College of St. Thomas senior Ellie Patronas is a semifinalist for the 2024 Fulbright U.S. Pupil Program. She hopes to make use of the Fulbright alternative to satisfy her dream of learning city artwork in Greece.
Fulbright is a world, cultural, and academic change program that provides college students the chance to attain tutorial targets, whereas additionally permitting them to study extra about different cultures by its work to extend mutual understanding between the individuals of U.S. and other people of different nations.
Patronas, a enterprise legislation and compliance main with minors in American tradition & distinction and artwork historical past, gained a fascination for cultural and political avenue artwork after becoming a member of City Artwork Mapping throughout her sophomore 12 months. The St. Thomas analysis venture seeks to doc, archive and map graffiti on a worldwide scale, particularly avenue artwork that explores political and social justice points. Via her involvement in City Artwork Mapping, Patronas has discovered worthwhile expertise for analysis, akin to ethnography, interviewing and scholarly writing, along with attaining a deeper understanding and appreciation for analysis and the examine of avenue artwork.
“Ellie is brimming with curiosity concerning the world, and this does a lot to strengthen our work collectively as a analysis workforce,” Dr. Heather Shirey, one of many school leaders of City Artwork Mapping, said. “She has a novel capacity to convey individuals collectively and create belief and openness with the artists and group members who collaborate with us. Ellie is the proper candidate for a Fulbright analysis venture.”
Patronas’ expertise in learning international avenue artwork in City Artwork Mapping, alongside along with her impartial analysis to research social justice avenue artwork throughout the U.S., had been motivators in her determination to use for the Fulbright grant.
“Impressed by the resiliency and cultural influence of Greek refugees, I wish to perceive the function that city art work performs in serving to refugees and immigrants foster a way of belonging and cultural identification in a international land,” Patronas defined. “My proposed venture, ‘Transcultural Expressions: Exploring Migration Via City Artwork,’ seeks to discover prospects for making city landscapes extra inclusive to refugee and immigrant populations by visible arts by analyzing avenue artwork, graffiti, and murals within the streets of Athens, Greece.”
If chosen, Patronas will conduct her analysis in Athens by analyzing the socio-political panorama of refugeeism, studying concerning the historical past of graffiti tradition, collaborating with varied artwork and volunteer initiatives, documenting avenue artwork and murals associated to refugees, and making a closing analysis paper to current her findings.
Patronas believes the outcomes of her analysis could be useful in its use to tell city planners, authorities officers, and residents about how avenue artwork can convey a way of inclusion and group. She would work with the initiative Refugee Week Greece, students from the Nationwide and Kapodistrian College of Athens within the Division of World Well being and Catastrophe Drugs to study from a various group of views, whereas immersing herself in the neighborhood of Athens.
“In my time in Greece, I intention to acclimate myself to the deepest roots of my identification as a Greek American whereas utilizing my intensive tutorial coaching and never-dwindling curiosity to discover avenue artwork as a technique of displaying refugee tales on the partitions of Athens, Greece. Turning into a Fulbright Scholar is crucial as it should broaden my tutorial worldview, work with a group I might not have the prospect to in any other case, and assist to additional set up myself as a scholar within the subject.”
The Fulbright U.S. Pupil Program is sponsored by the U.S. authorities and takes place outdoors the U.S. after commencement for college students with a bachelor’s diploma or throughout graduate diploma enrollment. Since Fulbright’s founding in 1946, St. Thomas has had 22 college students chosen for this system. The College of St. Thomas encourages college students and alumni serious about making use of for Fulbright to study extra concerning the scholarship by visiting OneStThomas.