Dunlap ’08 Earns Fulbright English Teaching Assistantship to Brazil

Since graduating in 2008, Kristen Dunlap has hop-scotched the globe, doing important work in Mexico, Spain, and Panama. After being awarded a Fulbright English Teaching Assistantship, her next stop is Brazil where she will help the country prepare for the upcoming World Cup and Olympic Games.

Dunlap, from Bridgewater, Conn., will work as an English teaching assistant at Federal University of Pelotas in Rio Grande do Sul from March through December. She will specifically be teaching college students who are studying English as a second language, all in preparation for the increasing need of English speaking resources as the country prepares to host the 2014 World Cup and 2016 Olympic Games.

In addition to teaching, she plans to learn Portuguese and aid the thriving nation in its economic development. “I hope from this experience to really learn how to bridge cultures,” she says.

A Spanish and anthropology double major with a Latin American & Latino Studies concentration, Dunlap developed a deep interest in the expression of the peoples of South America, and has continued to explore that passion since earning her diploma.

At Holy Cross, Dunlap worked extensively with the nighttime ESL program at Centro las Américas, a community based non-profit Latino organization in Worcester. She began as a tutor during her sophomore year for their biweekly, three-hour classes. By her senior year, she had become the student liaison between Holy Cross and Centro.

As site coordinator, she was responsible for recruiting and placing volunteers, organizing classes, and communication between Holy Cross and Centro. She was also the teacher for the beginner level (sometimes more than 50 students) and later intermediate classes, establishing and monitoring a basic curriculum along with lesson plans for the 16-week courses.

During junior year, she studied abroad at the University of Leon, where she worked with the Spanish Red Cross as a Spanish tutor for primarily Moroccan immigrants.

After graduation, she attended Holy Cross’ two-week Mexico Immersion Program. Shortly after, she started her master’s program with Middlebury College, renowned for its strength in foreign language education, where the core of her studies took place in Madrid until May 2009. While there, she taught business English and TOEFL (Test of English as a Foreign Language) preparation to working professionals including at law firms, a publishing house and an international automotive company, among others. She later moved to Guadalajara, Mexico, to take her final classes before graduating in August 2009 with a degree in Spanish linguistics.

From Mexico, she moved to Southern California and worked for Google for a year, primarily evaluating websites specific to Spain and its users. In 2010, she moved to Panama to do volunteer work as an interpreter for health-aid programs. By October 2010, she returned to Madrid where she has been working as a full-time business and private English teacher.

Following the Fulbright experience, Dunlap says, “I hope to work for the Department of State as a diplomat in missions abroad, but I will always keep my options open to new opportunities that allow me to grow personally and professionally.”

Each year approximately 1,000 college students are awarded grants through the Fulbright Program, the U.S. government’s flagship program in international educational exchange. Fulbright grants are made to U.S. citizens and nationals of other countries for a variety of educational activities, primarily university lecturing, advanced research, graduate study and teaching in elementary and secondary schools. Since the program’s inception in 1946, more than 250,000 participants — chosen for their leadership potential — have had the opportunity to observe each other’s political, economic and cultural institutions.

Read about this year's other Holy Cross Fulbright Grant recipients: Francesca Bruzzese ’11, Jennifer Caffrey '11, Kerry Drury ’11, Herma Gjinko '11, Jamie McCarthy '11, Thomas McGlynn '11, Abigail Chorlton Riskind ’11 and Kathryn Simison '11.