital of Liberia, to observe how the country is rebuilding — culturally, socially, politically and economically — five years after a devastating 14-year civil war.

Working in the office of the Monrovia’s mayor, Mary Broh, he gained a unique perspective on how public policy is used in an African context to negotiate the cultural, economic and social tensions that arise from the mayhem of wars. With an ultimate goal of “learning about how conflicts change the culture of countries,” Sutherland will contrast his Liberian experiences with his perceptions of Ghana and America.

The Phillips Student Fellowships honor Charles F. Phillips, the fourth president of �ֲ���ý College, and his wife, Evelyn M. Phillips. Grants provide students with an experience of immersion in another culture, opportunities for extensive research, service-learning, volunteer work or career exploration, as well as unique opportunities for intellectual and personal growth.

An original composition by a �ֲ���ý senior from West Virginia is featured in a concert by the �ֲ���ý College Gamelan Orchestra at 8 p.m. Friday, Dec. 11, in Chase Hall Lounge, 56 Campus Ave.

“Gamelan” refers to a broad genre of traditional Indonesian music played primarily on percussion instruments. Barbara Byers, an interdisciplinary major in music and dance from Elkins, W.Va., composed and will dance a piece titled “Monkey” that’s included on the program. Byers studied various traditional performance disciplines, including gamelan, while in Indonesia last summer on a Phillips Fellowship from �ֲ���ý.

The concert is open to the public at no cost. For more information, please contact 207-786-6135 or olinarts@bates.edu.

The program comprises a variety of instrumental and vocal music, including a contemporary arrangement of a traditional lullaby. Also included is a solo masked dance that originates in Cirebon, a city on the north coast of West Java, and portrays a character from the Hindu epic “Ramayana.”

Assistant Professor of Music Gina Fatone directs the �ֲ���ý College Gamelan Orchestra. The ensemble is composed of students and faculty members Carol Dilley, associate professor of dance, and Jennifer Woodruff, visiting assistant professor of music. The concert will also feature the vocals of a �ֲ���ý alumna, Lisa McClellan ’09.

�ֲ���ý College has gamelan instruments from Central Java and West Java, Indonesia. The instrument set named Gamelan Mawar Mekar (“Blossom of Inspiration”), acquired by the College in 2001, is composed of iron and brass pieces and was made in Central Java in 1997.

A smaller bronze chamber ensemble from West Java, of a type called gamelan degung, was donated to the college in 2007. The concert will feature both sets.

In addition to its public performances, the orchestra makes a distinctive contribution to ceremonial events at �ֲ���ý and is increasingly integrated into the arts and cultural curriculum.

The event is open to the public at no cost. For more information, please call 207-753-6952.

Kong wanted to learn more about the Hakka culture, a subgroup of China’s dominant Han people, and compare the influence of that culture in a city of the new China and in Mauritius, with the ultimate goal of better understanding her own identity as a Hakka. She wants to raise awareness about the danger of culture loss due to acculturalism, where new immigrants tend to integrate the surrounding culture as quickly as possible.

The Phillips Student Fellowships were begun in 1999 by Charles F. Phillips, the fourth president of �ֲ���ý, and his wife Evelyn Minard Phillips, with a $9 million endowment gift. These fellowships are granted to students who create exceptionally good international or cross-cultural projects that focus on research, service-learning or career exploration.

With topics including the effects of ethnic Chinese migration on Tibet and the outlook for farming in Norway, �ֲ���ý College students who have conducted projects abroad supported by the college’s Otis and Phillips fellowships will discuss their findings in evening presentations throughout October.

These events are open to the public at no cost. For more information, please call 207-753-6952.

Two Otis Fellows talk about their projects starting at 7 p.m. Monday, Oct. 6, in Skelton Lounge, Chase Hall, 56 Campus Ave.

A presentation by Ellen Sabina, a senior from Newcastle, is titled To Kill a Whale: Exploring the Ties that Bind the Faeroes to the Sea.

Sabina traveled to the Faeroe Islands (also spelled Faroe), in the North Atlantic, where she explored the relationship between the Faroese people and the sea. Isolated and fiercely proud of their heritage, the Faroese depend almost entirely on the sea, yet find this relationship changing dramatically in the face of globalization.

Anna Skarstad, a sophomore from Pleasantville, N.Y., offers a talk called Farming in the Western Fjords of Norway: An Endangered Life?

