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Students distinguished through study abroad, academics and student life
LINCOLN UNIVERSITY – Lincoln University’s newly-inaugurated 13th President Dr. Robert R. Jennings recognized three study abroad students for their outstanding achievements and contribution to his vision of a global university at its Board of Trustees meeting last Saturday.
The recognition came on the heels of the President’s Inaugural Address earlier that morning in which he spoke of the importance of programs that increased knowledge and understanding of a global world, praised study abroad benefits for the student and humanity and made it a University priority that at least 7 to 10 percent of the student body participated in such programs.
“The benefits a student can expect to gain from joining a study abroad program go far beyond the curriculum material they study,” said Dr. Jennings in that speech. “Oftentimes the classroom teaching style will be different. The lifestyle and social rhythms within the walls of the university or educational center are often different, forcing students to expand their social skills.”
The students recognized included: Grace Chikwem, a senior majoring in English Liberal Arts with a minor in Spanish; Chalwe Diallo, a Chemistry major and member of the Class of 2013; and lastly, Darius Braswell, a sophomore pursuing a degree in Political Science and Philosophy.
“The achievements of these students continue to actualize our mission of being a global university,” Dr. Jennings said. “Each of these students has studied abroad, enhancing the learning experience that they receive from Lincoln University and giving them a more worldly view of being able to operate not only in this country but in others.”
Chikwem is the daughter of John and Susan Chikwem and follows in the footsteps of her brother James, who graduated in the Class of 2006, her sister, Adaeze, who graduated in the Class of 2010, and another brother, Mark, who graduated in the Class of 2011. She was honored in 2010 and 2011 as a Presidential Scholar after maintaining a 4.0 GPA in her freshman and sophomore years. In her junior year, Grace studied abroad in two countries. She spent the fall semester in Scotland, the land of her maternal grandparents, at the University of Stirling, and in the spring semester, she studied in Seville, Spain. After completing her bachelor’s degree at Lincoln, she hopes to complete a Fullbright fellowship before pursuing graduate studies and a career in writing.
Diallo, a United States citizen, is a native of Zambia. She is the fourth of her sisters to attend Lincoln, all of whom are doctors – the same path she plans to pursue. She is a member of the Horace Mann Bond Honors Proggram and she has participated in two study abroad programs. The first in Seville, Spain in the summer of 2011 with The College Consortium for International Studies and the second in Bangkok, Thailand during the spring of 2012 with the Knowledge Exchange Institute. She conducted research at the University of Iowa through the Prostate Cancer Research Summer Training Program during the summers of 2010 and 2012. She is currently working with the Supplemental Instruction Program as a Supplemental Instructor for Organic Chemistry I.
Braswell, a Virginia native, is a Merit Scholar, a member of the Lincoln University Concert Choir, an ROTC Commanding Officer, a United nations Ambassador and a distinguished student writer. Last summer, he studied in Fes, Morocco.
Lincoln University of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, founded in 1854 as the nation’s first historically Black degree-granting institution, combines the elements of a liberal arts and science-based undergraduate curriculum along with select graduate programs to meet the needs of those living in a highly-technological and global society. Today, the University enrolls a diverse student body of approximately 2,000 men and women. Internationally recognized for preparing and producing world class leaders such as Thurgood Marshall, the first African American U.S. Supreme Court Justice, Lillian Fishburne, the first African American woman promoted to Rear Admiral in the U.S. Navy, Langston Hughes, the noted poet, Kwame Nkrumah, the first President of Ghana and Nnamdi Azikiwe, the first President of Nigeria.