December
12 , 2003
MHC
Senior Garners Fellowship
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Photo: Fred LeBlanc
Caitlin Morray '04
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Caitlin Morray '04 was surprised
and delighted to learn in September that she had been selected
as one of 70 students from leading colleges and universities all
across the United States for a fellowship at the Center for the
Study of the Presidency in Washington, D.C. The center is a nonprofit,
nonpartisan organization serving as a central resource on issues
affecting the modern presidency.
The centerpiece of the program is the research, writing, and defense
of an original paper that focuses on an aspect of presidential
leadership. Morray has chosen the subject, "Notions of American
Citizenship and How They Change in Times of Crisis." She
will discuss what it means to be a citizen and a patriot before
and after the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. Fifty papers
will be selected for publication in a book that the center produces
annually.
Morray, a double major in history and politics, spent a weekend
in October at a conference in Washington, D.C., with the other
fellows. They met with the president's chief counsel, members
of the Security Council, and General Vince Brooks, who briefed
them about the situation in Iraq. Morray found the experience
"interesting and eye-opening." Not only the people running
the conference but many of the fellows were politically conservative.
"It was a taste of the real world," Morray said. "As
a student [at] a very liberal New England college, it's interesting
to meet with very conservative people. At Mount Holyoke we spend
a lot of time discussing very liberal views. After a while I start
thinking that everyone's views are the same. I discovered
that they're not; at the same time it's reaffirming
to discover I still have the same views as before."
At the conference Morray met her program mentor, Michael Maibach,
former vice president of Intel, who is now a political consultant
in D.C. The fellows met alumni of the program who have graduated
from college and gone into high-powered positions in congressional
and executive offices. "A lot of these jobs come through
the relationships fellows have with their mentors. As seniors,
it's the perfect time to be making these connections,"
Morray noted. "The opportunity to be published is unique."
After graduation, Morray plans to take a year off before
applying to law school. She hopes to spend the year working
in Washington, D.C., as an intern for a congressional
representative or a political consultant.
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