Senior Receives Prize for Work During Semester in Washington

WORCESTER, Mass. – Holy Cross senior Justinas Sileikis has been selected by the College’s Center for Interdisciplinary and Special Studies as one of two recipients of the 2006 fall semester’s Washington Semester Away program award. He will present his thesis, “NATO Expansion and American Grand Strategy” on Nov. 6 at 4:15 p.m. in Rehm Library at the College of the Holy Cross.

While in Washington, D.C., Sileikis worked as an intern and acting desk officer on Lithuania and Latvia for the Bureau of Nordic and Baltic Affairs at the U.S. State Department. The Office of Nordic and Baltic Affairs within the Bureau of European Affairs works to implement U.S. foreign policy in the region.

Sileikis’s talk will analyze post-Cold War American foreign policy through a case study of the NATO accession of the three Baltic states (Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania).

Sileikis is a political science major from Jamaica, Queens, N.Y. He works in O’Callahan Science Library and volunteers for “Social Justice 101,” a program through SPUD (Student Programs for Urban Development) designed to educate eighth grade students about social injustices in the world.

The prize is awarded each semester for the best research paper produced in the Washington Semester Away program. Because judges deemed two papers as excellent this semester, two winners were chosen. The recipients of the prize are accorded the opportunity to give a public lecture at the College on their thesis. In addition, the winners receive a bound copy of the theses and are presented the book award during commencement exercises.