UA ALUMNA AWARDED FOREIGN AFFAIRS FELLOWSHIP

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
June 25, 1999

Fairbanks, Alaska - These days University of Alaska Fairbanks alumna Shannon Nagy’s future is looking all right, but she’d rather it be all bright— as in Madeline Albright, U.S. Secretary of State. For all her life Nagy has wanted to work for the U.S. Department of State and now, thanks to her outstanding academic record and extracurricular activities while a political science major at UAF, she’s one step closer to making her dream a reality.

Nagy has been awarded a Woodrow Wilson Graduate Foreign Affairs Fellowship. Only 10 students were selected nationally for the Wilson fellowship this year, making it one of the most competitive graduate awards in the country. This fall, Nagy will attend the University of Pittsburgh’s graduate school for Public and International Affairs. Her fellowship will pay tuition, books, room and board in return for a three year commitment as a Foreign Service Officer with the State Department after she gets her master’s degree.

"As an FSO, I can expect to participate in political negotiations and influence public policy," Nagy said. She can also expect to spend a lot of time traveling. Depending on foreign diplomacy needs, FSOs will spend at least half their careers overseas, Nagy said. But traveling around the world is a passion for Nagy. After receiving her high school diploma from McQueen High School in the small Inupiat Eskimo village of Kivalina, located about 90 miles north of Kotzebue, she enrolled at UAF.

At an age when most of her peers were learning to drive, Nagy was learning the democratic process. Although she was only 16 years old when she began taking classes at UAF, Nagy quickly became one of the top students in her program, according to political science department head Gerald McBeath.

Through a cultural language exchange program between UAF and Yakutsk State University in Russia, Nagy began her first diplomatic travel overseas while still an undergraduate. For nine months during the summer 1995, through UAF’s Study Abroad Program, she was totally immersed in Russian culture and became fluent in the language.

After returning to Fairbanks, Nagy was involved in student government and was elected president of Pi Sigma Alpha, the political science honor society. Her senior project, a year-long evaluation of the Kids Voting Program in Alaska, also earned rave reviews from the Western Political Science Association.

"Like I told the Wilson fellowship interview committee, you don’t have to go to an Ivy League school to get a good education," Nagy said.

Nagy received a bachelor’s degree from UAF in 1996 with leadership and cum laude honors, signifying a 3.5 or higher grade point average and proven outstanding leadership activities. Since graduation, Nagy has worked for the University of Idaho Agricultural Communications Department. She was born in Pullman, Wash. and came to Alaska with her parents when they were asked to teach school in Kivilina.

After graduating from the University of Pittsburgh, Nagy will join the State Department’s foreign service office, where she says she’ll officially start a career track leading to ambassador, representative to the United Nations or— look out Mrs. Albright — even Secretary of State.

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CONTACT:UAF Political Science Department Head Gerald McBeath, (907) 474-6505 or Publications Assistant Jillian Swope, UAF University Relations, (907) 474-7778.

JCS/DPD/6-25-99/99-083