Two Greenville College Students Awarded Fulbright Scholarships

Published: April 13, 2021

Two Greenville College students have been awarded prestigious Fulbright Scholarships. Joshua Cranston and Shannon Nakai, both members of the class of 2012, will conduct research abroad this fall. Cranston will use his award to research environmental sustainability at the University of Oslo in Norway. Nakai will use her award to teach English at a university in Turkey.

Cranston's award will fund his research for the coming academic year in Norway. "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.

Nakai will travel to Turkey for ten months beginning this September where she will teach in a university classroom 20 hours a week and spend another 20 hours a week preparing for class and conducting research that pertains to her interests in literature. Her work in Greenville College's Intensive English Language Program proved timely. "My experience as an English instructor for the new program under David Yan has enabled me to teach college-level courses with our Chinese freshmen."

"My overall dream," said Nakai, "is getting together with eager minds in a college classroom, uncovering backgrounds and unpacking big ideas from a specific body of literature." Eventually, she would like to study English literature in graduate school and share her knowledge through classrooms in other cultures.

Fulbright offers competitive, merit-based grants for students, scholars, teachers, professionals and groups. "The award is a high singular honor for our students," said Dean of the School of Liberal Arts and Sciences Brad Shaw. "It reflects the high quality of a Greenville College education." Proposals pass through several stages in the competitive process before being chosen by international Fulbright selection committees for funding.

Greenville College is a four-year accredited Christian liberal arts school with more than 1,500 undergraduate and graduate students. Founded in 1892 and affiliated with the Free Methodist Church, the college is located in Greenville, Illinois, 45 miles east of St. Louis.