April 26, 2017
Wheaton College senior Kate Fredrikson of Fort Bragg, North Carolina, has been awarded a Fulbright scholarship to teach English in Germany next year through the Fulbright English Teaching Assistant (ETA) program.
The Fulbright’s ETA program places honorees in classrooms across the globe to provide assistance to local English teachers and serve as cultural ambassadors from the United States. Fredrikson, an English and German double major, will teach in a school in the German federal state of Bavaria.
“The Fulbright program is a phenomenal opportunity for me to live in Germany, hone my German skills, and also represent America in an international context,” Fredrikson says. “In addition to teaching, I’m looking forward to establishing an English Language and American Culture club to give students a relaxed environment to practice their English and be exposed to more of American culture than they get from the media.”
At Wheaton, Fredrikson serves as the Student Chaplain of Scripture Engagement and has participated in several study abroad programs. During the summer of 2015, she traveled to Munich, Vienna, and Berlin with the Wheaton in Germany program. At the end of her summer in Germany, she completed a four-week internship with the refugee services initiative of the Berliner Stadtmission (Berlin City Mission). She also spent the spring 2016 semester studying at Oxford University through the rigorous Council for Christian Colleges and Universities Scholars’ Semester in Oxford.
Associate Professor of German Dr. Clint Shaffer describes Fredrikson as a dedicated, creative, and intelligent problem-solver. “Kate brings very solid German skills, significant intercultural experience, and above all, a deep love for and wide reading in English to the task of working with German high schoolers. Thanks to her wide-ranging coursework in her German major, Kate is well equipped to understand how her students see the world and to make their English learning experience as relevant as possible,” Dr. Shaffer says.
Fredrikson is the fifth Wheaton College German major or minor to receive a Fulbright ETA appointment in Germany since 2006.
The Fulbright Program is the U.S. Government’s flagship international educational exchange program. Since its inception in 1946, the Fulbright Program has provided more than 300,000 participants, including 43 Nobel Laureates and 78 Pulitzer Prize winners, with the opportunity increase mutual understanding between the people of the United States and the people of other countries. Recipients of Fulbright grants are selected on the basis of academic achievement and leadership potential.