Just Curious Fulbright Scholar
Published: April 13, 2021
Albert Einstein claimed no particular talent or cleverness. "I am only passionately curious," he said. GC senior Joshua Cranston shares Einstein's ardent curiosity. The recipient of a prestigious Fulbright scholarship, Cranston will use the award this fall to research environmental sustainability. His natural inquisitiveness is sure to help him succeed.
Cranston's curiosity has led him to various and sometimes surprising places during his four years at GC: to the orchestra where he played violin; to a practicum in Kigali, Rwanda, where he worked in reforestation; and into a fellowship of GC students who gather nightly for prayer and weekly for a meal. It has taken him to the soccer field for four years in a GC jersey where he increased his grasp of the game, and back to his parents' Seattle home one summer where he tended a garden. With a passel of research questions in hand, Cranston will study at the University of Oslo in Norway. The Fulbright scholarship stipend will fund his work for one academic year.
Of Cranston's diverse pursuits, the summer of gardening proved most inspirational to his proposed research. "I have felt the pull of the land and have long harbored dreams of working and living on a farm," he says. "However, the sustainability of this dream has been called into question by grey ecology, an environmentalism that aims to disabuse people of their bucolic illusions and green aesthetics by replacing the rural farm with an urban center." Cranston's study will compare the efficacy of the rival, grey and green ecologies.
GC's Dean of Arts and Sciences Brad Shaw believes that Cranston's aptitude toward interdisciplinary research will prove valuable. "His strong analytic mind values careful research and fine writing," says Shaw, who sees Cranston's "disciplined and dogged persistence" as an asset to the rigors of graduate research. "Things don't need to be easy for him to be happy."
Fulbright offers competitive, merit-based grants for students, scholars, teachers, professionals and groups. "The award is both a high singular honor for one of our best and brightest," notes Shaw. "It also speaks to the high quality of a Greenville College education."
