Date: May 09, 2007

Hofstra student wins Fulbright Fellowship

Will spend next year in Germany studying German literature and language

Hofstra University, Hempstead, NY – Hofstra student Mary Ellen van Wie, a graduating senior and German major, has received a prestigious Fulbright grant to spend next year in Bonn, Germany doing research in the field of German literature and language.

Mary Ellen has worked with Neil H. Donahue, professor of German and comparative literature and associate dean of Hofstra’s Honors College, since last summer on her research project and the highly competitive grant application. She will receive high honors from the department. Her topic of research is the effects of 20th century German history (e.g. the Weimar Republic in the '20s and the Nazi period, 1933-45) on medieval studies in that country as exemplified in the work of Ernst Robert Curtius and Erich Auerbach, two major figures in 20th-century literary criticism.

Mary Ellen was also accepted at many graduate schools and has decided to attend, upon her return, the Ph.D. program in German Studies at University of California-Berkeley, the top program in the country. There she will have full funding for five years, including a named fellowship in the first year, while she completes her Ph.D. A German major, Mary Ellen has also studied Latin, Ancient Greek, Italian and French at Hofstra. While in Germany for a Junior Year Abroad in Munich, she studied Finnish and Romanian. “She is a very accomplished undergraduate scholar and linguist at the beginning of a very promising postgraduate career in Germany, then at Berkeley, and beyond,” Prof. Donahue said.

The Fulbright Program, an international educational exchange program sponsored by the U.S. government, is designed to “increase mutual understanding between the people of the United States and the people of other countries,” according to the organization. More than 273,000 individuals have participated in the various programs offered.

Hofstra University is a dynamic private institution where students find their edge to succeed in more than 140 undergraduate and 155 graduate programs in liberal arts and sciences, business, communication, education and allied human services, and honors studies, as well as a School of Law. With a student-faculty ratio of 14-to-1, our professors teach small classes averaging 23 students that emphasize interaction, critical thinking and analysis.

Mary Ellen van Wie