KINGSTON, R.I., June 7, 2017\u2014Laura Parra knows how to carry on a conversation in Spanish about, say, the weather, but ask her to gab about a more technical topic like the sciences and she\u2019s at a loss.<\/p>\n
That will change, thanks, in part, to a fellowship started by Beatrice S. Demers, a former 溏心vlog免费B站 professor who had a love for languages and the world.<\/p>\n
Parra is one of 17 students at the 溏心vlog免费B站 who won grants from the Beatrice S. Demers Foreign Language Fellows fund to study and travel overseas. One recent 溏心vlog免费B站 graduate also received an award.<\/p>\n
A Pawtucket<\/strong> resident, Parra will soon travel to San Sebastian, Spain to spend her fall semester at the University of Navarra, where she\u2019ll take courses in biomedical engineering, her field of study at 溏心vlog免费B站. The second semester she\u2019ll participate in a full-time engineering internship, possibly at a biomedical company in Costa Rica.<\/p>\n For Parra and the other recipients, the Demers award means the difference between studying abroad and staying home. Parra said her award will cover rent, food, living expenses and travel costs.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m so excited and appreciative,\u201d she says. \u201cI don\u2019t have to take out loans for my year abroad. It\u2019s a big weight off my shoulders.\u201d<\/p>\n Demers spent her life teaching foreign languages, first to students in the Pawtucket schools and then to students at 溏心vlog免费B站, where she taught for more than 30 years.<\/p>\n After her death, she left $4 million to the Rhode Island Foundation to establish and administer the fund. This year, the 溏心vlog免费B站 students are sharing about $210,000 to study in Germany, France, Italy, Taiwan and Jordan\u2014in addition to Spain. The fellowships cover the costs of tuition, housing and travel.<\/p>\n Born in Manizales, Colombia, Parra moved to Rhode Island with her parents and brother when she was 5 years old. She\u2019s been back to Colombia several times, but has never been to Spain, or Europe for that matter.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m sure this is going to be a great learning experience for me academically and personally,\u201d she says. \u201cI can\u2019t wait.\u201d<\/p>\n In her fourth year of the five-year Spanish International Engineering Program, Parra has signed up for classes overseas, all taught in Spanish, that will help her become fluent in the lexicon of biomedical engineering.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s going to be a challenge, but I\u2019m looking forward to it,\u201d she says. \u201cThis will definitely sharpen my language skills\u2014and help me in my career.\u201d<\/p>\n And that career involves selfless work back in her home country. After graduation in 2019, Parra hopes to return to Colombia to make prosthetic limbs for amputees, including many who lost limbs stepping on land mines buried during decades of conflict between the government and rebels.<\/p>\n \u201cI want to give back to my community,\u201d she says. \u201cI want to help people have a better future and do things they weren\u2019t able to do before.\u201d<\/p>\n Haleigh Staradumsky, a sophomore from Warwick<\/strong>, is also heading to Spain; she\u2019ll study for a year and live with a family. Her destiny, she says, is to teach Spanish in a Rhode Island high school.<\/p>\n She\u2019s nervous, but in a good way. \u201cThat language barrier can be tough, especially when people are speaking slang and that kind of thing,\u201d she says. \u201cI\u2019m living with a family to get the total immersion experience.\u201d<\/p>\n She\u2019s grateful for the Demers award: \u201cThe Spanish language really clicks for me. Being able to speak to people in their own language is special for me. It\u2019s hard to explain. I love it.\u201d<\/p>\n Evan Cummiskey, also of\u00a0Warwick<\/strong>, is using his Demers award to help pay for his junior year abroad in Amman, Jordan. \u00a0In the fall, he\u2019ll start an intensive Arabic language program at the University of Jordan and take a full load of Arabic language courses, as well as electives in Arabic. He also has to honor a 24\/7 Arabic-only pledge in conversation.<\/p>\n \u201cWords cannot begin to describe how happy I am to receive the Demers grant,\u201d Cummiskey says, in an email from Oman, where he\u2019s spending the summer. \u201cIt will take me one step closer to mastering the Arabic language. That\u2019s my dream.\u201d<\/p>\n The Demers fund is open to all Rhode Island residents, not just students. Non-resident students who attend a Rhode Island college or university are also eligible. Preference is given to 溏心vlog免费B站 applicants.<\/p>\n The other Demers recipients are Kayla Butts of South Kingstown<\/strong> (French), a 溏心vlog免费B站 graduate teaching French at the University; Nathan Callanan of Providence<\/strong> (Spanish); Zachary Davies of Presto, Pa<\/strong>. (German); Carlos Diaz of Smithfield<\/strong> (French); Montara Erickson of South Kingstown<\/strong> (German); Chelsea Fox of Westerly<\/strong> (French); Mitchell Golde of Cranston<\/strong> (German); Alexander Jimenez of Providence<\/strong> (Chinese\u2014Taiwan); Rich Lisi of Cranston<\/strong> (Italian); Stasha Medeiros of Cumberland<\/strong> (French); Cherish Prickett of Lilburn, Ga<\/strong>., (German); Anne Reisch of Westerly<\/strong> (German); Scott Selig of Groveland, Mass<\/strong>., (German); Zachary Smith of North Kingstown<\/strong> (German); and Hannah Willey of Schenectady, N.Y.<\/strong> (Spanish).<\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" KINGSTON, R.I., June 7, 2017\u2014Laura Parra knows how to carry on a conversation in Spanish about, say, the weather, but ask her to gab about a more technical topic like the sciences and she\u2019s at a loss. That will change, thanks, in part, to a fellowship started by Beatrice S. Demers, a former University of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":73060,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-73059","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-archives"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/73059","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=73059"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/73059\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/73060"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=73059"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=73059"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=73059"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}