Rice Watson Fellows to Explore Asia, Australia

Rice Watson Fellows to Explore Asia, Australia
BY PHILIP MONTGOMERY
Rice News Staff
April 2, 1998

Two Rice seniors recently named as Watson Fellows will have an opportunity
to pursue their dreams by spending a year traveling throughout Asia and Australia.

Michele Wen Tang, a Will Rice College senior, will research the philosophies,
practice, education, research and cultural factors of traditional medicine in
Asia, while Jennifer Brown, a Lovett College senior, will study cultural contrasts
in aboriginal, bush and contemporary dance in Australia.

The Thomas J. Watson Foundation awarded 60 Watson Fellowships in March to graduating
seniors selected from 51 of the top liberal arts colleges in the United States.
Watson Fellows are first nominated by their colleges and then selected during
a national competition. Each fellow receives $19,000 to travel outside the United
States on a journey to explore a topic of his or her own choosing.

The children of Thomas J. Watson Sr., the founder of IBM, created the Watson
Fellowship Program to honor Watson and his wife, Jeannette K. Watson. The foundation
selects Watson Fellows based on each nominee’s character, academic record, leadership
potential, willingness to delve into another culture, and the personal significance
of the proposed project.

During their year abroad, Watson Fellows are not able to return to the United
States, except for extreme emergencies such as death in the family.

Graduate school interviews do not count as emergencies, Tang added with a laugh.

Both Tang and Brown expressed concern about their upcoming adventure. After
winning, the reality of facing a year abroad set in. Each must set up an itinerary
and deal with all the logistics of their extensive foreign travel, which will
begin in July. First there is the rather important matter of completing their
senior year. The winners said they are beginning to feel rushed but know what
awaits them is an adventure of a lifetime.

"I’ll be catapulted out of my insularity," said Tang, who will spend
about six months in Beijing, where she will study traditional Han medicine at
institutions such as the China Academy of Chinese Medicine. "I’ve traveled
to Thailand and Asia several times, but always with my parents. When I was independent,
it was for several weeks at a time in the context of a structured program."

Watson Fellows have little formal structure to guide them through their year
abroad. Fellows must file quarterly reports with the Watson Foundation, complete
a short paper at the end of the year, and provide a final accounting of the
funds. But the papers are not expected to be academic works. What seems to be
more important is the experience of immersion in a foreign culture outside of
the United States. Immersions in the foreign seem to strip away much of the
devices by which Watson Fellows define themselves. Friends, food, family, music
and culture are peeled away like an onion.

"I’ve been told a lot of Watson Fellows actually experience some pretty
profound identity crises while they’re abroad," Tang said.

But the lure of foreign travel and the fulfillment of long-held dreams overshadow
fears.

"I wanted to do something that could combine dance and Australia, because
they are both things that I love very much," Brown said.