Skarstad visited two traditional sheep farms in Norway’s western fjord region, one farm located high in the mountains, the other on a remote, mostly abandoned island. Exploring how these farms manage to thrive despite nature’s extreme impacts, she questioned the strength and profundity of the farmers’ relationship with their land.

Also in Skelton Lounge, three Phillips Fellows will describe their projects starting at 7 p.m. Wednesday, Oct. 8.

Seniors Anne Sheldon of Brookline, Mass., and Ilana Adler-Bell of Canton, Conn., present Empowerment Through Education: 10,000 Girls Program, Kaolack, Senegal.

As participants in the 10,000 Girls Program in Kaolack, the pair worked with seventh- and eighth-grade girls, focusing on English-language practice and a mapping project with the goal of expanding opportunities and understandings of the power of women’s voice, place and actions in the local-global communities.

Also a senior, Corey Pattison of Dedham gives a talk called Toward Autonomy or Assimilation: Addressing Tibetan Sinicization in a Global Era. Specifically analyzing the socioeconomic implications of the recently constructed Qinghai-Lhasa railway, this presentation examines the increasingly marginal status held by Tibetans within their own society, a status directly resulting from widespread immigration ethnic Han Chinese into the Tibetan Autonomous Region.

Two more Phillips Fellows present their fellowship-funded projects starting at 7 p.m., Monday, Oct. 13, in Chase Hall Lounge, 56 Campus Ave.

A senior from Katonah, N.Y., Jacob Lewis gives a talk titled The Power of Pilgrimage: Finding Meaning on El Camino de Santiago.

He examined why people undertake the grueling pilgrimage on this network of roads that since medieval times has brought travelers from all over Europe to the Christian shrine of Santiago de Compostela. Covering more than 500 miles across most of northern Spain, the Camino leaves a pilgrim plenty of time to ask, “Why do people still do this? And what am I doing here?”

Clyde Bango, a sophomore from Harare, Zimbabwe, gives a talk titled Preserving Art and Culture at Taller Portobelo. Bango undertook a residency at the Spelman College Summer Art Colony at the Panamanian arts workshop called Taller Portobelo.

He looked specifically at the Congo people in Panama, African descendants who are working to document their language, music and other cultural practices. This year, under Arturo Lindsay, a Panamanian artist and art professor at Spelman, students explored bio-safe ways of constructing sustainable architectural structures.

Lina Kong, a sophomore from Rose Hill, Mauritius, presents her Phillips-funded research in a talk titled Crosscultural Study of Mauritian and Chinese Cultures through the Hakka Linkage at 7 p.m. Wednesday, Oct. 29, in Skelton Lounge.

Kong wanted to learn more about the Hakka culture, a subgroup of China’s dominant Han people, and compare the influence of that culture in a city of the new China and in Mauritius, with the ultimate goal of better understanding her own identity as a Hakka. She wants to raise awareness about the danger of culture loss due to acculturalism, where new immigrants tend to integrate the surrounding culture as quickly as possible.

The Philip J. Otis Endowment was established in 1996 by Margaret V.B. and C. Angus Wurtele to memorialize their son, Philip, a member of the �ֲ���ý graduating class of 1995, who died while trying to rescue an injured climber on Mount Rainier. The purpose of the program is to encourage among �ֲ���ý students the same concern for nature that Otis demonstrated. The student projects selected for this endowment are generally concerned with the relationship between humans and the environment.

The Phillips Student Fellowships were begun in 1999 by Charles F. Phillips, the fourth president of �ֲ���ý, and his wife Evelyn Minard Phillips, with a $9 million endowment gift. These fellowships are granted to students who create exceptionally good international or cross-cultural projects that focus on research, service-learning or career exploration.

Three students have received Philip J. Otis Fellowships to support research into the relationships among individuals, societies and nature.

Six have been awarded Phillips Student Fellowships, providing funding for summer projects involving meaningful immersion in different cultures.

The 2005 Otis recipients are:

Lindsy Blazej, a junior from Dixmont, Maine. She will go to Europe to investigate “ecovillages,” settlements designed to support a full range of human activities with the least impact on the natural environment.

Carlos Challen Willemsen, a sophomore from Guatemala City, Guatemala. He will travel to the Peruvian Andes to visit the native Quechua people and study their relationships to the plant life around them and their traditional uses of plants as medicine and food.

