Award Winners

From Fulbright Scholars to Pulitzer Prizes

UNC Asheville has gained four new Fulbright Scholars this year—student Kay Tyrlik ’19, who will be conducting research in immunology in Poland; alumna Phoenicia Schwidkay ’19, who will teach English in Vietnam; Master of Liberal Arts and Sciences alumnus Jason Carter MLAS ’17, who traveled to Senegal in April 2019 on a Fulbright Teachers for Global Classrooms grant; and faculty member Agya Boakye-Boaten, chair and associate professor of Africana and Interdisciplinary and International Studies, who will teach in Ghana.

“I hope that being part of the English Teaching Assistant program will allow me to improve my understanding of what issues students struggle with when learning English,” said Schwidkay, who graduated in December 2018. “I feel it is really important for students to maintain their cultural identity when it comes to teaching. It will be interesting to see how an English program is taught when students in that class also speak the same native language.”

Beyond campus, UNC Asheville alumna Jennifer Forsyth ’90 was part of a team of journalists at the Wall Street Journal that won a Pulitzer Prize for investigative journalism. She also completed a Fulbright Fellowship in Germany following her undergraduate degree.

Annual faculty awards concluded the year, with UNC Asheville’s Distinguished Teacher of the Year Award going to Evelyn Chiang, associate professor of psychology; Ameena Batada, associate professor of health and wellness, was named UNC Asheville’s recipient of the Board of Governors’ 2019 Award for Excellence in Teaching. Additional awards were given for teaching, creativity, service and scholarship.