April 9, 2009
The Executive Board of the North Carolina chapter of the American Association of Teachers of French (NC-AATF) had the great pleasure today of awarding the inaugural John Philip Couch scholarship for study in France during the 2009-2010 year.
There were nine candidates, all of them very impressive, from nine North Carolina colleges and universities with French major programs. Faced with the dilemma of choosing between two particularly outstanding applicants, one a yearlong candidate, the other preparing for a semester of study in France, the Executive Board decided, after much debate, to award a scholarship to each of these two candidates. We thought that this would be a good way to mark the launching of this new scholarship reserved, as specified in the late Professor Phil Couch’s will, for French majors from North Carolina families. It is his generosity that has made this yearly scholarship possible. In subsequent years, the Executive Board will continue to give some preference to yearlong candidates, again in accordance with Professor Couch’s wishes.
The yearlong scholarship of $5,000 was awarded to Sarah Allen, who is completing a double major in French and European Studies at UNC-Greensboro. Sarah, who is planning a career in teaching, will study during the 2009-2010 year in the International Student Exchange Program (ISEP) at the Université de Lille III.
The semester scholarship of $3,000 was awarded to Jonathan Slaughter, who is double majoring in French and Comparative Literature at UNC-Chapel Hill and has a keen interest in literary theory. Jonathan is planning to study during the spring 2010 semester in the Sciences Po Undergraduate Exchange Program at the Institut d’Etudes politiques in Paris.
The NC-AATF Board wants to take this opportunity to thank every department that participated in the selection process on its home campus. We know that this is more burdensome than it might appear, coming on top of already full teaching and research schedules. We are particularly grateful to the many colleagues who spent so much time and energy writing letters in support of the candidates. Those letters were extremely important in our deliberations.
We were delighted with the quality of the candidates put forward this year and are hoping that even more North Carolina institutions will participate next year.
For information concerning the John Philip Couch Scholarship, contact Dr. Alan Singerman, Richardson Professor Emeritus of French, Davidson College, Coordinator of the Couch Scholarship, at alsingerman@davidson.edu.