Andrea Wolf, a junior from Nashville, Tenn. She will visit the Central Andes to study the traditional weavings of the Aymara indigenous group, examining how woven textiles symbolize Aymara cosmology and express the wider relationship of communities with the environment.

The 2005 Phillips recipients are:

Ainur Begim, a sophomore from Aktobe City, Kazakhstan, who will visit Britain and Greece to research the Panathenaic Festival, the most important religious festival in ancient Athens.

Jacob Bluestone, a sophomore from Huntington, N.Y. In Bolivia, he will teach and work with disadvantaged children, and he hopes to supply his students with disposable cameras to record life in their neighborhoods.

Arda Gucler, a sophomore from Istanbul, Turkey, who will investigate aspects of the World War I battle of Gallipoli through interviews with the families of Gallipoli veterans in Australia and New Zealand.

Tyler Paul, a junior from Great Falls, Mont. Paul will travel to Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan to study the economic progress and national identity of these former Soviet republics.

Vanni Thach, a junior from Camden, N.J. She will go to Cambodia to explore her personal heritage and the history of Cambodia, especially its recent past and legacy of genocide.

Chelsea Tryder, a junior from Fryeburg, Maine. She will spend the summer at an orphanage for girls in Santiago, Chile, assisting with the day-to-day activities of the orphanage, teaching dance to the girls and working with them to create a mural.

Established in 1996 by Margaret V.B. and C. Angus Wurtele, the Philip J. Otis Endowment commemorates their son, Philip, a member of the �ֲ���ý class of 1995. A park ranger, Otis died attempting to rescue an injured climber on Mount Rainier.

Otis was deeply concerned with nurturing a sense of responsibility for the natural environment. The Otis Endowment sponsors opportunities for study, exploration and reflection by students, faculty and other members of the �ֲ���ý community. Each year a small number of students are selected as Otis Fellows to receive grants between $2,000 and $5,000 to support off-campus projects that explore an environmental and/or eco-spiritual topic.

Phillips Student Fellowships support students who design exceptional international or cross-cultural projects focusing on research, service-learning, career exploration or a combination of the three. The Phillips Student Fellowships, Phillips Faculty Fellowships and Phillips Professorships at �ֲ���ý are part of the Phillips Endowment Program, an initiative of awards, honors and opportunities funded by a $9 million endowment bequest made to the college in 1999 by Charles F. Phillips, fourth president of �ֲ���ý, and his wife, Evelyn Minard Phillips.

Three of the six recipients are sophomores: Ainur Begim, of Aktobe City, Kazakhstan, Jacob Bluestone, of Huntington, N.Y., and Arda Gucler, of Istanbul, Turkey.

The others are juniors: Tyler Paul, of Great Falls, Mont., Vanni Thach, of Camden, N.J., and Chelsea Tryder, of Fryeburg, Maine.

Begim’s project is titled The Study of the Panathenaic Festival, Greece and Great Britain. She will explore social hierarchies of ancient Greece through in-depth study of the Panathenaic Festival. The most important religious festival in ancient Athens, it maintained the ancient Greek social hierarchy through symbolism and ritual. In particular, Begim is interested in the place of women in that hierarchy and how religion shaped their roles and values.

In Athens, Begim will study the ancient sites along the Panathenaic processional way, as well as objects in museum collections. She will also visit the , London, to study the Elgin Marbles, which depict the Panathenaic procession.

For his project titled The Honesty of Broken Language, Bluestone will spend eight weeks in Cochabamba, Bolivia, volunteering to teach and work with disadvantaged children. An accomplished photographer, Bluestone will document his work and the community. He hopes to supply his students with disposable cameras, teach them about photography and set them off to record life in their neighborhoods.

For The Anzac Soldiers: Faces of War, Australia and New Zealand, Gucler will travel to Australia and New Zealand to interview the families of veterans of the World War I battle of Gallipoli. This conflict between Allied and Ottoman forces in Turkey resulted in appalling casualties on both sides. Gucler will explore how individual soldiers in the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps — the Anzacs — experienced the battle, and will place those experiences in the context of national history and modern views of the battle.

