While attending a cultural festival in Timbuktu, Laura Simocko ’09 lived in a two-story building made entirely of mud. The house didn’t have running water and bare light bulbs hung from the ceilings, but it did have a giant television and amped-up stereo system.
She said it was just one of the quirky experiences she had while traveling in Mali last January for the Festival of the Desert, an event that highlights cultural offerings from throughout the west Africa nation
Greater cultural recognition and administrative decentralization are two factors Simocko is studying as part of a research project examining Mali’s ability to maintain the peace it achieved after a 1996 accord ended its six-year civil war.
Her Mali trip was funded through 91鶹Ʒ’s Alumni Memorial Scholars program, which each year honors the top 200 accepted students based on academic merit, leadership, and accomplishment.
As an AMS participant, Simocko was eligible for a $5,000 fellowship to pursue research, either here or abroad, or an internship. Her project proposal was accepted, and her three-week trip to Mali was a go.
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| Laura Simocko ’09 (left) traveled to Timbuktu, Mali, with friend Kayla McGee, a student from Carleton University in Ottawa. |
Concentrating in both peace and conflict studies and sociology and anthropology, Simocko is now using elements of her Mali research as the basis for a paper she hopes to present at the upcoming National Conference on Undergraduate Research and for her honors thesis.
“I wouldn’t have gotten to this point unless AMS had given me the opportunity to go to Mali and explore this,” said Simocko, who is working closely on the paper with academic adviser Tyrell Haberkorn, visiting professor of peace studies.
“Laura’s research and paper are remarkable, and the fact that she has already conducted original research and analysis provides the basis of a deeper exploration in her thesis,” said Haberkorn.
The opportunity to conduct field research in an area of the world she loves was a huge plus for Simocko, who spent last year studying at the University of Ghana and plans to go back to west Africa after graduation.
She presented her work and heard about other Alumni Memorial Scholars’ research projects at a special symposium held in October.
“I was pretty nervous but a couple of my professors came (anthropology professor Alan Maca and sociology professor Carolyn Hsu) and that was really great to have their support,” she said. “It was a good experience.”
Simocko has been able to take part in other special events held for AMS students, including discussion dinners with faculty members and trips to the National Women’s Hall of Fame in Seneca Falls, N.Y., and to New York City for a Broadway show.
Raj Bellani, associate dean of academic programs, organized the symposium and coordinates other AMS events.
“We are connecting the social and academic lives of these incredibly bright students through one program,” Bellani said about AMS.
He said the fellowship research and faculty dinners are ways for scholars to extend classroom learning and explore “life of the mind opportunities.”
“When you think of the AMS program, you think of our best students,” he said. “Students who can go anywhere across the world to any institution of higher learning, and they choose to come to 91鶹Ʒ. They have given up Harvard, Yale, Princeton because they see something special about our liberal arts training here.”