Paul’s project, Exploring Identity and Economic Development in Central Asia, will take him to Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan for eight weeks to study the economic progress and national identity of these former Soviet republics. In home stays in countries along the historic Silk Road, Paul will try to understand the impact of political and economic change on individuals and communities.

Thach’s project, titled Cambodia’s Genocide: Finding Myself in the Killing Fields, will take her to Cambodia to make personal and historical discoveries. Visiting museums, archives, religious sites and the villages of her family, who were displaced after the Vietnam War, Thach will seek to better understand her heritage and will explore the history of Cambodia, especially its recent past and legacy of genocide.

In her project, Accessing the Arts: Hogar Nuestra Señora de la Paz, Chile, Tryder will spend the summer at an orphanage for girls in Santiago, Chile. She will work as a volunteer assisting with the day-to-day activities of the orphanage, teach dance to the girls and create a mural. In addition, as the orphanage is one of a network throughout the city, Tryder will direct an art committee for volunteers from the other orphanages.

Phillips Student Fellowships support students who design exceptional international or cross-cultural projects focusing on research, service-learning, career exploration or a combination of the three. The best Phillips Fellowships are challenging and transformative experiences for the students who undertake them.

The Phillips Student Fellowships, Phillips Faculty Fellowships and Phillips Professorships at �ֲ���ý are part of the Phillips Endowment Program, an initiative of awards, honors and opportunities funded by a $9 million endowment bequest made to the college in 1999 by Charles F. Phillips, fourth president of �ֲ���ý, and his wife, Evelyn Minard Phillips.

Three recipients are sophomores: Aarjan Dixit, of Kathmandu, Nepal; Samuel Falls, of Hartland, Vt.; and Sarah Mazur, an English major from Norwich, Vt.

The remaining three include two juniors — John Karass of Whitefield, Maine, and Rachel Silver, an anthropology major from Houston, Texas — and one first-year student, Kathryn Moore of Pelham, N.H.

For his project titled “Traversing the Ganges,” Dixit will examine whether the economic gains from India’s Inter-Rivers Linking Project, which will harness major rivers to transport large volumes of water into dry regions, are large enough to cover concomitant economic losses and social and environmental consequences. Traveling to cities along the Ganges, he will interview pilgrims dependent upon the river, local religious leaders and academics at the Banares Hindu University.

Fall’s project is titled “Theravada Buddhist Pilgrimage to Wat Suan Mokkhabalarama.” He will travel to Wat Suan Mokkhabalarma, a Theravada Buddhist monastery in southern Thailand, to expand his understanding of Buddhism through first-hand exposure to its practices and beliefs.

Mazur and Moore will work together on a project titled “The Evolution of Celtic Music and Culture in the Canadian Maritime Provinces and Southern Appalachia.” They will visit northeastern Canada and southern Appalachia in the United States, regions where Celtic music and culture first arrived on this continent. They will attend musical festivals, jam sessions, community dances and the Ceilidh Trail School of Celtic Music in Cape Breton, Nova Scotia, and will interview and play with various musicians.

Karass, in a project called “Following the Footsteps of Epicurus,” will follow the geographical path of Epicurus, the last prolific Greek philosopher to teach in Athens. Karass will trace the spread of Epicurus’ philosophy, a unique blend of atomism and hedonism, from its beginnings on the Greek island of Samos across the Aegean Sea to Athens, hoping to gain a better understanding of a philosophy that still influences contemporary thinking.

For her project “Exploring Purposes of Schooling: Harambee Education in Kenya,” Silver will live, teach and conduct research in Ebukhaya, a rural community in Kenya. She will work at a school in the NGO-run Harambee program to better understand how Kenyans regard this grassroots, community-based approach to education and how they distinguish these schools from standard government schools. She will focus on tensions between the vestiges of colonialism and the egalitarian values on which Harambee schools are built.

Phillips Student Fellowships support students who design exceptional international or cross-cultural projects focusing on research, service-learning, career exploration or a combination of the three. The best Phillips Fellowships are challenging and transformative experiences for the students who undertake them.

The Phillips Student Fellowships, Phillips Faculty Fellowships and Phillips Professorships at �ֲ���ý are part of the Phillips Endowment Program, an initiative of awards, honors and opportunities funded by a $9 million endowment bequest made to the college in 1999 by Charles F. Phillips, fourth president of �ֲ���ý, and his wife, Evelyn Minard Phillips.